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Hi.

I'm Alicia, a cat-loving, crazy-cooking girl from Brussels, Belgium. I hope you enjoy my blog! If you have any questions, do contact me!
I also love tea so don't hesitate to check out my tea tales ;)

Daikon cake dim sum

Daikon cake dim sum

My favourite food? I will reply "Dim Sum" every time. I love it so much my boyfriend has been forced to eat a large quantity of Dim Sum in too short a time and now needs a break of about 5 years before being able to handle more Dim Sum. I, on the other hand, will eat it whenever I can.

Last week I made a special and here rather unknown type of Dim Sum. It is called lo bak go and it is essentially a steamed white radish (also know as Daikon) cake. I first ate this in a Chinese restaurant in Antwerp and I was super excited to find the recipe which seemed not too complicated on a french blog: la Cocinera Loca. Trying this out for the first time, I pretty much followed la Cocinera's recipe but I upped the quantities especially when it comes to lap chong, Chinese sausage... I always up the quantity when it comes to lap chong. It really is that good.

I also followed la Cocinera's way of serving the lo bak go with broccoli, a vegetable I absolutely love simply boiled in salted water.

But as for the Daikon cake:

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

  • 1 daikon or white radish (same thing) of about 750g
  • 150g of rice flour
  • 300ml of water
  • 4 or 5 chinese sausages (lap chong)
  • 4 or 5 black dried mushrooms
  • 3 or 4 spring onions
  • 2 tbsp of dried shrimp
  • 1 tbsp of sugar
  • salt

 

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO?

  • Allow your dried shrimp and mushrooms to rehydrate a couple of hours beforehand in separate bowls.
  • Peel the radish and grate it entirely. Then, leave the grated radish in a sieve over a bowl and allow it to leak for about 30 minutes. The water released can be used later instead of the water mentioned in the ingredient list. Obviously, my radish did not release 300ml so I completed the amount of juice I had with water.
  • Then, start cutting the sausage into pieces. Make sure these aren't too large but they don't have to be tiny either ;) Do the same with the mushrooms and finely chop the green onion.
  • I prepare everything in separate bowls so I can easily add it all into the mixture later on.
  • The next obvious step is to mix the flour with the water, make sure there are no lumps left in this mixture!
  • Cook the sausages in a wok or deep pan. No need to add any oil as this is like cooking bacon; it releases its grease and cooks the sausages. No need to throw it away afterwards because this contains a whole heap of flavour! Once this stage is reached add the shrimp, keep stirring for about 2 minutes and then add the mushrooms and onions. Again, keep stirring everything together for a couple more minutes and then for the main ingredient: the Daikon. Add the grated Daikon and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, still stirring.
  • Add the sugar, some salt and the rice flour mixture. Don't forget to stir because the mixture should not stick to the bottom of the pan! The entire mixture is ready when it has thickened. Add the mixture to a greased mold, but make sure the mold fits into your steaming basket! I used one of those traditional Dim Sum baskets, placed it over a large casserole filled with boiling water and placed the mold filled with the mixture inside. So basically you're steaming the mixture and this should be done for about 40 minutes. Almost done!
  • After steaming, the mixture should have become more solid. Allow to cool before removing your cake from the mold and cut it into rectangles. Fry these rectangles in a pan with a tiny bit of oil (I used peanut oil) until browned and serve immediately.

Very Very Yum!

Make sure you make enough of these heavenly Daikon cakes, they will be gone in no time!

*Thank you to La Cocinera Loca. You can find more delicious recipes by her

here

.

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