Turnip Cake (Lo Bak Go, 萝卜糕, Radish Cake)

Turnip Cake Recipe - Mama Lin's lo bak go

4.75 from 27 votes

Servings: 8

Author: Lisa Lin

Turnip Cake (Lo Bak Go, 萝卜糕, Radish Cake)

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. The batter is made with equal parts rice flour (in the red package) and cornstarch. If you don’t have cornstarch, replace it with more rice flour. The cake won’t be as soft, but will still taste good. I measured both types of flours by weight, but you can use the volume measurements specified below.

Prep Time50

Cook Time50

Total Time1 40

Ingredients

Flavoring Bits

5 to 6 (15g) dried scallops, (see note 1)
1/4 cup (20g) dried shrimp
3 tablespoons (30g) chopped shallots
1/2 cup (65g) chopped Chinese sausage
1/4 cup (40g) chopped Chinese cured pork
1 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil (any neutral oil works)
1 tablespoons oyster sauce
1/4 teaspoon (1g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt, or use 1/8 teaspoon table or sea salt

Daikon

2 1/2 pounds daikon (lo bak)
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
4 to 5 cloves garlic, smashed
1 1/2 cups (355ml) water
2 small pieces (15g) rock sugar, or use 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (4g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt, or use 1/2 teaspoon table or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon chicken bouillon powder, (optional, see note 2)
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Batter

1 cup (115g) rice flour, measured with spoon-and-sweep method (see note 3)
1 scant cup (115g) cornstarch, measured with spoon-and-sweep method
1 cup (255ml) water

Equipment

Instructions

Prepare Flavoring Bits

First, soak the dried shrimp and scallops. You can soak them in a bowl with cold water overnight. Alternatively, you can soak the shrimp in its own bowl with boiling hot water for 10 to 15 minutes. This should be enough time to soften the shrimp. Soak the scallops in a separate bowl with hot water for 25 minutes. Pinch the scallops to see if they’re soft enough to shred. If not, drain (but reserve) the water and soak it in another change of hot water for 25 minutes more.
Drain dried seafood (see note 5). Roughly chop the dried shrimp and shred the scallops with your hands.
Heat the oil in a skillet (or sauté pan) over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Next, add the dried shrimp, sausage, and cured pork and cook for a minute. Then, add the dried scallops and cook a minute more. Mix in the kosher salt and oyster sauce. Turn off the heat and transfer everything to a bowl.

Prepare Daikon

Peel the daikon and slice off the tops. Grate the daikon into a 9×13-inch pan or a large bowl to catch any daikon juices that releases. Alternatively, grate the daikon using a food processor. (See note 6)
Heat the oil in a large wok (or deep sauté pan) over medium-high heat. Add the garlic to the wok and sauté for about a minute, until fragrant. Transfer the grated daikon (and any daikon juices) into the wok. Add 1 1/2 cups of water, rock sugar, salt, white pepper, chicken powder, and garlic powder to the wok. Make sure to place the pieces of rock sugar into the water to ensure that it dissolves properly. Cover the wok with a lid and cook the daikon on high heat for about 5 to 7 minutes.

Make Batter

While the daikon is cooking, make the batter. Whisk the rice flour and cornstarch in a mixing bowl. Add 1 cup of water and stir. The batter might be stiff at the beginning, but keep stirring until the batter is smooth.

Mix Daikon, Flavoring Bits & Batter

Lightly grease the cake pan (or whatever pan you’re using) with oil and set aside.
Uncover the wok and reduce the heat to low. Dig out the pieces of garlic. You don’t want large chunks of garlic inside the cake. Add the flavoring bits and stir to combine. Then, add the batter to the daikon and stir until the batter is no longer runny. The batter should thicken in a minute or two. Make sure the batter is goopy and not runny, as runny batter won’t set properly during the steaming process. Turn off the heat.
Transfer all the ingredients from the wok to the prepared cake pan. Use a flexible spatula to smooth out the top of the turnip cake.

Steam Cake

Wash the wok. Place a steaming rack in the center of the wok and fill it with enough water so that the water level is just below the top of the steaming rack. Bring the water to boil.
Carefully place the turnip cake on top of the steaming rack. Cover the wok and cook on medium-high for 40 minutes. Make sure to replenish the water after 25 minutes because it will evaporate.
Turn off the heat and uncover the wok. Using oven mitts, transfer the cake to a cooling rack. You may notice some water on top of the steamed cake because of condensation that builds up under the wok lid. That’s okay. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes. If there's still a thin layer of water on top, carefully tip the cake pan to drain the water.

Serving Turnip Cake/Lo Bak Go

Let the cake cool for 30 minutes to 1 hour before slicing and serving. If you want to pan fry the cake, let it cool completely, preferably overnight.
To pan fry, 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 until golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes. Serve the turnip cake with Lao Gan Ma chili crisp, XO sauce, or sweetened soy sauce.

Video

Notes

These dried scallops are about 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter.
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.
I usually use Thai rice flour that comes in the bag with the red label. This is NOT glutinous rice flour or mochiko. Sweet rice or glutinous rice flours won’t work with this recipe because they will make the cake chewy. I typically weigh my flours. See here for more info about the spoon-and-sweep method of measuring flour.
You can use an 8×8-inch square pan or any pan that fits inside a wok. If you use a loaf pan, you’ll likely need to add another 5 to 10 minutes to the cooking time because of the depth of the pan.
I actually like to save this soaking water by pouring it into a measuring cup. I’ll use this to cook the daikon. The soaking liquid likely won’t amount to 1 1/2 cups (for cooking the daikon), so top it up with more water.
Some readers have run into the issue where their daikon is incredibly juicy and releases a ton of water. If you’re suspecting that to be the case, feel free to drain the water but pour the liquid into a measuring cup. You can use this liquid (and additional water) to cook the daikon.

Nutrition

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