Turnip Cakes: Luo Bo Gao

Raise your hand if you love dim sum! Turnip cakes are a common dim sum dish, and they’re actually made of daikon radishes—not turnips. They’re first steamed, then cooled, sliced, and pan fried. You can also enjoy them right after slicing, but dim sum restaurants usually serve them fried (they’re much better like that, in my opinion).

We decided to order these from multiple local dim sum restaurants to enjoy at home during quarantine. After picking apart and comparing a few different versions, I whipped up multiple takes of turnip cakes, and this one was perfect. I experimented with adding different ingredients and spices like shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, and white pepper, but I found that this simple rendition of carrots, wood ear, and green onions with salt and sugar worked the best.

The combination of rice flour and wheat starch makes the cakes perfectly soft yet chewy, and the simple seasoning of salt and sugar doesn’t overpower any aspect of this dish. They taste best right out of the pan, and you can enjoy them alone or dipped in sauce. My favorite is the Lee Kum Kee vegan mushroom-flavored oyster sauce.

Recipe Notes

Boiling the radish first gets rid of the sharp flavor that might overpower other tastes. By stir-frying the carrots, wood ear mushrooms, and green onions, their natural flavor is brought out and can withstand being steamed.

Once you remove the turnip cake from the steamer, make sure you let it sit at room temperature for at least 30-60 minutes to firm up. If you try to remove or slice it immediately, the turnip cake will be far too soft and won’t be able to hold its structure.

Wheat starch gives the cakes a bouncy texture, but you can replace it with more rice flour if you like a softer turnip cake.

You can slice them into 8-16 pieces, depending on preference!

thin-sliced luobogao (16 slices total) with vegan oyster sauce

Turnip Cakes: Luo Bo Gao
Prep Time: 20 mins
Inactive Time: 30 mins
Cook Time: 1 hour
Yield: 4 servings, 8-16 slices total

Ingredients

• 1 daikon radish root, grated or julienned (around 3/4 pound)
• 1-1½ cups water, more for steamer
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• 10 g wood ear mushroom, rehydrated and thinly sliced
• 3 stalks green onion, thinly sliced
• 100 g rice flour
• 50 g wheat starch
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp vegetable oil, more for greasing pan and frying
• vegan mushroom flavored oyster sauce, for serving
  
  

Directions

1. In a pot, bring water to a boil. Add daikon radish and simmer for 10 minutes until transparent to get rid of the sharp flavor.
2. Meanwhile, heat 1 tsp oil in a pan. Add carrot, wood ear, and green onion, sautéing for 2-3 minutes until fragrant. Transfer to a bowl.
3. Drain the radish and reserve 1 cup of the liquid, adding more if too much water evaporated. Add radish, rice flour, wheat starch, salt, and sugar to the bowl with the sautéed vegetables and stir to combine. Slowly add in the reserved liquid to the mixture, stirring to remove any lumps. Add more liquid if needed and let rest for 15 minutes.
4. Lightly grease an 8.5x3 loaf pan with vegetable oil. Pour in the turnip cake batter, smoothing out the top with the back of a spoon.
5. Place pan into a steamer over water and cover with a lid. Bring water to a boil over medium high heat, and steam for 45 minutes. Remove from steamer and let cool at room temperature for 30 minutes before slicing into 8-16 pieces, or place in refrigerator to slice later.
6. You can serve this directly out of the loaf pan, or you can pan fry them instead! Heat around 1 tbsp oil in a cast iron or nonstick pan over medium high heat and carefully place turnip cake slices into the pan. Fry on each side for 3-4 minutes or until golden and crispy. Serve immediately with oyster sauce to dip!

Per serving (not including frying oil): 172 calories: 38.4 g carbs; 1.2 g fat; 1.6 g protein