Turnip cake (蘿蔔糕/萝卜糕) is a dish that you often find at dim sum. Although it is plain to look at, a good pan-fried turnip cake is a flavor explosion.
Pan frying the turnip cake gives it a crispy exterior, while the inside stays soft. When you bite into a piece, you’ll taste umami flavors from ingredients like dried scallops, dried shrimp, Chinese sausage or Chinese bacon. Mama Lin has made lo bak go for years, and I’m so excited to finally learn how to make it myself. I may be biased, but I think Mama Lin’s turnip cake is the best!
WHY IS LO BAK GO CALLED “TURNIP CAKE” IN ENGLISH?
Trying to figure out how lo bak go turned into “turnip cake” in English is convoluted and confusing. It is a lesson in how translations sometimes fail us.
Turnip cake is made of daikon (lo bak in Cantonese), which is a long vegetable that looks like a bloated white carrot. Daikon is actually a type of radish, so technically, this dish ought to be “radish cake.” However, someone started calling this “turnip cake” years ago, and that’s the name that has stuck. We will have to roll with it.
Another problem is how “糕” (go) is translated into English as “cake.” We often associate cakes with something like a birthday cake or a chocolate cake. But “糕” can refer to many different foods in Chinese cuisine: sweet or savory batter that’s steamed into a solid cake, like lo bak go; sweet batter that is steamed into moist and airy cakes; or sweet batter that’s baked into Western-style cakes. I’ve always found “cake” to be an imprecise translation, but it is commonly used in Chinese restaurants.
A NOTE ABOUT DAIKON
There are a lot of varieties of daikon, including the ones that you see in the photo above. Mama Lin prefers to cook with the one on the left, which is thicker and more rounded. According to my mother, the one of the right, which she calls “Japanese daikon,” is more bitter. I can’t say that I notice that big of a difference between the two. Any daikon should work for this recipe.
HOW TO MAKE TURNIP CAKE/LO BAK GO
PREPARE THE DAIKON
The first thing you want to do with the daikon is to trim the tops and peel the outer skin. As you peel the daikon, if you notice that the outer layers are dry and fibrous, use a peeler or knife to strip away the dry layers. This is an issue if the daikon you purchased is not fresh.
Then, grate the daikon. If you are using a box grater, use the largest grate. Be sure to grate the daikon over a large bowl or a 9×13 pan, as you want to preserve all the daikon juices that run out. If you want to save time with food prep, you can grate the daikon using a food processor.
BOIL THE GRATED DAIKON
Before mixing the daikon into the batter, Mama Lin usually boils the daikon. She’ll fire up the wok and sauté a few smashed cloves of garlic and diced shallots to get the flavors going. Then, she adds the daikon, along with 1 1/2 cups of water. Daikon is slightly bitter, so she adds a few small pieces of rock sugar to balance the flavors. You can find it in Asian supermarkets. She prefers using rock sugar because she claims the sweetness is more pristine (清甜). You can substitute rock sugar with 1 1/2 tablespoons of granulated sugar.
MAKE THE BATTER
For the batter, Mama Lin uses a mixture of equal parts rice flour and cornstarch. The rice flour gives the cake structure while the cornstarch makes the cake softer. If you don’t have cornstarch, you can substitute it with another starch, such as potato starch or tapioca starch.
STEAMING THE CAKE
Pour all the contents of the turnip cake into a pan. Although I use a 9×2” circular cake pan, you can use any pan, like an 8×8 square pan. Whichever pan you use, you want to make sure it can fit into a wok or steamer.
To set up the wok for steaming, place a steaming rack just over 2 inches high in the center of the wok. Fill the wok with enough water to reach just below the top of the steaming rack. Take the rack out, cover the wok and bring the water to boil. Then, place the steaming rack back into the center of the wok and carefully place the turnip cake above the rack. Steam the cake for 28 to 30 minutes.
I prefer using a large wok, like this 14-inch stainless steel one, for steaming.
