Turnip cake is one of my favorite dim sum dish. Even though it might seem a little challenging, if you follow my step, I promise it won’t be any harder than making fried rice! I highly recommend you to buy a weight scale. You are going to need it for this recipe and many other recipes to come.
Even though you can easily buy store-made turnip cake in a Chinese supermarket. They usually contain very little meat or filling in there. However, homemade turnip cake can have anything you want in the cake. Let’s try out this super awesome dim sum dish!
Turnip cake Ingredients:
- 1 pound of turnip
- 10.5 oz of white rice flour (not glutinous or sweet rice!)
- 2 oz of Chinese sausage
- 2 oz of Chinese style bacon
- 1 cup of water for rice flour mix
- 2.5 cup of water for cooking turnip
- 1 oz of soaked dried shrimp
- 1.4 oz of soaked dried shiitake mushrooms
Seasoning:
- 1.5 to 2 tbsp of sesame oil
- 0.5 tsp of white pepper
- 1 tbsp of chicken bouillon powder
- 1 tsp of salt
- 1.5 tbsp of sugar
Also, I have to mention, please make sure you don’t get glutinous rice flour (or sweet rice flour)! That is sticky and it will turn into turnip goo instead of turnip cake! Personally I recommend this brand of rice flour. You can try to find it in Ranch 99!
Reminder:
- Prepare a container for turnip cake
- Prepare a pot that is big enough to fit the container
- Prepare another big enough pot for mixing
First, soak the dried shrimps and dried shiitake in cold water. My mom will soak for the first few min until it softens a little. That first soak will not lose too much flavor and can have all the sands washed off. After the first soak, discard the water and then rinse thoroughly to remove all dirt. Soak in cold water again until they are softened. The pro tip here is that you can preserve the soaking water to replace water for rice flour mix to add more flavor to it.
Dice all ingredients. cut the turnip into rectangular cubes shown in the picture, it’s really up to you. Some people prefer shredded and some prefer cubed. Shredded turnip will have stronger turnip flavor in cake but you lose the texture, and cubed will have less flavor in the entire cake but you can really taste the turnip.
Stir fry Chinese sausage and Chinese bacon at medium heat WITHOUT oil. Stir fry until oil comes out (about 3 min). Add diced pre-soaked dried shrimp and shiitake and continue to stir fry for another few min. Here are some alternative if you cannot find those ingredients. You can use regular bacon for Chinese style bacon, you can even use ground pork for Chinese sausage. You can use bacon only or sausage only. The principle here is to use any meat as long as it add up to be the right amount.
Mix all dry ingredients in a BIG pot. You are going to mix everything in here!
Take water for rice flour mix (remember you can use the soaked shrimp/shiitake water) and slowly add to all the dry ingredients. I suggest to add some water, mix evenly and then add more instead of adding all the water at once.
Add stir fried ingredients to rice flour batter. Friendly reminder: please use a much bigger pot since we are going to pour the cooked turnip to this mix!
After you cube the turnip, put 2.5 cup of water to a pot and bring it to boil. Put turnip in to cook for 10 min.
The trick here is water and turnip is interchangeable. You can have less of turnip if you replace some with water. However, since we are cooking for family and friends. We usually use as much of turnip as possible when it comes to homemade turnip cake. That explain why the turnip is filled all the way to the top.
This next step requires you to be fast. CAREFULLY pour the boiling turnip with water into the rice flour batter. Quickly mix this turnip cake mix. The heat will thicken the rice flour and therefore you want to mix it well before it loses temperature.
Spray your container with some oil and load it with turnip cake mix, I use bread loaf pan here!
Steam it for 75 min. The way I do it is to take a big pot that can fit and then add enough water to the pot. Put the tray in. After you bring the water to boil, bring it down to simmering. Close the lid and it will steam perfectly!
Take it out and let it cool to room temperature. Tap on the tray to release the cake. Look how beautiful it is!
cut it to the size you like. Personally I like it thicker!
Fry it on a non-stick pan with oil on medium heat. Wait until one side is crispy and then flip to another side.
Serve it! I personally like to eat with soy sauce paste.
- 1 pound of turnip
- 10.5 oz of rice flour
- 2 oz of Chinese sausage
- 2 oz of Chinese style bacon
- 1 cup of water for rice flour mix
- 2.5 cup of water for cooking turnip
- 1 oz of soaked dried shrimp
- 1.4 oz of soaked dried shiitake mushrooms
- 1.5 to 2 tbsp of sesame oil
- 0.5 tsp of white pepper
- 1 tbsp of chicken bouillon powder
- 1 tsp of salt
- 1.5 tbsp of sugar
- Soak shiitake mushrooms and dried shrimps for 5 to 10 min
- Discard the first soak and rinse thoroughly
- Soak shiitake mushrooms and dried shrimps for another 30 min or until soften
- Dice all ingredients
- Stir fry Chinese sausage and Chinese bacon at medium heat for 3 to 5 min until oil comes out
- Add in pre-soaked shrimps and shiitake mushroom to continue stir frying for 5 to 10 min until cooked
- Mix all dry ingredients
- Add 1 cup of water to dry ingredients to make rice flour batter
- Add all stir fried ingredients to rice flour batter
- Cook 1 pound of diced turnip with 2.5 cup of water for 10 min
- Pour boiling cooked turnip and water into rice flour batter, mix quickly
- Continue to mix while the heat thickens up the batter into dough-like
- Fill the container with Turnip cake dough
- Steam for 75 min
- Let cool and cut into slides
- Pan fry both sides
- Serve