Chinese New Year was one of my favorite celebrations while growing up. I loved going to each of our relative's household to greet them and wish them Happy New Year (ๆๅนด Bai Lin). Not only did I love receiving red pockets ๐ฐ, we got to eat SO MUCH food. We would be feasting from morning till night for 3 days straight. I also just loved spending quality time with my big family, being reminded of how awesome it was to have a full house like ours!
Fast forward to now, at the age of 29 and no longer living in Hong Kong, my Chinese New Year is a whole lot different. Not only do I no longer receive red pockets (that stopped probably around 18 ๐ญ), I also don't celebrate this holiday much.. I don't have a lot of relatives here in the States, so it's usually pretty quiet and it just makes me homesick. Fortunately, I now have my own family with Wayne! Although it's just the two of us, we try our best to get into the holiday spirit. We are no experts when it comes to Chinese food/cooking, but we try to learn. With that said.. I present you this homemade Turnip Cake recipe!
Haha, are you able to read it? No? Me neither. Well, technically I can read it, but just SUPER slow at it because it's been a long time since I've had to read that many Chinese characters. Believe it or not, I used to be able to read an entire Chinese book in a couple of hours ๐ญ.. (Great, now I'm having identity crisis because I can't read/write/speak Chinese well and my English still sucks lol). Alright, enough of this, let's get to the recipe and discover what turnip cake is!
Turnip Cake (aka Lo Bak Go in Cantonese) is a popular dim sum all year round. But it is especially popular during Chinese New Year, along with Sticky Rice Cake (ๅนด็ณ Lin Go) and Taro Cake (่้ ญ็ณ Wu Tou Go). The most important ingredients in turnip cake are turnip (duh!), corn starch, and rice flour. These three gives it the starchy and gooey texture after steaming. It's your choice to add the other ingredients. In the Chiu household, Chinese sausage and dried shrimps are a must. If there's time, my mom would also add Chinese mushroom to it (but that takes longer cause you'll have to cook the Chinese mushroom ahead of time).
Couple notes on the tools:
- You need to have some sort of steaming cookware. Mine is a simple rack. I use it along with my steam gripper for most dishes (except for this turnip cake actually, the aluminum pans are too weak for the grip so I just grab them with my hands after it cools down a bit).
- You need a good grater or your hand's going to cramp every 5 seconds!! Or enlist a strong man to help you haha
- You need a scale to weigh some of the ingredients.
- Get a few aluminum foil trays. I used both round and rectangular.
Couple notes on the ingredients:
- You have to go to an Asian supermarket for the ingredients, so if you don't have one near you.. ๐
- There are many different types of turnips out there, make sure you get the daikon turnip, they're long, about the size of your forearm.
- You can find the rice flour in the Asian specialty aisle in the Asian supermarket, it should be somewhere near the tapioca flour.
- There are many different types of Chinese sausages out there. You might get overwhelmed (like I did) by all the options. So just to give you an idea, I chose the below brand and the most basic plain pork Chinese sausage. I think the plain pork ones are the most delicious! You can mix and match if you have other ones you like.
- Dried shrimps need to be refrigerated. So you'll need to look for them near the refrigeration/freezer section. I found mine next to the fresh seafood section.
- Regarding the Chinese sausages and dried shrimps, it's really up to you how much you want to put in there. We love to load ours up, goal is to ensure every bite has a bit of Chinese sausages and dried shrimps in it. Below is just my recommended amount, feel free to adjust accordingly.
- This recipe does not include Chinese mushroom. If you want to include, feel free to adjust the Chinese sausage and dried shrimp portion as you see fit.
Alright, enough on the notes, here's the recipe!
Mama Chiu's Homemade Turnip Cake Recipe
Prep Time: ~2 hours
Cook Time: ~1.5 hour
Time: ~3.5 hours
Servings: two batches of 8" round turnip cake or more depending on the depth of your dish
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 - 3 turnips
- 150 g rice flour
- 150 g corn starch
- 8 - 10 Chinese sausages, cut into small pieces
- 1 cup dried shrimps
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon white pepper
- 6 Tablespoon vegetable oil
Instructions:
1. Pan fry Chinese sausages and dried shrimps for about 5 minutes. Chinese sausages are quite fatty so there is no need to oil the pan before frying them. Once done, set them aside.
2. Use the medium or large holes to grate the turnips. Cook the grated turnips in 1 cup of water for 15-20 minutes. It'll soften the turnips and drain out more water. Set the cooked turnip aside and save as much turnip water as possible, this will be used in the next step.
3. Mix corn starch and rice flour with 3 cups of water. First use the turnip water and if there is not enough, use regular water for the remaining.
4. Put the Chinese sausages/dried shrimps mixture, the turnips, the corn starch/rice flour mixture, and all the condiments into a big pot. Cook everything for about 5-8 minutes in medium heat. Stir ensure even distribution and watch out not to burn the bottom.
5. Pour the cooked mixture into the aluminum trays.
6. Steam the cake for 1 1/2 hour.
7. It might not look cooked but turn off the fire and let it cool. It should solidify a bit more.
8. Refrigerate up to 1 week.
How to cook turnip cakes?
Pan fry them! This is our home's personal preference. We like pan fried turnip cakes much more than steamed turnip cakes. I remember my mom always complained restaurants not pan frying them enough to give it a crunchy skin (basically a bit of the burnt you see on my picture above). To pan fry, cut up the turnip cakes into slices or cubes, and fry them for about 4-6 minutes top and bottom. Make sure you use enough oil so they don't stick to the bottom of the pan and break when you try to turn them!
Give this a try guys! But be aware, once you've tasted homemade turnip cakes, you won't want to eat them at dim sum anymore. You'll realize how much they cheap out on all the ingredients! It just feels like eating dough. Haha.
Thank you so much for reading and happy eating! - Mich