SERVING THE TURNIP CAKE
You want to let the cake cool completely before serving. Mama Lin likes eating the cake at room temperature because she likes the soft texture of the cake. I prefer them pan fried. Usually, I chill the turnip cake in the fridge overnight. That way, the cake becomes stiffer, which makes it easier for slicing and pan frying.
Turnip cake is excellent with chili oil crisp, such as Lao Gan Ma or Fly By Jing, or XO sauce.
LOOKING FOR MORE DIM SUM?
- Cantonese Shumai (Siu Mai)
- Mushroom Cheung Fun
- Pork and Cabbage Potstickers
- Chicken Potstickers
- Curried Potato Fried Dumplings
Turnip Cake (Lo Bak Go/蘿蔔糕)
Ingredients
Filling
- 2 tablespoons (6g) dried scallops
- 1/4 cup (10g) dried shrimp
- 1/2 cup chopped Chinese sausage (2 links)
- 3 tablespoons chopped shallots
- 1 1/2 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil (any neutral oil works)
- 1 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Daikon
- 2 1/2 pounds daikon
- 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed
- 3 tablespoons chopped shallots
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 2 small pieces rock sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon chicken bouillon powder (optional, see note 1)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Batter
- 4 ounces rice flour (see note 2)
- 4 ounces cornstarch
- 1 cup water
Equipment
Instructions
- Soak the dried scallops and dried shrimp in water overnight. Drain the water. Use your hands to shred the scallops. Roughly chop the dried shrimp.
- Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil in a skillet (or sauté pan) over medium-high heat. Add the scallops, shrimp, Chinese sausage, and shallots and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the oyster sauce, salt, and white pepper. Stir to combine. Turn off the heat and transfer everything to a bowl.
- Trim the tops off the daikon and peel them. Grate the daikon into a 9×13 pan or a bowl. You are doing this to ensure that you save all the daikon juices that release as you are grating the turnips. Alternatively, grate the daikon using a food processor.
- Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons oil in a large wok (or sauté pan) over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and garlic to the wok and sauté for about a minute, until fragrant. Transfer the grated daikon and daikon juices into the wok. Add 1 1/2 cups of water, the rock sugar, salt, chicken powder, white pepper, and garlic powder to the wok. Cover the wok with a lid and cook the daikon for about 5 minutes.
- While the daikon is cooking, make the batter. Mix the rice flour and cornstarch in a mixing bowl. Add 1 cup of water to the flour and stir. The batter might be stiff at the beginning, but keep stirring until the batter is smooth.
- Uncover the wok and turn off the heat. Dig out the pieces of garlic. You don’t want large chunks of garlic inside the cake. Add the stir fried shrimp, scallops, and Chinese sausage to the wok and stir to combine. Then, add the batter to the daikon and stir.
- Lightly grease the cake pan with oil. Transfer all the ingredients from the wok to the cake pan. Use a spatula to smooth out the top of the turnip cake.
- Wash the wok. Cover the wok with about 2 inches of water and bring it to boil. Place the steaming rack in the center of the wok. Make sure that the water level is just below the top of the steaming rack. Then, carefully place the turnip cake on top of the steaming rack. Cover the wok and cook for 28 to 30 minutes.
- Uncover the wok. Because of condensation, you may notice some water on top of the steamed cake. That’s okay. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes on the steaming rack before removing from the wok. Carefully drain the water over the sink. Let the turnip cake cool completely before serving.
- To pan fry the turnip cake, I usually chill my turnip cake overnight so that the cake stiffens. Slice the cake into small squares or rectangles. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the turnip cake pieces and pan fry each side for about 4 minutes, until golden brown. Serve the turnip cake with chili oil or chili oil crisp.
Notes
- My mom uses chicken powder often to enhance the umami flavor of her dishes. Feel free to leave it out. You can substitute the chicken powder with onion powder to give the dish more flavor.
- This kind of rice flour usually comes in the bag with the red label. This is NOT glutinous rice flour.
- You can use an 8×8-inch square pan or any pan that fits inside a wok.
