Hey everyone welcome to Pai's Kitchen so
today I am sharing with you my
mother-in-law's famous turnip cake
recipe which is also known as "Lo Bak Go" in
Cantonese now my mother-in-law is so
well known for this dish she makes an
awesome version of it and we all in the
family look forward to it every Chinese
New Year so this year I thought I have
to get this on camera so this recipe
will never get lost because it's too
good so I went over to her house watched
her make it cuz of course she doesn't
have anything written down and I filmed
her make it so that I could now make it
and share it with you yay long live the
Lo Bak Go recipe! And it's a bit of prep
work but it's actually really easy and
it's so so so delicious and also for
next week
I'm going to share with you how Thai
people eat these turnip cakes so we have
our own little thing that we do with the
turnip cake as well so if you love
turnip cake, stay tuned for next week
alright let's get started.
So even though this recipe is commonly
translated in
English as turnip cake you don't
actually use a turnip you use a daikon
radish which I have here peeled and
shredded into strings so what I use is
one of these Thai julienne peeler which
makes it really fast really convenient
but you don't have to use it you can
grate it with a grater but I prefer this
because it gives a bigger strings and
you get more of a texture in the daikon
cake at the end or you can also just
hand chop it so I've got some that I
hand slice over here and then you just
get a little juliennes and you can make
it a little bit bigger if you like
things a little chunkier my
mother-in-law she makes a huge batch like
she'll make three times this amount, so what she'll use is a food processor with
the grater attachment and she just runs
the daikon through that we're gonna set
aside let's talk about the things we put
in the Lo Bak Go, these wonderful dried
products over here dried shrimp is
pretty classic you probably want to have
that I've got some dried shitake
mushrooms
some Chinese sausage and some dried
scallops so the dry scallops is
expensive so I'm making a bit of a
luxury Lo Bak Go here because my
mother-in-law always does it, if you
don't have it, can't find it do not worry
about it if you just have three you'll
be totally fine and what you want to do
is you want to soak these three dry
products in some hot water until they're
completely hydrated give them at least a
few hours the scallops will take a
longer time and then what you do with
the dried shrimp is you just roughly
chop them with the mushrooms you just
finely dice them with the Chinese
sausage which you do not have to soak do
not soak your Chinese sauces just finely
dice them like this and with the
scallops I just want to show you because
a lot of people don't work with dry
scallops very much, this is actually the
first time I've worked with dried
scallops, so once the scallops are
completely hydrated so you see how much
bigger they get
They'll shred really easily into
strings okay and that's what
you do, you just shred them into little
fibers just like that
and the dried scallops give such a lovely seafood
umami flavor I can't describe it like
these things smell so good like dry
squid type smell if you've ever had
dried grilled squid before so good okay
so there's my scallop and also I should
note that the water that you use to soak
these things you want to keep because
that is flavorful water that
will add into the cake itself adding
extra flavor and that's pretty much all
the prep there really isn't that much
let's get cooking so the first thing I'm
gonna do is render out the fat from my
Laap Cheung or my Chinese sausage at this
point keep your heat quite low because
these sausages are quite sweet if the
heats too high it'll burn quickly and it
won't have a chance to render out the
fat so you see how much pork fat has
come out yes that is exactly what we
want now what I want to do is saute all
my other seafood ingredients my scallops
go in
and my dried shrimp and mushrooms which
I guess is not a seafood but you know
what I mean
and we're saute these until they start
to toast and become really really
aromatic if you hear the word turnip
cake and you've never had it before you
might think as I honestly thought that
sounds terrible like a turnip cake the
two words that you don't expect to be
next to each other, right? but when you
have it it's like oh man, like, that is so
good! And this is the reason why it
doesn't just tastes like you're eating a
turnip when they start to pop that's how
you know they're starting to get to
where you want it to be whoo all right
I'm gonna turn this off now and get it
out of the pan so in the same pan I'm
gonna turn the heat back on I'm gonna
add the daikon now and now I'm just
gonna toss this around until it's wilted
slightly so you can imagine when my
mother-in-law makes this she makes three
times the amount of what I have now so
whenever she makes it it's like a big
production so I took her recipe and
scaled it down so that it's a little
more manageable okay so it's wilted a
little, I'm gonna now add all that
soaking water that we save so the water
from the mushrooms, the scallops, the dried
shrimp at all that and just watch the
bottom sometimes there's a little bit of
grit and dirt that comes out of those
dry products so I
never pour all the way to the bottom
because I don't want the little pieces
of grits and now I'm gonna let the
daikon cook until it's completely done
basically until it's nice and soft takes
about seven minutes maybe ten if your
pieces are a little bigger I'm gonna cover
it with a lid that's barely big enough
and keep the heat on low and I'm gonna
come in and stir it every once in a while just
to get it redistributed with all the
juices we'll be right back
Okay, whoo!
