Month: February 2015

How to make chinese radish cake or turnip cake (lor bak gou)

I don’t know if I’m getting older or what, but am a lot more interested in making traditional chinese dishes nowadays. I hope Liam will grow up knowing and liking food from my part of his heritage.

I love radish cakes or turnip cakes or lor bak gou , especially the fried ones. I always order the dish whenever I eat at dimsum restaurants.

However, I’ve never made one, I don’t really know why. Maybe cause it’s easy to buy them?

Till I found this recipe from Mummy Tong, a Dayrean I follow. After reading her post, I was determined to make it.

I took some liberties with the amount of salt and also omitted one ingredient as I couldn’t find it. Also, this recipe is enough for TWO 8″ x 8″ tins. That’s too much for two people but it didn’t occur to me till much later lol.

Ingredients

(A)

  • 2 pieces or 100 gms Lap yok or Chinese bacon of long chinese waxed sausages (lapcheong), soaked in hot water and diced

  • 100 gm of lapyok or Chinese bacon (I didn’t use this as I couldn’t find it), diced

  • 30 gm of dried prawns, washed and drained

  • 5 small onions, diced

  • A handful of spring onions, chopped

  • About 1 kilo of radish, peeled and grated

    • (B)

  • 400 gm or rice flour

  • 2 tbsp of cornstarch

  • 600 ml of water

    • (C)

  • 2 tsp of salt (original recipe only called for 1 tsp)

  • 1/2 tsp of white pepper powder

  • 1 tsp of white fine sugar

  • 1 tbsp of sesame oil

  • 700 ml of water

    • (D) For garnish

  • Chopped spring onions

  • Fried shallots

    • #1 – Prepare ingredients (A).

    #2 – Still preparing ingredients (A), this is the grated radish.

    #3 – Prepare ingredients (B).

    #4 – Prepare ingredients (C).

    #5 – Fry the onions, dried prawns and chinese sausages in a dash of oil till fragrant.

    #6 – Add the grated radish and cook it down for a couple of minutes.

    #7 – Now add (C) to the mixture and stir.

    #8 – Followed by (B). Stir well.

    #9 – On low heat, keep on stirring till the mixture become sticky and lumpy. This process is quite fast.

    #10 – Now add the chopped spring onions and mix in.

    #11 – Scoop mixture into an oiled tin and cover with aluminium foil. Steam on medium heat for 45 minutes.

    #12 – Chinese radish cakes, DONE! Sprinkle with (D).

    #13 – Nice eaten steamed (dang good with a dollop of sriracha) but you can cut them out into cubes and fry them up with some chinese salted vegetable (choi bou) and bean sprouts too, which is what I am going to do for lunch today :D

    By the way, buy this radish…not the tiny red ones ya. Grate till you die hah!

    Thank you Mummy Tong for such a delicious recipe!

    Quick and delicious recipe for baba ganoush

    How funny is the name baba ganoush? It cracks me up just saying it. Baba ganoush. Doesn’t it give you the giggles?

    Baba ganoush.

    Apparently it means “pampered daddy” or something like that. Despite its rather comical/badass name, it’s a very delicious dip made with brinjals or aubergines or eggplants, depending where and how you learnt your English.

    Ingredients

  • 2 large eggplants
  • 130g tahini (sesame paste)
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
  • 3 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
  • 1/8 teaspoon chilli powder
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • a half bunch of flat-leaf parsley or cilantro leaves

    • #1 – First, prick each eggplant a few times.

    #2 – Place the eggplants on a baking sheet and roast in the oven at 190C for 20 to 30 minutes, until they’re completely soft. They should look like this. Remove from oven and let cool.

    #3 – Split the eggplant and scrape out the pulp with a spoon.

    #4 – You will be left with the skin like this. Can throw these away.

    #5 – Throw the scraped pulp in a blender or a food processor.

    #6 – Add tahini. I got my tahini from a grocer, you can try at any expat friendly supermarket.

    #7 – Followed by lemon juice. Yes, yes, I use lemon juice from a bottle! Of course, juice from a fresh lemon is way better :)

    #8 – Don’t forget the garlic cloves.

    #9 – Chilli powder for some kick.

    #10 – And cilantro leaves. I guess you could omit this if you can’t stand parsley/cilantro. That said, maybe you should just omit making baba ganoush altogether? LOL

    #11 – Taste and season with salt and lemon juice, if necessary.

    #12 – Baba ganoush, DONE!

    Serve it drizzled with olive oil. It’s wonderful with crackers, melba toasts, toasted pita chips or even toasted sliced bread. Very flavoursome and quite healthy. In my case I made it to eat with kebab wraps. Delicious!

    # – Lovely in wraps too.

    If you want to make kebabs, I have a recipe here. Happy cooking!