Jen Houng says
Hi Lisa! I love turnip cakes and decided to try this out! The step by step made this simple to make! I figured it’s about 2.5 cups of water per 8oz of flour. The flavor is spot on, and my entire family loved it. I used a loaf pan instead of a round pan. The center of the cake is a bit dense compared to the outer edge, what did I do wrong? Thank you!!!
Lisa Lin says
Hi, Jen! Is your loaf pan something like 9×4 inches? I wonder if it’s because the surface area of those loaf pans are smaller, the center will cook very evenly. Thanks for trying out the recipe!
Grace says
Firstly, thank you for making my homemade Chinese food dreams come true, Lisa! Growing up my mom taught me how to cook, but it was always “oh just add a little bit of this and that and cook it until it looks like THIS” she never gave me any recipes.
I’m not the greatest cook, but I’m really good at following directions. This recipe was super easy to follow, and my lo bak go turned out amazing. My only complaint is that it came out a touch too soft, maybe my turnips were extra juicy, but if I make it again, I might reduce the water by a little. I threw the turnips into a food processor, which preserved every last bit of juice- so perhaps that’s why. I also only soaked my dried shrimps for a few hours because I wanted to make it same day, but it turned out okay! The flavor was SPOT ON, just what I imagined it should taste from years of eating dim sum (I added the chicken powder).
Lisa Lin says
Hi, Grace! Your observation about the juiciness of the turnips is spot on. Under normal circumstances, if my mom notices that the turnips she’s using is particularly juice, she won’t add as much water to the batter. But if they are looking dry (i.e., not that many juices run out when grated), she’ll add less water. I will make a note of this in my recipe!
Wendy says
Thank you for this recipe! I’ve been wanting to make Chinese radish cake on my own for some time now, esp. since I’m living in Switzerland away from home. This helped me bring back memories of eating this during my childhood years 🙂
Some things I did differently
* I didn’t have a wok lid so steaming in it wasn’t an option. I ended up using the built-in steamer function of the oven, set it to 200 C for 30 min. I also put a tray of water next to it to create more steam
* I used three small radishes of the “Japanese type” shown in the photo and eye-balled weight
* Instead of corn starch, I used potato starch. Still works!
* I didn’t have chicken powder so I used bits of a chicken broth cube
* I put in chinese sausage and shallots, and skipped the dried shrimps.
Valerie says
Hello, I adore your website and I make the sesame candy on rotations as my family adores them! I wanted to try to make de turnip cake today and I understand that the chicken powder is optional and that I can use onion powder as a substitute but I was wondering if instead of the water I can use chicken broth maybe? Thank you!
Lisa Lin says
Yes to both substitutes! Let me know how it goes!
Lisa Lin says
And thank you so much for making the sesame candy!
Mollie says
I have been dreaming about the “carrot cake” made with these turnip cakes since I visited Singapore last year! Do you have a recipe for how to make them once you have the turnip cakes make?
Lisa Lin says
Hi, Mollie! Sorry, what kind of recipe are you looking for exactly?
Jole says
Hi Mollie, jumping in here! For the Singapore style carrot cake, you can slice up the cake into cubes and stir fry with eggs and sweet black sauce! I would also skip the fillings in this dish for the Singapore style carrot cake 🙂
Sarah A. says
Hi! Two questions:
1) Approx how much is 2.5lbs of daikon? I don’t have a scale so I just used 1 daikon radish since it felt to me about 2.5lbs.
2) I followed the recipe, but my Turnip Cake ended up too gooey and wouldn’t hold its shape. What do you think went wrong? I thought of what possibly went wrong, but I wasn’t sure… Was it because I used 1 radish? Was it because the radish I used had a lot of juice already, so I didn’t need to add the full 1 cup of water? Or maybe I needed to turn the heat back on when I added the flour batter to the daikon. (The recipe’s step #6 is a little unclear. It said the “Uncover the wok and turn off the heat.” then later said to “Turn off heat” again. But didn’t say when to turn on the heat in between. Do you turn the heat back on when you pout the flour batter into the daikon? If so, then how long until you turn off heat?)