like daikon noodles! I'm gonna drain the
daikon in my sieve here and the key and
this is why this recipe tastes so good
is we are gonna save all of that cooking
liquid because that has all the flavor
from all the things that we soaked and
the flavor of the daikon as well, you see
some recipes where they cook the daikon
and throw away the cooking water you're
not gonna get as good of a flavor that
way get this in and I want to press
everything out because I want to measure
how much liquid I have at the end of the
day so you want to definitely press out
as much water as you can but I mean it
doesn't have to be completely dry but
you want to get it to a point where you
know you lift it and there is no water
just pouring out anymore I'm still
getting some drips so I want to press
that out okay the daikon goes back into
the wok and now with this liquid I want
to measure out one cup of water and you
should have just about a cup if you use
one cup of water to soak your mushrooms, your scallops and your dried shrimp
you go through this whole process and
you're gonna end up around one cup if
you don't have enough add just a little
more water if you have too much just
pour out that extra a little bit you
shouldn't have a ton of extra and my
gosh it's like I planned for it I have
exactly one cup of liquid I'm gonna let
this cool just a little bit just until
it's warm meanwhile I am back in the wok
I'm gonna throw in the seafood... I keep
wanting to call it the seafood mix but
it's not just seafood there's pork and
mushrooms in there and I'm going to use
this time to get everything tossed
together evenly distributed
and my heat is off at this point I'm
just mixing
so my daikon juice, which sounds delicious,
has cooled down a bit and you just need
it to be not hot so if it's still warm
that's okay okay let's talk the cake
part so the flour that we need is going
to be rice flour comes in a red bag like
this any Asian grocery store should have
it and also I'm going to add a
little bit of tapioca starch and that's
gonna give the texture a little bit more
of a bounce rice flour alone is totally
fine if you don't have this you can do
all rice flour but it will be softer
shall we say...which you might prefer
so try it out if you don't have this and
so I'm just gonna mix this into my
daikon juice here and we mix the flour
into the water just so it then
distributes more easily once we mix it
with the daikon and with a mini whisk
we're gonna give this a stir until there
are no more lumps and this is why you
didn't want the liquid hot because in
your flour would cook in that liquid if
it was piping hot okay so now that goes
into the daikon my heat by the way is
still off so I can take my time doing
this if I keep my heat on right now
it'll start to congeal and then I have
to rush but now I'm just taking my time
okay let's do seasoning before I forget
I'm gonna do just a little bit of salt
some sugar, white pepper and I'm doing
quite a bit of white pepper because I
like that flavor, and just a little bit
of vegetable oil I'm using avocado oil
actually for some extra lubrication when
I give this a quick mix and I can turn
the heat back on now actually so I'm
just gonna do a medium heat and I'm just
gonna mix this until this becomes a
thick paste now even though we're still
going to cook.. we're gonna steam the
daikon cake I keep calling it daikon
cake we're to steam the turnip cake but
right now as you can see the liquid and
the daikon are not together it's pooling
away from it and so if we steam it right
now you won't get an even texture so you
want to cook it just enough so that the
flour is no longer running away from the
daikon which is a similar technique that
I used in my garlic chive dumplings
recipe and if you haven't seen that you
gotta check it out I'll link it right
here it's so delicious yeah as you can
see it doesn't take very long at all so
you want to be scraping the bottom
and that is it I'm gonna turn the heat
off now so now that we've got it nice
and thick I need to put it in a pan so
we can steam it so you can steam this in
