Turnip Cake (Lo Bak Go/蘿蔔糕)

Sep 19, 2019 18 Comments

This is Mama Lin’s tried and true recipe for turnip cake (lo bak go). It is made with daikon and flavored with dried shrimp, dried scallops, and Chinese sausage. Learn how to make this savory dim sum classic at home!

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.

COOKING NOTES FOR TURNIP CAKE RECIPE

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.

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