Lisa Lin says
Hi, Sarah! In terms of size of daikon, it really depends on which variety you use. If you’re using the long and thin ones, then you need a pretty long daikon. If you’re using the very round daikon, a medium-sized one will do. If the radish had a lot of juice when you grated it, then yes, you probably didn’t need the entire cup of water. It is difficult to predict how juicy the turnips will be until you grate them, unfortunately.
And thank you for catching that error. The last “turn off the heat” should not be there.
KK says
I just tried making this last night and ran into a couple issues:
1) The cake never really fully set. I steamed it for 30 minutes and then an addition 20. I chilled it overnight but as soon as it hit the pan it started spreading a little and turned into mush instead of holding its cut shape. I’m not really sure what went wrong here!
2) There is a slight bitter taste. Could it be that I didn’t cook the grated radish long enough during that step?
Other than the odd bitter taste, the flavors were great. I just need to figure out what went wrong before my second attempt! Thanks!
Lisa Lin says
Hi, KK! I’m sorry this happened to you! I wonder if the turnips during this time of the year are more juicy and require less liquid to cook. That could explain why the cake never fully set. Unfortunately, it’s tough to tell how juicy they are. By chance, did you weigh the turnip before you grated it? As for the bitter taste, you can try adding a little more sugar when you are cooking the turnips (before mixing the turnips with the batter).
Myrna says
Love radish cake and would like to try this recipe. If you double the recipe, do you double the 1 cup
Of water in step #5? I see the ingredients double in quantity but not in the procedure section.
Thank you,
Myrna
Lisa Lin says
Ah, I probably won’t double the amount of water, in case that’s too much liquid. Try 1.75x the amount of water.
Robin says
Hi Lisa!
I love this recipe! I made a bit too much, do you think it will freeze well? Thank you!!
Michelle says
Do you have a particular brand of rice flour that you would recommend?
Lisa Lin says
Hi Michelle, thanks for reminding me that I need to share a photo of the rice flour. I usually use Thai style rice flour for this, which comes in a red bag. The 3 elephants brand or SunLee brand works for this recipe.
Anil Kulkarni says
I used this recipe for the first time today. – High praise all around. Thank you so much.
I substituted 8oz of tapioca flour in place of the cornstarch
Melissa Hoff says
Cake is an appropriate translation. Cake can be used to describe sweet and savory items. It also resembles a flattish compact mass of something like a cake of soap. So I’d say that the translation radish cake is spot on.
Definition of cake
/kāk/
an item of savory food formed into a flat, round shape, and typically baked or fried.
“crab cakes”
a flattish, compact mass of something, especially soap.
“a cake of soap”
Laraine says
I have never tried or even heard of radish cake. But daikon is a vegetable I regularly use for soups, stews, stir fries, salads, bibimbap, stock etc. I always still seem to have a fridge full of it though. So was pleased to find this recipe.
I’m not sure how but this recipe yielded 3 cakes (of the recommended size). I used my freshest radishes which did give a lot of juice. After adding the batter I felt the mixture was far too watery so I drained it off, made more batter and added that to the mix. As I had 3 tins and being unsure of what the right consistency should be I decided to vary the consistency of each one. They all set in the fridge. Even the one that I felt was too watery.
It oozed a little on frying but by breaking it up into small pieces, frying until crisp, adding some garlic and seasoning sauce I was able to make a decent dish out of it. I haven’t yet tried out the less watery ones.
I will definitely be having another bash at this recipe. In fact this is a perfect recipe for using up the daikon that isn’t at it’s freshest. Next time I plan to squeeze the juice the out of the daikon and reserve it, boil the daikon until the water has evaporated and use the daikon juice mixed with chicken powder or chicken stock powder to make the batter. I didn’t use chicken powder this time ( I didn’t have any) and feel I should have done.
So, even though this recipe didn’t work perfectly for me first time, I was able to rescue it and make something of it. The cakes can be sliced and frozen too, possibly helping to firm up the soft ones, so they won’t be going to waste.
Thank you for this recipe.
Dan says
Thank you for this recipe. It was my first turnip cake and it came out great. Wonderful flavor and texture, especially when pan seared.
Lisa Lin says
Awesome! Thanks, Dan!