Chinese radish cake/Loh Bak Gou 蘿蔔糕

I have always wanted to attempt making this savory radish cake but never come round to it. It's commonly found in Hong Kong dim sum restaurant. Reason is I'm not sure of the success rate and also it requires quite a lot of effort I would have thought. And I have no excuses not to make it to consume during Chinese New Year. But I had researched online for quite a number of recipes and decided to stick to this one and change some ingredients as I can't find them in my local supermarket and make do with what I have in my pantry. It's not that tedious as I would have thought and the end result is yummy-licious delights. For those would like to follow the step, you can follow this video (it's in Cantonese though)

Loh Bak Gou 蘿蔔糕
Ingredients:

• 200g smoked bacon - finely chopped (you can use Chinese lap yuk and Chinese sausages)
  
• 2 tbsp dried shrimps-soaked and finely chopped-I omitted this
  
• 3-5 large dried shitake mushroom - soaked, removed stem and finely chopped-keep the soaking water
• 4 dried scallops- soaked for 1 hour and shredded-keep the soaking water
• 3 shallots-finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic-finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp salt or to taste

• 750 - 800g shredded radish-drained any excess water
  
• 250-300 ml water (from the water used to soak scallops and mushroom)
• 220g rice flour
• 30g wheat starch/corn starch/tapioca starch
• 1/2 tbsp chicken powder
• 4 tbsp cooking oil
  

1. Mix rice flour, starch and water together.
   
2. Heat up a non stick wok with 2 tbsp oil and fry shallot and garlic till fragant. Then add smoked bacon , dried shrimps, mushroom and scallop. Fry till fragrant. Add in white pepper and salt to taste. Remove to one side. Check if the wok has any brown sticky bits, if yes wash before proceeding to next step. Browning bits can make the cake looks greyish or brownish.
   
3. Next heat the wok with 2 tbsp of oil. Once hot, add in the radish and stir fry for around 6 minutes. You'll notice that the radish will excrete it's own juice during cooking process.
   
4. Stir in flour mixture, taste to check if more seasoning is needed and cook at low heat stirring all the time for till the mixture started to thicken like gooey congee . Turn off heat.
   
5. Grease a retangular cake tin or aluminium foil container. Scoop the mixture into the container. Prepare the steamer. Place the cake into steamer and steam for about 1 hour 20minutes. Once cooked, it is a bit soft at the moment, don't worry, the cooling process overnight will cause it to set. Remove from steamer and cover the top with aluminium foil and let it to cool overnight.
   
6. Once it's set, you can easily removed from the container and you can slice the cake. You can dust it with just a little corn starch/potato starch. You can also omit the corn starch and fry on it's own.
   
7. Prepare a non stick pan, heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil. Once hot, put in the cake and let it shallow fry till a golden brown surface is achieved on both side. Served hot with sprinkling of spring onion and XO sauce/sambal sauce/or thick dark soya sauce.
   

Enjoy.....

Shredded radish

Steamed and cooled radish cake-ready for slicing

I gave some loh bak gou to my guinea pig friend to try my first attempt and it's thumbs up :-)

Just to let you all know I was given a new kitchen gadget by a friend...... A soy milk making machine. It's a brand made in China (Joyoung) and gosh I'm impressed.....only at a press of a button, and 20minutes later you'll have the freshest hot soy milk. I highly recommend this machine for those who like fresh soy milk. I've been milking it every morning for breakfast :-)