Cantonese Style Turnip Cake

I had some problem with the blog site yesterday, so this post is one day late, or two.

This was made on Mother's Day, for Mum.

The tradition of making mum mother's day breakfast?  Mum's a simple person.  She likes simple items, and most of the items from Yum Cha menu.  The simple and tasty Cantonese turnip cake has always been one of her favourites.

There's no specific quantiy for making this cake although this has been in last year's Masterchef, and celebrity Chef Christine Mansfield made a celebrity version of this peasant yumcha dish, which eliminated one of the hot favourites at the time, Spice-Roasted Squab with Turnip Cake and Star Anise Broth.

However, mum never watched Masterchef, she's quite happy with my simple peasant style turnip cake.

It starts with a Chinese raddish - daikon cooked in clear broth with simple flavouring, just a bit of salt, I had some gravy beef so this time, it's cooked in beef broth.

The preferred method was thredded daikon, however since beef took a long time, I cooked the daikon in chunks and mashed them roughly, so there are still chunks of daikons in the cake for texture, and with broth just enough to cover it.

Next was to slice 3 lapchong (Chinese Sausages) and heat oil in wok, fry lapchong till fragrant together with dry shrimps (pre-soaked in water to make them tender).

Once cooked, put daikon in pot with the lapchong and shrimps, mix well and then mix in rice flour.  I normally use the normal rice flour, not the glutenous one for this cake.  It's hard to measure the flour amount as it all depends on how big is the daikon, how long it has been cooking and how juicy it is, a bit less or a bit more will change the flour quantity.   So I'd say mix in enough flour so it will form a soft dough, not dry and still sticky, and the batter shouldn't be runny.

Press them into greased moulds (bowls or ceremic oven dishes or anything really that can survive the steamer), steam for 10-15 in high heat.

Slice and take out of mould.  It can be eaten just steamed.

But it's best served slightly pan fried with a little bit of oil to brown sides.