Lo Bak Go

So I made Lo Bak Go with the left over daikon radish from making kimchi. Lo Bak Go for those of you who don't know is sort of savory turnip cake. It often has dried seafood and bits of Chinese sausage mixed in with shredded turnip. It's very popular dish for Dim Sum. It is often sliced into 3" x 2" rectangles, pan fried and served with hoisin sauce and sometimes sambal. I followed my recipe very closely to this. The lady that demonstrates the cooking is a very serious looking Taiwanese woman. She really reminds me of one of my mother's friends. I think she would beat me if she found out that mine didn't set properly. Anyways, wikipedia might help you more with understanding what Lo Bak Go is. 

So, these are some of the main ingredients you need for Lo Bak Go. Daikon radish, and rice flour are the backbone of Lo Bak Go and a necessity; everything else is basically a filling. Most of the time Lo Bak Go filling consists of Chinese sausage, dried shrimp, dried scallops, Chinese mushrooms and green onions. I used Chinese sausage (which is a really fatty dry sausage. It has a slightly sweet and salty taste.), dried shrimp, shiitake mushrooms and green onions.

For this recipe I used:
1 daikon radish. It was probably around 5lbs
4 Chinese sausage links, diced
4 stalks of green onion, white and green bits
8 shiitake mushrooms
200 grams of rice flour
50 grams of corn starch
250 ml of warm water
2 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar
1 cube of chicken bouillon
1/2 pepper

You should soak the dried shrimp at least an hour before use so that it can soften up. You should also rehydrate the mushrooms if you use them dry. I minced them up into small bits and also shredded the daikon. I also like some big chunks of daikon too so I saved 1/5 of the daikon in rough match sticks.

Next, I stir fried all the minced ingredients. Usually you start with the meat and then add the veg. After about 3-4 minutes when things start to get a caramelized I add in the daikon. It maybe more beneficial to do the daikon separately and then add the filling back in. I don't know.

Next, I mixed the rice flour, corn starch and water together. Then I added it to the filling. It ended up looking like papier-mâché.

After it was all mixed I poured it into a cake mold and steamed it for about 2 hours. You're meant to steam it until you can poke it with a toothpick or a skew and it comes out clean. That however didn't happen for me...I think I had my mixture a bit off. I always fail with rice flour.

So after it steams, you're meant to cool it down until it becomes firm. You then cut it into 3" x 2" rectangles and then pan fry the pieces. Serve with hoisin sauce and sambal and you have Chinese turnip cakes.

-Next time I think I'll just leave it for my mom to make. It tasted really nice, but a bit too gooey. Anyways, cheers guys. You successfully coerced me into writing a second post.