Turnip cake (蘿蔔糕)

Ingredients

For 7 inch round pan, about 3 inches deep (it ended up being a little too much)

• 1 large Chinese Turnip (or Daikon radish), about 2.5 lb or 1.2kg
• 600ml water
• 200g rice flour (粘米粉)  [note: the cake ended up being a little to dense, so next time I will probably reduce a little bit of flour, or add a little bit more water]
• 100g water chestnut flour (馬蹄粉) [note: if not available, you can try replacing this with other non-glutinous starch, like wheat starch (澄麵) or corn starch (粟粉)]
• 2 Chinese sausages (臘腸)
• 70-80g dried shrimp (蝦米)
• 3 large shiitake mushrooms (冬菇) [note: skip this if you want the turnip cake to have a longer shelf life]
• 2 tsp salt
• a pinch of white pepper

Steps

1. Soak the dried shrimps and mushrooms in water for at least 3 hours, or until softened
2. Peel the turnip 2-3 times over, to remove the skin as well as the outermost layer which is bitter
3. Shred half the turnip, and cut the remaining into batonnet (1cm wide sticks)
4. Put the cut turnip in a pot, with the batonnets at the bottom and the shreds at the top, and boil for 20 minutes. Any water coming out from the turnip during cutting, shredding, or boiling can be retained.
5. While the turnip is cooking, cut the mushrooms, dried shrimp, and Chinese sausages into a dice. Retain the water used to soak the mushrooms and dried shrimp for later.
6. Stir fry the diced sausages over a non-stick pan, no need to add extra oil. Once oil starts to ooze out from the sausages, add the dried shrimps and shiitake mushrooms and stir fry them together.
7. Once the ingredients are done frying (~5 minutes), measure the water that was used to soak the mushrooms and dried shrimps. Add additional water to make up 600ml.
8. Mix the rice flour and water chestnut flour with the water.
9. Once the turnips are done, add salt and white pepper to season, and add the stir fried ingredients into the turnips in the pot.
10. Optionally, you can also save 1/4 of the stir fried ingredients to add on top right before steaming. This doesn't affect the taste but makes the cake look more appealing. If you do this, make sure you lightly press the ingredients added on top into the batter, so they don't fall off too easily.
11. Add 1/3 of the flour water mix into the pot, and keep stirring in low heat until combined
12. Add another 1/3 of the flour water mix and stir until combined. As the flour cooks, it should become a thick and viscous batter.
13. Turn off the heat, and mix the batter into the remaining flour water. This ensures the batter is not too thick and can fill the container without trapping air bubbles.
14. Find a steamable container (e.g. tin foil tray, cake tin, or heat-proof glass bowl), grease the bottom and the sides, and transfer the batter into it.
15. Optionally, wrap the top of the container with a tin foil, and poke holes on top. This is not strictly necessary, but will prevent condensed water from dripping into the cake during steaming.
16. Put a steaming rack inside a large pot or a wok with lid, add water to just below the steaming rack and boil.
17. Once the water boils, put in the container with the batter and steam for 40-50 minutes. When the cake is done, you can test with a chopstick or toothpick. The cake is cooked if the toothpick comes out clean or with only small transparent lumps.
18. The turnip cake is cooked and ready. If you are bringing this to a party or as a gift, this is the form you want to bring it in. This cake can be refrigerated for 2-3 days. If you want a turnip cake that can last for longer, skip the shiitake mushrooms or replace it with dried scallops.
19. When you are ready to eat, take the cake out of the refrigerator and slice it into thin slices (roughly 1cm thick).
20. Add a little bit of oil to a skillet and pan-fry it to give it the crispy edges on the outside.