Sprouting Daikon Seeds

Japanese daikon seeds have a special spicy taste that dresses up salads and pizzas in a way similar to and yet different from rocket salad. You can't really buy them so to eat them, one has to grow them.

Daikon sprouts ready to harvest. I'll use them as a pizza topping over parma ham and mozzarella.

A roll of cotton wool and sets of drip trays.

Line the top tray with cotton wool.

Fill the bottom tray with some water... enough to soak the cotton wool thoroughly.

Place the top tray on the bottom tray. The cotton wool gets soaked with some water to spare.

Scatter seeds on the cotton wool. Soak these for a day.

After the first day of soaking, empty the bottom tray of water. The cotton wool needs to be damp thenceforth. Every morning, I will fill the bottom tray with a little water and rinse the cotton wool gently by immersing the top tray into the water inside the bottom tray below. Next, I drain away all the water and leave the cotton wool to drip into the bottom tray. The bottom tray stays empty of water for the rest of the day. It is there to catch the drip from the morning cotton rinse.

Soaking peas on Day 1. 

These will grow into what people call "dou miow" in the wet market.

Soaking sunflower seeds on Day 1. These sprout into veggies that taste like sunflower seeds.

There is another easier way to sprout seeds. A company called Easigarden HERE, sells water kits. Sprouts don't need nutrients so all you have to do is fill their trays with water and scatter the seeds on top. With these kits, you can skip the cotton wool because they are constructed to keep the seeds inside the top tray without cotton. One only needs to change the water every morning.

I think I'll get me a few of their kits because after a few days the cotton starts to smell a little, especially if one grows beans (red beans... green beans etc...) Doing away with cotton is more hygienic I think.

Daikon sprouts instead of rocket salad on pizza. Yum!!