Radish Cake (萝卜糕)

Pan-fried radish cake (aka turnip cake / diakon cake) is my all time favourite snack. Pan-fried radish cake is a common breakfast or snack in both Singapore and Malaysia. It is also a popular dish in dim sum restaurants. I always had a piece of pan-fried radish cake and a cup of coffee for breakfast when working at NTU years ago. Now, I usually have it for afternoon tea when going to afternoon wet market.

I like it pan-fried but T likes the stir-fried version, with dried radish, egg and bean sprouts. Original recipe is available in Chinese and I have translated it to English. I prefer radish cake without Chinese sausage and shiitake mushroom (Malaysian style), so simply omitted them. You may also add in other ingredients like dried scallop and finely chopped dried radish.

Ingredients (9"):
1800 g shredded radish
5 pcs dried shiitake mushroom, soaked and diced
5 tbsp dried shrimp, rinsed and soaked
3 Chinese sausage, diced
½ cup cooking oil
600 g rice flour
3 cup water (750 ml)
2 tsp salt
2 tsp ajinomoto (optional )
2 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp fried shallots

Methods:

1. Heat oil in wok, stir-fry dried shrimp, shiitake mushroom and Chinese sausage until fragrant. Add in seasonings and fried shallot, mix well.
2. Add in shredded radish, together with the liquid from the radish.Cook until radish is soften and let it simmer for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix rice flour with water then stir the batter into cooked radish, mix well.
4. Transfer mixture into greased pan, flatten the surface with spatula. Steam in preheated steamer or wok on high heat for 10 minutes, then medium heat for 2 hours.
5. Cool to room temperature in pan.
6. Slice and pan-fry before serving.

Notes:

1. The cake will be cooked after 30 minutes steaming, but it will have better texture if steamed longer.
2. The pan must be greased, otherwise it will be some difficulties to turn the cake out later.
3. I find the taste of radish is quite strong with this recipe, will reduce the amount of radish next time.

Updated 3 Dec 2013 I read articles/recipes about "turnip cake" online, and it is actually referred to radish cake. Which name is correct? Well, very obvious is not it? This cake called for radish (白萝卜) NOT turnip (芜菁), and in Japanese it is called daikon mochi.