Luobo

[kitwilliams]

I got the following message from a friend. Can anyone help out here with a recipe for luobo?

"hey there........could you do me a favor? when you are on egullet, could you possibly ask for a recipe for Luobo......it is a chinese daikon pastry........they serve it in dum sum restaurants.........my friend was in chegdu and had it......she sent me a picture and it looks very interesting."

Any information/recipes greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

[alanamoana]

if you could get the picture from your friend, we might have a better idea. also, this might be more suitable to the savory cooking forum as even though it is called a "pastry" it more than likely isn't sweet.

the standard is luobo gao, which i don't think is what your friend is referring to. that is shredded daikon mixed with diced lapchong, dried shrimp, dried mushrooms and a rice flour slurry and steamed. then sliced and fried. usually served at dimsum.

then there's the less common luobo-shi-bing, which is shredded daikon, usually cooked with some kind of ham and enclosed in a very flaky pastry and then pan fried until golden. this is likely what your friend was talking about.

i'm sure there are other variations depending upon where in china your friend had it. it mentions cheng-du, so i'd have to ask my mom what is popular in that area. you can get little luobo-shi-bing on the street in shanghai, too.

[chefpeon]

Expanding on the valuable info that alanamoana gave you, I found a link to the first recipe

she referred to, the Luobo gao.

Also found that the word Luobo, translated, simply refers to the chinese word for the daikon radish.

Luobo, in and of itself, is not a pastry.

[kitwilliams]

Thanks for your helpful insight, alamoana and chefpeon. Will pass it along and see if I can get hold of the picture to post.

I think this is a photo:

Edited August 2, 2006 by kitwilliams (log)

[chefpeon]

Wow.....not as I imagined it!

Too bad we can't see one cut open!

It's probably the Luobo shi-bing, like alamoana said.....but I'll be darned if I can find a recipe (in English) on the internet.......!

[alanamoana]

ooohhh those are beautiful, aren't they? i think they are a version of the shredded daikon cake i mentioned above. the pastry looks a lot like italian "sfogliatelle" or lobster tails. of course, if you ask my mom, she'd say the chinese came up with it first and marco polo brought it back to italy!

i think it is a version of chinese "puff pastry" where they use two different kinds of dough...one made with water and then rolled up with a dough made up of only flour and fat (usually lard). the fat dough rolled into a ball, the water dough wrapped around the ball of fat dough, then it is rolled flat, rolled up into a sausage, sliced and then rolled into a pancake (flat and round). the filling is then put inside and wrapped up...the whole thing baked.

i'll check my dim sum cookbook and check it out.

[kitwilliams]

Yes, aren't they gorgeous? I look forward to hearing if you find anything in your book, alanamoana. Thanks.