MUZIChinese Matrix
Dim Sum · FFET10267
White radish and rice batter steamed into a cake, then sliced and pan-fried; a Cantonese teahouse dish and a New Year food.
A round white porcelain plate holds slices of white radish cake with golden pan-fried faces, dotted with dried shrimp, dried shiitake mushrooms, Chinese sausage and scallion, with wooden chopsticks resting beside the plate.
The small dishes served with tea in a tea house.
Luobo gao is a savory cake of grated white radish and rice flour batter, steamed, cooled, sliced and pan-fried until crisp outside; common additions include dried shrimp, dried shiitake and Chinese sausage. It is a Cantonese teahouse dim sum item and a New Year food in Guangdong and Hong Kong, with local versions in southern Fujian, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, where names include caitou guo and luobo ban. The place and date of origin are not established, and no dated text was found for this entry.
Luobo gao is a savory cake made by grating white radish, mixing it with rice flour batter and steaming it; once cool it is sliced and pan-fried until crisp outside. Dried shrimp, dried shiitake and Chinese sausage are common additions. English often calls it turnip cake, a mistranslation: the vegetable is radish.1,2,3,4
No date of origin was found. It is a common Cantonese teahouse dim sum item and a Lunar New Year food in Guangdong and Hong Kong; it was also served at the Lunar New Year in one recipe author's childhood home. The dates associated with Singapore concern the stir-fried version alone, not this steamed cake.1,2,3,4
Luobo gao is common in the Cantonese teahouses of Guangdong and Hong Kong, is also found in Chaoshan, and is common in southern Fujian, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. A place of origin is not established.1,2
The grated radish is simmered for about 10 minutes, then mixed with rice flour batter and sauteed dried shrimp, shiitake and sausage, and steamed in a pan for about 40 to 50 minutes. The cake is cooled (30 minutes in one method, chilled overnight in the other), sliced and pan-fried for 1 to 2 minutes on each side.3,4
It is eaten at the New Year because gao, cake, sounds like gao, high, a wish for rising fortune.1,2,3,4
It is a teahouse dim sum item and a New Year food, and in Singapore and Malaysia the same cake is also stir-fried.1,2
The story goes that farmers in Taiwan who had received the farmland of the Ming loyalist Zhu Shugui secretly honored him with radish cakes on his death anniversary, his birthday and the Lunar New Year, after the Qing replaced the Ming.
Told in: Told in Taiwan, found in the English Wikipedia entry on turnip cake, which draws on a Taiwanese magazine and presents it as one account, not a conclusion.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is my home version of radish cake, with just dried shrimp, shiitake and sausage, leaving out the dried scallops and cured meat of the latter recipe. The amounts of radish and rice flour and the steaming time follow the former recipe, by a named author of a family cooking blog; cooling before slicing and pan-frying for 1 to 2 minutes a side follow the latter recipe, by a named author of another recipe blog, who chills the cake overnight. The cornstarch, water, fillings and seasoning are my own home choices, and the conversions between cups and grams are mine. The way I check that it is done is my own.
Allergens: wheat, soy, shellfish
