Radish Cake (Lo Bak Go)

Last week was the Chinese Spring Lantern Festival or in Indonesia we call it Cap Go Meh (Cap = ten, Go = Five, Meh = nights). This festival celebrates the fifteenth day of the first month in the Chinese calendar. It also marks the end of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations.

In Indonesia, we celebrate this day with family, eating unique dishes called Lontong Cap Go Meh. And since I have wrote the recipe for Lontong Cap Go Meh here, I decided to post another dish that identic with Cap Go Meh: Radish Cake or Lo Bak Go. 

Lo Bak Go is somekind of a fried sliced rice cake, you can find it almost in every Dim Sum place. It is made from Chinese radish. To be honest, Chinese radish and Japanese Daikon look almost exactly the same to me. Could it be the same vegetable tho??

Ingredients: 

600 gr grated Chinese turnip or Daikon radish (I used cheese grater to grate the turnip)

1 cup of water

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp dried shrimp (ebi), washed, soaked, and chopped

5 shiitake mushroom, diced

2 links of sausage, diced

1 scallion, chopped

1 cup of rice flour

1 tbsp cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

white pepper powder

oyster sauce

sriracha

chopped scallion

Cooking steps: 

1. Pour 1 cup of water and the grated turnip into a wok or a large pan and simmer for about 10 minutes. The turnip will sweat out its liquid. Stir occasionally to prevent the turnip turning brown, 
2. Put the everything into a large mixing bowl, set aside to cool, 
3. Meanwhile, sauté dried shrimp, diced mushroom, and diced sausage until the sausage browning. Add the chopped scallion and stir until everything is mixed together. Set aside to cool,
4. Now let's get back to the large mixing bowl with the grated turnip in it, 
5. Add rice flour, cornstarch, salt, sugar, and white pepper to the mixing bowl and mix well until it becomes a wet batter, 
6. Add the cooked shrimp, mushrooms, and sausage into the batter. Mix well. Set aside for 15 minutes,
7. Oil a pyrex pan, bottom and side. Pour the batter and steam over medium-high heat for about 50 minutes, 
8. Once the batter is cooked, set aside to cool,
9. Put the pyrex pan upside down on a cutting board. The batter has become a firm cake at this point and it shall slide out easily, loosen the sides with a spatula if needed, 
10.  Cut the cake in half, length-wise, then slice it into 1/2 inch thick pieces. Dip your knife in water or rub it with oil so the cake doesn't stick to it when you cut it,
11. Pan fry the cake with a bit of oil until each sides golden and the edges become crispy,
12. Place the cake on a serving plate, then sprinkle chopped onion on top. Serve it with sriracha and oyster aside, or pour it on the cake like I did. 

Enjoy!

PS: this cake is better eaten fresh.