Daikon Radish Pasta With Corn and Tomatoes in Creamy Coconut Sauce

Paloma and I made it back home after our nearly two month stay Russia. We spent some quality time with family and friends in my home town, where Paloma took a few classes and got a chance to polish up her swimming, gymnastics and piano skills. The teaching style in Russia is quite different than back home – a lot is asked from the children, and the teachers are quite serious. Paloma didn’t seem to mind and actually had a few important breakthroughs. After all that hard work we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Sochi, swimming in the beautiful waters of the Black Sea (more on Sochi in the next post), hiking in the Caucasus Mountains and wandering around the Moscow center.
Back home in Florida, we still have a bit of time before school begins, to look at the hundreds of pictures we took and share the adventures with our friends over here. I keep a little dish of multicolored glass, polished by the sea, speckled pebbles and shells close by on the counter, to keep reminding myself of the most magical moments of this summer.
Below are a few favorite photos from our travels, starting with the said pebbles.

Caucasus Mountains in the summer.

One of the dozens of the ornate subway stations in Moscow.

Perlov Tea House, a beautiful tea shop and a historic building in Moscow.

One of Stalin’s high rises captured from the Moscow River.

It always takes me some time to adjust to the food here when coming back from the other side of the Atlantic. After eating all the juicy berries, wild mushrooms and my mother’s delicious Russian cooking, it’s hard to find things to be flavorful here, at least for the first couple of weeks. I do crave lots of vegetables and big salads.

This simple daikon pasta was the first dish I cooked back home, satisfying my veggie cravings. In two months without many eastern flavors, I forgot how delicious ginger and coconut milk are. The corn is also sweeter here in my opinion. This was my first attempt at cooking vegetable noodles like pasta – boiled in a pot of salted water – a method I’ve been curious about for a while. I loved the resulting neutral flavor and the noodle texture did resemble very delicate angel hair.

Daikon Radish Pasta with Corn and Tomatoes in Creamy Coconut Sauce

1 medium to large daikon radish
2 ears of corn
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced ginger
2 teaspoons sriracha
1 tablespoon lime juice
sea salt
1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
2 tablespoons tamari
1 tablespoon smooth almond butter
1-2 handfulls heirloom cherry tomatoes – quartered
handful of basil leaves – torn
microgreens to garnish – optional

1. Cut kernels off the corn ears and set aside.
1. Set a medium pot with salted water over high heat. Peel and cut daikon into noodles, using a juliene peeler, veggie peeler or mandoline. When the water begins to boil, add daikon noodles and cook for 3 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. Warm coconut and sesame oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add ginger, sriracha, lime juice, pinch of salt and corn, saute for 3-5 minutes.
3. Add coconut milk, tamari and almond butter, stirring to incorporate until creamy and hot. Add daikon pasta, cook for another 3 minutes, letting all the flavors combine.
4. Turn the heat off, add tomatoes and basil. Serve immediately.