Recipe: Taro Root or Turnip Cake
Chinese New Year is coming up, and this year I will be hosting the traditional Reunion Dinner for my closest relatives in the UK. I thought I would road test some healthy, vegetarian–friendly versions of the most important dishes that we will be eating. Hopefully this will be inspiring for other Chinese vegetarians out there!
Turnip cake, or radish cake, AKA lo bak go, is a perennially popular item on the classic dim sum menu. However, it has particular significance around Chinese New Year, since the word for “radish” sounds like “good fortune” — and if there’s one thing you should know about Chinese people and superstition, it’s that we love a good homonym!
Lo bak go is a savoury cake, rather than a dessert. While mostly very healthy and consisting of shredded turnip (also known as white radish or daikon), the classic version involves dried shrimp and Chinese sausage. In my recipe below I’ve swapped this out for shiitake mushrooms, which bring umami and texture to the dish.
If you pay attention to your dim sum menu, you might sometimes find that this dish is made from yam rather than turnip; it’s a case of same same, but different. In truth, I much prefer the denser texture and coconut-y sweetness of yam or taro, so that’s what I cooked with.
Luckily, I live smack bang in the middle of one of the UK’s largest Bangladeshi communities, and my local fruit and veg market never ceases to amaze me with their offering suited for Desi cooking. I was able to hunt out a brown, hairy tuber called arbi or colocasia or taro root, but you can of course use yam or turnip for this recipe.
Let me know if you try this recipe and share your results on Instagram with #CelestialPeach.
Ingredients
500g taro root, scrubbed, peeled and cubed
2 spring onions, finely chopped
4 large shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated and finely chopped
3/4 cup rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch (such as this one from Wing Yip)
1 cup water
2 tbsp light vegetable oil
1 tbsp light soy sauce
3/4 tsp white pepper
1 tsp salt
To garnish: fresh chives, chopped chillies, coriander and fried onions
Instructions
Boil the taro root for 15 minutes, until you can easily poke a fork into the flesh.
Blend the taro root using a food processor, or mash into a paste by hand.
Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan or wok, and stir fry the spring onions until fragrant and translucent. Add in the shiitake mushrooms and stir fry over medium heat for a further five minutes.
Lower the heat and mix in the mashed taro root and remaining seasoning.
Slowly add in the rice flour and tapioca starch, then add in the water and and stir everything until a thick cake batter is formed.
Grease a large, flat–bottomed vessel such as a cake tin or shallow bowl and fill with the cake batter, levelling out the top.
Now you need to find a way to steam the cake. I have a rice cooker with an in–built steamer basket, but you may need to rig a contraption using an upturned bowl in a large stockpot with a lid that entirely covers the cake. Do not allow the water to touch the cake.
Steam the cake for 30 minutes.
To serve, cut into 1cm thick slices and either eat it freshly steamed, or pan fried in a little oil.
