Skip to main content

Steamed Turnip Cake (Lo Bak Go)

 


I read a lovely article about Chinese festival cuisine. People buy flour in North China to make dumpling wrappers, glutinous rice in East China to make rice cakes, and radishes in South China to steam turnip cakes. However, turnip cake can be found as a breakfast at hawker stalls or as a snack at numerous dim sum restaurants in Malaysia. In Penang, Malaysia, there is a famous food truck known for its turnip cake. Many locals are waiting in line to buy breakfast there. Turnip cake that has been steam-cooked can be eaten while it is still hot or deep-fried till golden brown on both sides and served with chili sauce.

One of the traditional Cantonese delicacies for the New Year is turnip cake, which has its origins in Guangzhou, China. Turnip cake is now a snack at restaurants all over the world and does not need to be made for Chinese New Year.



Although traditional turnip cakes vary slightly from place to region, radish and rice flour are the two essential components. When making turnip cake in the old days, folks would typically grind rice pulp in a stone mill. But now is very convenient to use store-bought rice flour to prepare it.  It is frequently steamed along with Chinese sausages (Lap Cheong), dried shrimp, mushrooms, scallops, and other ingredients.

However, some people consider that turnip cake cannot be considered exquisite because the ingredients are quite ordinary. Even though the technique is uncomplicated. Making a delicious carrot cake, meanwhile, is not always simple if you do not grasp it properly. It will either be too soft or too hard or perhaps sticky to eat.  Delicious turnip cake has a tender consistency and a powerful radishes aroma. It is sweet from the radish, umami-flavored from the dried shrimp and Chinese sausage, and glutinous from the sticky rice flour. It tastes good whether it is fried or steamed.

IS TURNIP CAKE MADE OF TURNIP?

Let us talk about the turnip. Daikon, a species of winter radish used in Asian cooking, is used to make turnip cake rather than turnips. It also goes by the name of white radish. Daikon radish thus serves as the major component of the turnip cake. 

HOW TO LINE A BAKING PAN WITH ALUMINUM FOIL?

One of the finest ways to make sure food will come out of a pan, particularly when the food has sticky edges.

1. Tear a large enough piece of aluminium foil so that it will go up the sides and leave a sizable overhang that is large enough to grab. To remove the food from the pan, use the overhang as a handle.

2. Turn the baking pan upside-down on the counter. Press the foil over the outside of the pan with the shiny side facing up, gently smoothing, and folding it to fit the pan's corners and edges.

3. Lift the foil off the pan and flip it over. While taking special care to maintain the shape of the foil, carefully press the foil into the pan's interior, smoothing it into the corners and folds where batter might flow and get snagged.

Let us get all the ingredients to hand and the detailed instruction to make a delicious turnip cake.


INGREDIENTS

200g                     rice flour

200g                     corn starch 

1200g                   white radish

1000ml                 water

50g                        dried shrimp, soaked until soft, minced

50g                        ready diced salted radish (optional)

3 pcs                      dried shiitake mushrooms

1 pair                     Chinese sausage

1 tbsp                     salt

1 tbsp                     sugar

some                      cooking oil

 

 


METHODS

1. Rinse and soak dried shrimp and shitake mushrooms in adequate water, then squeeze dry and minced.

2. Rinse and soak the diced salted radish in enough water to dilute the saltiness for two to three minutes.

3. Diced the Chinese sausages.

4. Grated the radish, squeeze out excess water from grating the radish.

5. Combined all the flour and the water and stir the mixture well until smooth.

6. In a clean deep round-bottom cooking pot, cook the Chinese sausages until the fat renders, reserving some for later use as a topping. Dried shrimp, salted radish, and shitake mushrooms should all be sautéed together until fragrant with the addition of 1 tablespoon of oil to the pot. The grated radish will be cooked until soft after being added to the seasoning.  

7. Add the flour mixture to step (6) and whisk constantly while cooking it at medium-low heat until it thickens. The steaming process can be completed more quickly by thickening the radish batter.


8. To make the radish cake easier to remove, line the 10" x 10" square baking pan with aluminium foil. You may use a round cake pan, which you will need to coat with oil first. The radish batter should be poured into the baking pan, and the top should be leveled with a spatula or the back of a spoon. 30–40 minutes of high heat steam. The cake looks more transparent and has a little damp surface after steaming. It will soon get dry. Leave it in the baking pan to cool naturally.


9. After the cake has cooled completely, slice it into a rectangle and top it with the diced Chinese sausage which is set aside in step (6), diced chili, and chopped spring onion or colander leaves. If you prefer your radish cake to taste spicy, serve it with sambal (shrimp chilili paste) or any hot sauce. ENJOY!!

 

Hope you find this guide useful and enjoy these steamed turnip cakes to the fullest!!

 

 

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crispy Fried Noodles Meatballs With Sweet Chili Sauce

I don’t want to blow my own horn, but I’m determined to do everything I can to make you want to try these meatballs. These meatballs are coated with SWEET CHILLI LIME SAUCE. The sweet chili paste is the major component of making the sauce. Apart from using this paste to make the sauce for the meatballs. You can also use it for other dishes like stir-fries with French beans, spread over cucumber or bread, or sometimes use it to pair with fried noodles. The paste itself is sweet with some spiciness. I am using two types of dried chilies to make the paste, one type is mild, and the type is extremely hot dried chilies. Bear in mind that the smaller they are, the hotter they are. My meatballs contain glass noodles inside and outside of them. If you're not familiar with the idea of adding noodles to meatballs, let me convince you as to why it's a great idea. The noodles get crispy outside after frying.   So, you don’t need to mess up with panko or any other breading. Glass nood...

Nyonya Sticky Rice Dumplings

This is my version of Nyonya Zongzi. The taste is very different from salty meat Zongzi. When the first time I taste it, it is incredibly tasty, it’s slightly spicy but not too sweet. It has a strong spice flavor due to the fact that of using whole coriander and white peppercorns which were toasted and grinded into powder form. The biggest difference between the regular Zongzi and Nyonya Zongzi is in the filling -- one’s savory while the other's sweet. The regular salty Zongzi normally includes pork belly in a big piece, mushrooms, dried shrimp, chestnuts and salted duck eggs. And include a lit bit of five spice powder for some fragrance. The Nyonya Zongzi includes braised minced pork, dried shrimps, candied winter melon, and the strong spice from the whole grinded coriander seeds and white peppercorns is the key to the greatest flavor. And it comes with a blend of sweet and savory, with aromatic spice notes and a hint of sweetness. The blue and off-white appearance with a ...

Salted Egg Yolks Fried Wings

  There are some leftover salted egg yolks after the Dragon Boat Festival. Salted egg yolk fried wings straight pop into my mind. Egg yolk chicken wings are really flavoring explosions, highly praised for its unique flavor, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and tempting with their salty and fragrant taste. Other than the flavor that driving everyone’s insane. The key to this dish is to double fry the chicken wings until they are golden and crispy before coating them with a rich sauce of salted egg yolk and season them to make every bite full of rich taste and irresistible flavor. Since the fried chicken is mixed with salted egg yolks and melted butter, I must admit that this is a really greasy dish.   Eat this sparingly, then. I cut and divide my wings into mid wings and drummets. And I am going to give a shallow cut on them for better penetration during the marinating. Just oyster sauce, soy sauce and white pepper make up the basic marinade for the chicke...