Radish/Turnip Cake

[aznsailorboi]

Hi everyone! been away from this site for a while now, I just didn't realize its been almost 2 years since I last logged in. Hope everyone is doing well, Auntie Dejah, Auntie Teepee, Uncle Ben Hong, Ah Leung, Liuzhou ( they are great pioneers for knowledge, recipes and and everything in between for the China cooking & baking forum * i bow to thee masters* ).

So I moved to a little town called Oxnard in Ventura county, Ca from Chicago....and I'm sad to announce that the asian grocers here have very little selection as far as specific ingredients go, like asian seasonings, herbs, roots, and dried goods, pretty much everything thats of the usual in chinese cooking. L.A. chinatown is only an hour and fifteen away according to the GPS but that lady inside the GPS will also not mention that you will be sitting in traffic for 4 hours one way, so forget that idea lol. The upside though, is they grow almost every concievable fruit and vegetable here, it is also the Strawberry capital of the west coast, apparently I moved into the modern day garden of eden.

Acquiring fresh fruits and veggies are not an issue. Last week at the Farmers Market, i saw these beautiful, fat and solid radishes, and I immediately thought of Radish Cake, pan fried with it's carmelized crispy edges dipped in chili oil and soy sauce. I've tried making them before and got discouraged because it turned into a gooey sticky mess instead of a solid block, i used rice flour like the recipe said, i just dont know what i might be doing wrong. Does anybody have any suggestions or solid recipe for Lo bak go that they would like share?

[Will]

You're using the daikon style radish, right (not western style ones)?

I haven't made it from scratch yet, but I've been planning to use this recipe:

http://rasamalaysia.com/fried-radish-cake-recipe/2/

While it's in the context of making the cake to stir-fry it later, you can easily pan-fry or deep-fry instead. Some people would probably add dried small shrimp (xia mi) or pork as well.

[Fred12fred]

Get the Grace Young cookbook, "The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen".

She has a great recipe in there that works very well.

I think it works better than the recipe that Will linked to above. The main difference looks to be that Grace's recipe calls for cooking the rice flour in with the daikon before steaming. I think that makes a world of difference.

Also, note that it is VERY time consuming. Expect to take 3 hours to get it all done. But, it's well worth it!

[aznsailorboi]

thanks for the help guys, i think i made the first mistake of using glutinous rice flour instead of regular rice flour.

[Dejah]

Hi aznsailorboi,

Welcome back, but I don't think many of us old-timers frequent this forum as much as we used to...

You DO have to use rice flour and NOT glutineous rice flour. That's why you had a sticky "cake". This is the mistake I made when I was making tong yuen one time...used rice flour instead of glutineous rice flour. The balls of dough would not rise and were hard as golf balls instead of soft doughy dumplings.

I use Grace Young's recipe but add a lot more ingredients than most recipes call for. I don't understand what Fred12fred meant in reference to Young's recipe:

" Grace's recipe calls for cooking the rice flour in with the daikon before steaming. I think that makes a world of difference."

That would not work as you wouldn't be able to work in the other ingredients before steaming.

Here is my lobak goh. I have made it often for my Chinese students. I slice it up, fry it up, then we just reheat in the microwave before eating it with hot chili oil.

This is 1.5 times the original recipe. The pan is the one my mother used for so many years.

http://www.hillmanwe...s/lobakgoh.html

[LT Wong]

Hi,

I think I know what Fred12fred means. I use a recipe based on Florence Lin's recipe.

I will fry all the ingredients - lap cheong, dried shrimp, chinese bacon, mushrooms, and separately, the grated daikon during which I add all the other ingredients that have been cooked earlier. I have a slurry of rice flour and water/stock, and then add this into the pot with the grated daikon. You need some muscle to do some cooking/stirring here as this will cook the mixture partially. I then spoon this into greased tins and then steamed. I've been doing this for more than a decade and it has worked for me each time.

[Dejah]

LTWong: I see what that means now. So essentially, it would reduce the steam time.

I have always just followed my mother's recipe and method...

Might have to try this if it would redue the condensation on my picture windows, especially in the winter.

[aznsailorboi]

Thanks for the input everyone! I'm making it this afternoon, i bought some nice fresh daikon from the farmer's market yesterday. i'll post pictures of the finished product later!

[aznsailorboi]

uhmm im having issues attaching the pictures, im gonna try to figure out how to post this thing....its asking me for a URL (no idea ) when i click on the image button, its been so long since i last posted a pic on here that its changed already.

well the results were ok. the goh held its shape, but when i fry the sliced pieces, it falls apart easily, i think im gonna have to make another one today, ill add more rice flour though, ill be back with the results later.

[hongda]

Try clicking more reply options at the bottom right and then "attach file"

[aznsailorboi]

thanks hongda! ok here is the pic after steaming it

and here's after frying

[hzrt8w]

well the results were ok. the goh held its shape, but when i fry the sliced pieces, it falls apart easily, i think im gonna have to make another one today, ill add more rice flour though, ill be back with the results later.

Welcome back from the world to California, aznsailorboi! Glad to see some old handle names.

You experiment and adjust the rice-flour ratio. More rice flour, more hard. Less rice flour, more soft. The rice flour is the "binding agent" to glue all ingredients together. Because it tastes bland, more rice flour also takes away the flavor from the daikon.

Here is a series of pictures where someone made daikon cakes. It's in Chinese but you can get the idea on the process if not the exact recipe.

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/mitong/22955321