Luo Buo Gao (Chinese Turnip Cake)

So for Chinese New Year's Eve I invited people over for a dumpling making party. I didn't even realize that making dumplings was a Chinese New Year's tradition, although I had thrown some in the past because I just figured it was an excuse to do something "Chinese" on the holiday. But apparently the shape of the dumplings resembles the gold that they used for money back in the day so it's an auspicious food to eat on New Year's Day.

I also decided to try my hand at making luo buo gao, or Chinese turnip cake. I usually see this at dim sum all fried up and served with soy sauce paste (or is it oyster sauce or hoisin sauce?), but according to the internets it is also something traditional to eat for Chinese New Year.

Luo Buo Gao (Chinese Turnip Cake) (based on this recipe)
makes about 24 slices

2 1/2 to 3 cups daikon, peeled and julienned or shredded (about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs.)
1 Chinese sausage, finely diced
2 cups rice flour (do not use glutinous rice flour)
1 3/4 cups water, divided
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Vegetable oil

Stir fry Chinese sausage in a large frying pan or work for 2 to 3 minutes. Add daikon, 3/4 cups water, salt, and white pepper. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.

Grease a square cake pan or loaf pan and start the steamer.

Mix rice flour with 1 cup water. Add the daikon and sausage mixture and spread into the greased pan. Steam for 50 minutes.

Cool overnight in refrigerator. After cooling, cut the cake into 1/4" slices and pan fry in a liberal amount of oil until both sides are golden brown.

Serve with soy sauce paste (or oyster sauce or hoisin sauce).

You can also add shitake mushrooms and/or small dried shrimp, but I didn't have either and, as Annie said, you can't really go wrong with Chinese sausage.

The hardest part about making this was finding a dish to steam the cake in. Since I was using my stock pot and pasta insert to steam, I needed something that would fit, and none of my square (or even circular) cake pans were small enough. So I improvised with a large serving bowl, and it did the trick.

Another hard part? Reading the recipe correctly. For some reason, I thought it said 1 1/2 to 2 cups instead of lbs. so I only had about half as much daikon as I needed in there. The result was a drier cake than you get in the restaurants, but still edible, although boys will eat anything.... So learn from my mistakes and read the recipe correctly, okay?

Previously:  Scallion Pancakes
Next up: Xiao Long Bao (Steamed Soup Buns)