Name: Radish Fans or Flowers (涼拌紅蘿蔔)
Yield: Serves 3 to 4 as a single appetizer, but best served with an accompaniment of cold meats.
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons light soy sauce; 1 tablespoon sesame oil; 1 tablespoon sugar; 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar; 1 pound large red radishes; ½ teaspoon salt

Preparation info

Serves
3 to 4
as a single appetizer .

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Key to Chinese Cooking

By Irene Kuo

Published 1977

About

Radishes don’t absorb flavors unless they are crushed or sliced. Here, cut thin two-thirds of the way through, they are either flattened into fan shapes or pulled into spreading petals as symbolic flowers.

Ingredients

1 pound large red radishes
½ teaspoon salt

Method

Wash the radishes and trim off the two ends. Place a radish on its side between the square ends of a pair of chopsticks. Anchor the chopsticks with one hand while you slice very thin with a sharp knife down through the radish as far as the anchoring chopsticks permit. You will find that tilting the radish forward for the initial slicings will prevent the knife from cutting it all the way throug