Chinese Turnip Cakes

Photo: Jenny Richards

Ingredients

1 bag rice flour

1 1/2 cups water

3 – 4 cloves of garlic, smashed

1/2 cup peanut oil

1 large daikon radish, peeled and sliced or chopped (your choice, depends on the preferred texture)

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

1 bunch green onion, sliced

1 pound Chinese BBQ pork, chopped

10 inches – 12 Chinese black mushrooms (dried shiitake), rehydrated hot 4 pieces Chinese sausage, steamed and chopped to the same size as the BBQ pork

3 pie pans

1 large steamer

Preparation

In a large bowl, combine the rice flour with the water and stir until the water has been incorporated completely. Use your hands to feel for lumpy pieces and break them up. The texture will be smooth and fine, thick like pancake batter. It is better to err on the drier side, as other ingredients will add moisture to the mix. Set aside.

In a skillet, make garlic oil. Do this by heating peanut oil and then adding the garlic to the oil. Cook the garlic until browned, and then remove the garlic to prevent it from burning.

Quickly stir fry half of the daikon in the peanut oil and remove before it gets over cooked. Set aside.

In the same pan, with the same oil, cook the white part of the green onions with the BBQ pork, black mushrooms, and Chinese sausage. You’ll want to cook this until all of the ingredients have a similar texture and color, at least 5 – 7 minutes. Remove the mixture from the pan and reserve.

In the large bowl with the rice flour batter, add the cooked and remaining raw daikon along with about 1/4 of the meat mixture. Use your hands to combine thoroughly.

Fill the three pie pans with the batter and top with the remaining meat mixture divided evenly. Toss the remaining green onions and cilantro onto the very-full pie pan.

Steam for 40 minutes. If you can place more than one pie pan in the steamer, they will cook in the same amount of time. Make sure the center of the pie pan is solid before you remove it from the steamer.

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About

I’ve always referred to these as turnip cakes, and that’s what you’ll see them as on dim sum menus. It was only in the process of learning how to do these that I realized they’re not turnips. They’re radishes, actually. Well, daikon anyway.

These will keep in the freezer if tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and then bagged in freezer bags. Keep them from getting freezer-burned!