Turnip Cake

FEBRUARY 9, 2021
[ SKIP TO RECIPE ]
Lunar New Year is THE holiday to celebrate in many Asian cultures.

Food is the main act and the common element that brings everyone together. In a pandemic setting, of course, we will need to adjust and adapt our ways of celebrating. The coming 2 weeks, I’ll be sharing a few wheat-free recipes of food (not usually wheat-free) that I grew up eating especially during this festive holiday. First up, it is the one and only dish that my family makes every year – Turnip Cake.

Chinese turnip is the same as daikon (Japanese name.) It is a very common ingredients in Chinese cooking. The turnip cake widely eaten all over China, and it is a very popular and accessible dim sum dish in Hong Kong. There are generally 2 traditional forms of the turnip cake. One is a soft version, almost goopy, meant to be eaten fresh out of the steamer with a bit of sweet soy sauce. The other version, which is my favourite, is not as soft but only just firm enough for cutting into slices when chilled and holds up its shape when pan-fried. You can usually find both version in Hong Kong easily. The steamed version is not as common in Toronto.

There’s another version that has become a popular item at many Cantonese-style restaurant: the stir-fried Turnip Cake. It is large cubes of the turnip cake pan fried on all side, then stir fried in flavourful sauces. There’s a Singaporean-inspired version with scrambled eggs, garlic, green onions, pickled radish, diced chicken and shrimps in a chilli sauce. There’s also one with XO sauce.

My family is not the type that makes Chinese food from scratch often (never did we ever make dumplings together, the classic stereotypical tradition in many Chinese families.) However, the turnip cake is THE dish that is made every new year. I’ve assisted my elders before with peeling and shredding a tub of the daikon while sitting on the floor covered in newspaper, but that was about it. Now I regret that I never paid attention to learn how to make them properly from my elders. This year, I’ve decided make my own, and also create my own version since everyone has their own preference when it comes to the texture and taste.

Personally, I prefer pan-fried turnip cakes that are firm enough that hold their shape and can be picked up with chopsticks  without falling apart. It should however be soft enough that it doesn’t not feel rubbery. I like the taste to be equally salty and sweet. This recipe I developed is based on my mom’s very minimal recipe (as you can see the written out on a piece of paper), or I should say a section of the recipe, with no instructions. I relied on memory in terms of the procedure and a refresher from Papa Fung’s Kitchen, a brilliant vlog by my friend’s family.

Turnip Cake

Yield: 1 x 5″x8″ cake, about 2-3 servings

You can make a pescatarian version by simply replacing the sausages with dried shrimps (requires rehydration), or a vegetarian version by using only dried shiitake mushroom or even pickled radish!

 
INGREDIENTS

Add-in Ingredients:

    • 20g (about 2 large pieces) of dried Chinese shiitake mushrooms
    • 14g  (about 2-3 medium pieces) of dried scallops
    • 2 links (about 80g) of gluten-free cured Chinese sausages (I use Sakura Farm’s brand from Vancouver, Canada)
    • Pinch of white pepper
    • pinch of sugar
    • cooking oil, if needed

Daikon Preparation

    • 1 lb of daikon, peeled
    • 100g of the reserved soaking water
    • 5g of rock sugar
    • 1 tsp of fine sea salt
    • Pinch of white pepper

Flour Slurry

    • 64g of rice flour
    • 14g of tapioca starch
    • 4g of cornstarch
    • 110g of the reserved soaking water

Garnish

    • Green onions, green part only, sliced
    • White sesame seeds
 
INSTRUCTIONS

Add-in Ingredients Preparation

  1. Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms and dried scallops in about 3 cups of water overnight. Reserve the soaking water for later use. This will enhance the flavour and make the turnip cake taste more rich.
  2. Finely dice the shiitake mushrooms and Chinese sausages, about 5mm pieces. Set aside.
  3. Pull apart the rehydrated scallops into thin threads. Discard the side muscles (the tough part that it’s hard to pull into threads). Set aside.
  4. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, pan fry the Chinese sausages for about 1 minutes or until fragrant. Add the mushroom and scallop, stir fry until the mushroom and scallops are golden, about 4-5 minutes. Add a little bit of cooking if the Chinese sausages are not very oily.
  5. Season with a pinch of sugar and and pinch of white pepper. Remove from saucepan from heat.

Turnip Preparation

  1. Divid the daikon into 2 equal portions.
  2. Cut the first portion of the daikon into thick logs, about 1-cm in width and the length of the daikon’s radius.
  3. Shredded the second port on the daikon. You can also cut them by hand if you do not have a shredding tool.
  4. In a large wok or saucepan, pour in the 100g of reserved soaking water. Add all the daikon into the wok/saucepan.
  5. With the lid on, bring it to a boil. Then, turn down the heat to medium and let it simmer until all the daikon pieces are soften. It will take about 15 minutes. You can tell they are ready when the centre of the daikon is translucent and you can cut into pieces easily with a silicone spatula.
  6. Meanwhile the daikon is cooking, in a medium bowl, mixed together all the Flour Slurry ingredients to create a slurry. Set aside.
  7. When the daikon is cooked, with the heat still on, add in the rock sugar. Cover and lid the sugar melt.
  8. Once the sugar is all melted, season it with salt and a pinch of white pepper. Turn off the heat.

Assemble the Cake Batter

  1. Mix in all the cooked shiitake mushroom, scallops and Chinese sausages.
  2. Stir the flour slurry, and pour about 1/3 cup of the mixture into the daikon mixture in the wok/saucepan and mix until the all the slurry is absorbed into the daikon.
  3. Repeat until all the flour slurry is incorporated. The batter should gradually become thicker and eventually turn into a very wet dough like paste.
  4. Remove the wok/saucepan on the stove.

Steaming the Turnip Cake

  1. Prepare your steamer.
  2. While the bringing the water in the steamer is coming to a boil, lightly grease a 5”x8” pan. This will allow the cooked turnip cake to turn out of the pan easier.
  3. Transfer the turnip batter into the prepared pan, using a spatula and pack it down to fill in all the air pockets and corners of the pan. Even out the top of the batter.
  4. When the steamer is ready, place the pan into steamer and let it steam for 45minutes. Check occasionally to make sure there’s enough water in the pot to create steam.

You can serve immediately, or for a more common way of eating it:
Let it cool completely and refrigerate overnight. Cut the turnip cake into 0.75” thick slices, and panfry over medium heat in a bit of oil until golden of both sides. Serve with or without hot sauce.