Chinese Radish Cake (蘿蔔糕)

Experiment: Chinese Radish Cake

Introduction:

I saw in my friend’s facebook that she made Radish Cake last year. I was sooo tempted to make it last year, but then… since it involves MANY steps, I was quite reluctant to do it. This year, since I have time in my hands, I decided to give it a try. I’ve done my research – I went to MANY recipe websites. But very interestingly, the flour proportion vary from site to site. In the end… I just randomly put the two types of flour together… in the end… It was too sticky. Hmm… I’ll definitely try it again (when I feel like it). But anyways… here’s what I did…

Materials:
1.5 Chinese white radish (about 800g)
2 shallots
2 dried scallopes, pre-soaked in water

5 dried shitake mushroom, pre-soaked in water

2.5 Chinese sausages
2 tbs Chinese dried shrimp, pre-soaked in water
A bunch of green onion, chopped
Sesame
Rice Flour
Corn Starch
Oyster Sauce
Sake
Grounded white pepper
Oil

Procedure:
1) Cut the shallots, dried scallopes, dried shitake mushroom, Chinese sausages, Chinese dried shrimp in tiny pieces.

2) Shred the radish. When you shred the radish, water will come out. Don’t pour out the water, you’ll need it for later.

3) Heat up the frying pan. Put the Chinese sausage in first, the oil from the sausages will come out. Then put in the shallots, dried scallopes, dried shitake mushroom and dried shrimp. Put this mix in a bowl when everything’s cooked.

4) In the same pan, put in the shredded radish. Fry for a while, and then add in 3), oyster sauce, sake and grounded white pepper, and keep stirring. When the radish becomes half cooked, turn off the heat.

5) In a small bowl, mix the rice flour and corn starch with the radish water. If you don’t have enough radish water, then just use water to substitute. I think I used roughly 500g of flour in total.

Ok this is the part where I had problem. I didn’t know what proportion of the rice flour and corn starch I should use… from lots of websites that I’ve read, I know that I should put more rice flour then the corn starch. So I just randomly mix them in. From the result that I got, I think next time I’ll try:

Rice Flour:Corn Starch
3:1

6) ANYWAYS… after you mix the flour with the radish water (mix it well!), pour it in the frying pan and mix it with the radish. Keep stirring. It’ll become thicker and thicker.

7) Brush oil all over the steaming container. Then put the radish mixture into the container. Then steam it for roughly 30-45 minutes.

8) Use a chopstick or skewer to poke into the center. If the radish cake doesn’t stick onto the chopstick/skewer, it means that it’s cooked.

9) While it’s still hot, sprinkle sesame and chopped green onions on top and let it cool.

10) You can either eat it steamed, or cut it into slices, and pan fry it.

Discussion:

1) Hmm… I acutally do like the taste of this radish cake… the bad thing is that it was toooo sticky, which is not good if you wanna pan fry it. I acutally liked to eat this batch steamed.

2) I cheated and used V-Slicer to “shred” the radish. People told me that the radish slices were too thick. I think I really have to SHRED! (Which means it’ll take me MUCH LONGER!)

3) I’ll defintely try to make it again!!!