whatever container you like okay it can
be lots of little ones one big one a
loaf pan I'm using a seven inch round
cake pan which fits this nicely you can
do it in like an aluminum foil container
as well now you want to smooth this out
make sure there aren't any gaps on the
side and that's it now we've got to get
the steamer set up so I've got a new
steamer set up here you normally see me
use my big steamer just wanted to show
you another thing you can do is just put
a bamboo steamer on top of a pot that
sort of the same diameter or you can
also use one of these thingies and just
put it inside a big pot it's just with
this it's a little harder to get out
because you're gonna I gotta like dig
your hand in through the pot but
whatever works for you
so now this goes on top I cover it one
hour that's it and then it's done so
it's been an hour
just want to show you
what  that looks like
so to tell whether or not this is done I mean like
I've never steamed this for an hour and
it not be done so if you're making this
size you can be sure my mother-in-law
makes three at a time so she steams it
for an hour and a half cuz there's just
more stuff in there but a lot of people
what they do is they just use a
toothpick they stick it in the middle
they pull it out and you'll get some
creamy wet stuff on it but it should
look translucent so as you can see
before it went in it was white but now
it's sort of clear ish so that's what
you're going for you're not looking for
the toothpick to be dry because when
it's really hot it's not gonna come out
super dry. Sure-fire way though, my
favorite way of doing it is I use a
thermometer I stick a thermometer in and
if
that gets to 200F and above you are done
and that's it now we can't do anything
with it until it's cool so I'm gonna go
relax for a second
So my Lo Bak Go has had
some time to cool you want it to be
completely room temp it just makes it so
much easier to cut if it's still warm
it's just a little jiggly okay so I'm
gonna run a flat something or other
along the sides
so what I'm showing you
now is how to eat this thing
dim sum style now let's hope it all
comes out.
Ta da! See? that's why you put
parchment paper on the back and now I'm
gonna have to slice this into really
whatever shape you want so what am I
gonna do here
let's do inch thick slices
so you can eat this however you want but
I'll give you a suggestion for nice
plating should you want to impress
somebody so I just find that shingling
them make them look a little bit better
than just sticking them straight on a
plate and then if you want a little
greenery is always nice you know random
green onions always saves the day I
usually eat this with some soy sauce and
also some hot sauce like a sriracha or
something so let's see
I just do a quick dip here shake off
and then a dip here
if you're eating communally you may want
to just like use a spoon rather than dip
but hey it's just me here
Perfect.  Just perfect.
and because I know I'm gonna eat
this with soy sauce I made the seasoning
of the...I shouldn't say I my
mother-in-law because this is her recipe
like word-for-word I didn't change
anything she makes it so that on its own
it's a little mild but with a light dip
in the soy sauce you don't want to
overdo it it just it just reaches
perfection a little tartness and
spiciness from the hot sauce the texture
of this is perfect it's creamy but with
that little bit of tapioca starch it it
has a little bit of a bounce to it not
too much but it's not mushy and you can
you know there's a lot of stuff going on
because we put like the Laap Cheong and
the dried shrimp and the mushroom so
that gives it a lot of texture as well I
mean when I to be really really honest
when I first came across this dish and
it was like turnip cake
daikon cake that does not sound good at
all but when I tried it and I was like
oh my god like this stuff is good and
it's hard to stop a lot of times they'll
have this with eggs for breakfast as
well so I hope you give this a
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for your next delicious adventure
 
