Turnip cake

Ingredientsserves 4

Equipment

• A 20 cm round tin (糕盤) and a steamer it fits in
• A coarse grater

Method

1. Fry the sausage, cured pork, dried shrimp and mushrooms (and the scallop) in a little oil until fragrant; set aside.
2. Put the grated radish and its juice in the wok with half a cup of water and cook for ten minutes until translucent and soft; if the radish is hot and bitter, a tablespoon of sugar takes the edge off.
3. Whisk the rice flour, cornflour and wheat starch into a cup and a half (350 ml) of cold water to a smooth slurry.
4. With the radish on low heat and still hot, pour in the slurry, stirring; it thickens to a heavy paste within a minute. Slurry poured into cold radish makes a watery cake. Stir in the fried bits, the salt and the pepper; the cured meats carry most of the flavour, and too little salt leaves the cake bland.
5. Scrape into the oiled 20 cm tin, smooth the top and steam over high heat for 45 to 60 minutes; a chopstick into the middle comes out clean.
6. Cool completely, best overnight in the fridge, before turning out; sliced warm, it crumbles. Slice 1.5 cm thick and pan-fry in a little oil over medium-low heat until both faces are golden. Serve hot with chilli sauce or oyster sauce.
7. A cake that crumbles had too much radish or too little starch, or was cut too soon; a hard, rubbery one had too much wheat starch or cornflour, and the 200, 70, 30 gram ratio is the balance.
8. Once the cake is cool, refrigerate it; do not leave it out overnight. It freezes well sliced, and the slices go into the pan from frozen.

Take care

• Contains crustacean (dried shrimp), pork and wheat (the wheat starch, and wheaten cornflour); oyster sauce on the side contains mollusc (oyster). Cured meats contain nitrite and some sausages contain sulphites. Refrigerate the cake once cool: Lunar New Year falls in the Australian summer, and a steamed cake left out overnight spoils. It freezes well sliced.

The story

Turnip cake is savoury; it sits on the New Year wall because of the season: when Lunar New Year comes, every Hong Kong family in Australia steams one, because 糕 sounds like 高, rising year on year, and the cured meats from the Asian grocer and a daikon from Coles are all it needs. Radish to flour, three to one or four to one, is the argument every family has (HK01's golden ratio), and the fried slice with chilli sauce on the morning of 年初一 is the taste of the holiday.

Same wall

Sesame balls

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.