Turnip Cake

Ever think about tea time or coffee break that you can have something other than cookies, muffins, scones, sandwiches, or coffee cake?  Not that they're not yummy but what if you want something not so indulged with sugar...here's something savory and it's just right for me & I hope you'll like it - Turnip Cake!  Made with lots of turnip, some starch, tiny bit of pork, tiny bit of shrimp, & some Shitake mushroom. After it's been steamed and cooled, you can leave it in the frig for about a week and reheat it in a pan and dip it with a bit of soy or hot sauce (Sriracha if you like), it's super satisfying and yummy!

 ready to eat turnip cake with 2 different sauces: hoisin sauce & hot sauce

 major ingredient: fresh turnip (some call it daikon), best to get in an Asian market because of the high turnover, you can tell by the firmness and the minimal air roots coming out of the turnip, be sure to pick a heavy one which signifies good moisture content.

 after you peeled the turnips, discard the top greens, julienne them for later use, other ingredients are sausage, mushroom, rice flour, & scallion.

 the dried Shitake mushroom usually comes in package like this, you can get it in Asian market which i think it's much better than those in a regular grocery store's Asian aisle.

 take few out, rinse them well, then use room temperature water to reconstitute them so it'll be soft, discard the stub, squeeze out excess liquid, then mince them to tiny pieces, save the soaking water for later.

  the Chinese pork sausage comes in vacuumed packaging like these

 take them out and steam them for 7 minutes, then mince as the same size as the mushroom, which is about 3mm cube and set aside.

about a small handful of dried shrimp, similar to the mushroom, reconstitute with water, then chopped and set aside.

chopped scallion, about 3 strands or 3 tablespoon chopped

last ingredient we need is the rice flour to bind them together, about 1 cup, use the soaking liquid of the mushroom and shrimp, add water if it's too thick. 

 

 add all the ingredients together, two teaspoons of salt, one teaspoon of white pepper, mix to a consistency like what's shown in the picture. 

transfer to a baking pan and steam for an hour or until the mixture is cooked through, you can test by inserting a toothpick to the center and if it comes out clean then it's ready.

done steaming, let it cool, then flip the turnip cake out of the baking pan.

slice into 1.5cm thickness 

 

or use a heart shape cookie cutter if you like, then pan sear it until golden brown on both sides, about 3 minutes each side.

if you go to dim sum by any chance, you could get Turnip cake in two different cooking methods. Here's the steamed one with soy sauce & sesame oil.

the other version you can always get from is this pan fried version, a little bit of the crunchy crust outside but nice & soft inside.

many like to add an egg or two when they seared the Turnip cake, especially for breakfast.
for those of you like spicy food, don't forget hot sauce to go with this, a well balanced flavor and texture. Try it and see for yourself.

Thanks for reading!