Grace’s Turnip Cake

The other day, I was doing my regular cleaning of the fridge and to my surprise, there were 3 huge turnips I found! What to do with so many turnips?

I must share this little story when I was a wee 7 year old girl in my first year of primary school. We had tea break during the half day of school everyday and I was given $0.20 daily (it was more than sufficient back then) to either spend it in the canteen or to save. I guess I received my personal financial management lessons early. 

To my dismay, most of the food sold in the canteen require a special skill - chopsticks using skill, which was foreign to me! My family is a rather modernised Chinese family which uses fork and spoon at the table. 

Fear not! I spotted some snacks sold by an elderly lady which require no chopsticks using skills! Those snacks were my beloved lightly fried turnip cakes! Hence, I have started my unending love for the turnip cakes since then, till I learnt the art of eating with chopsticks (which was not very long after).

Now that I’m in a foreign land far away from home, turnip cakes always reminded me of this little funny stories and my love of my hometown.

Here goes the recipe and before then, some useful tips.

Useful tips

• Ratio of turnip, flour and water is 1:1:2.5.
• You must “dehydrate” the shredded turnip to ensure no excess water in the cake.
• Ensure that the steamer is boiling before insert the cake to steam.

Ingredients

1 big white turnip (about 700 - 800g)

1 cup of dried prawns

3 strips of middle bacon (can be substituted with ham)

2 Chinese sausages (lap cheong)

1 medium onion (or 8 shallots)

3 cloves of garlic

3 dried shiitake mushrooms

2 cups rice flour (same measurement as the shredded turnip)

2 tsb wheat starch (1 cup rice flour : 1 tbs wheat starch)

5 cups of water (less if prefer firmer cake)

3 tsb cooking oil

Soy sauce, salt & white pepper to taste

Method

1. Soak dried prawns and dried shiitake mushrooms. Mince garlic, chop onions, Chinese sausages and bacon strips.
2. Shred turnip (I used a shredder) and add a handful of salt and mix them around. Leave it for 10 minutes or more.
3. When the dried prawns are ready, drain the water and chop them into small pieces (you may use food processor, too).
4. Chop up mushroom when they are soften.
5. To get rid of the excess water in the turnip, take a handful of the shredded turnip and squeezes the water out. Repeat this until all shredded turnip are done.
6. In a big mixing bowl, mix the rice flour, wheat starch and water until no lumps are found. To be safe, add just 4 cups of water to the mixture first. Reserve the 5th cup of water for later if needed.
7. Take out a wok or a big deep pan, insert cooking oil, start sauté onions, dried prawns, Chinese sausage, bacon, mushroom and garlic until fragrant. I start with the biggest fire and turn down to medium to avoid the food getting burnt.
8. Pour in the turnip and sauté with the other ingredients. Add your flavourings (soy sauce, salt and pepper) to taste. 
9. Turn your fire to low. Slowly pour in the flour mixture and mix the ingredients with the flour mixture. Check on the consistency of the mixture. It should not be runny nor lumpy. 
10. Transfer the mixture to a steaming pan (I used an 8 inch round pan) and put the pan into the steamer.
11. Steam for 1 hour, let cool (outside of the steamer) for about 30 minutes to 1 hour before cutting up. 

From top to bottom: sautéed and seasoned turnip, turnip with flour mixture, cooked turnip cake.

You may cut them in pieces, eat them as they are or lightly pan fry them for crispy skin. Some people also cut them up in cubes and fry them like noodles. Bon appetit!