Turnip Cake Recipe – Luo Bo Gao
Just in time for Chinese New Years, I’ve taken what I know of how to make a Lo Bak Go and tried it! Please note, I like my lo bak go with lots more filling than “go”, so feel free to reduce the amounts of any particular ingredient.
1 large dried scallop (or 2 little ones)
1/2 cup dried shiitake mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped dried shrimp
2 Chinese Sausages (lap cheong)
1 cup of Rice Flour
1 cup of water
1 cup grated lo bak (daikon)
Seasoning (adjust to what you think tastes good)
salt, white pepper, soy sauce
First things first, you have to rehydrate all the dehydrate ingredients, and I like to do soak my shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp and dried scallop the evening before hand in a bowl with some water.
When I’m ready to start making my lo bak go, I start by grating the lo bak and I place it into a pot of boiling water with some sugar and salt for a few minutes until tender.
While the lo bak is bubbling away, I start by chopping up the Chinese sausage, Shiitake mushrooms and shrimp into little pieces, and shredding the scallop. I heat up a wok and put all the ingredients together to stir fry them until cooked. I also do the seasoning with some white pepper, soy sauce and salt until it’s more flavourful than usual – since the rice flour mixture would add no flavour, it works best this way.
When everything is good and ready, I prepare the rice flour mixture by first starting with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of rice flour. I mix it until it’s dissolved and pour it into the combination of lo bak and all other goodies. I mix thoroughly and judge by the texture how I would like it. If you like your lo bak go firmer, put more rice flour in so that it’s more paste like consistency. The more you mix, the tougher it gets as well. I like my lo bak go soft, so I do minimal mixing. When you figured out how you like it, pour it into a pie pan or something like it and prepare it for steaming.
I steamed my lo bak go for about 45 minutes and I put a toothpick in to check that nothing was sticking to the toothpick. When it was ready, I turned off the heat and put some green onions (scallions) on top for decoration and put the lid on it for about 5 minutes before I took it out and let it cook on a cooling rack. Be careful, the pan and the lo bak go is extremely hot at this point.
Now that it’s cooled down a bit and had some time to set, cut it up and enjoy! I always like to sprinkle extra white pepper, or sweet soy sauce, or even some hot sauce on top of my slices of lo bak go. Sometimes, I do all 3! Now, pick up your chopsticks and enjoy!
