This recipe is unlike most radish(or turnip) cake recipes out there. It brings everything back to the basics, all you need is long grain rice, radishes, carrots(for color), salt and white pepper for seasoning. The flavor of the rice and the radish really shines through, it is fragrant, sweet and soft. Serve it fried, stir-fried or in soup!
Course: Main Dish, Rice
Cuisine: Asian, Taiwanese, Vegetarian
Servings: 2Loaf
Author: Choochoo-ca-Chew
Ingredients
3-1/2C Long Grain Rice Soak with 7C water over nightor at least 4 hours
3-1/2lbRadish Remove skin and shred to skinny strips
1Small Carrot
2TBsp Oil
2tspSalt
1tspGround White Pepper
Instructions
Soak 3-1/2C Long Grain Rice in water over night or for at least 4 hours. The longer you soak it the softer it will become and easier it will be to blend
Remove the skin from the radishes and the carrot then shred or finely chop (if you don't have a shredder like me) to roughly 2" (5cm) in length
In a large pot, heat up 2TBsp Oil, then add the shredded carrot and radish, 2t Salt and 1t Ground pepper
Cook on medium heat, and stir often. Until the radish is soft and transparent
While the radish is cooking, prepare your rice mixture.
Drain the rice that's been soaking over night, as much as possible as too much water will influence the texture of the cake
Add 1C water and the drained rice to a blender and blend till it is super fine. If there's not enough liquid to blend easily, add the liquid radishes released from the pot to the blender.
Once the rice mixture is made, turn the radish cooking heat to low and add the rice mixture
Stir immediately, and keep stirring, scraping from the bottom to prevent it from burning
Cook till the mixture is hard to stir, and super thick then turn the heat off. This is to make sure that the mixture is thick and even so the thick part and the water doesn't separate during the steaming process
Grease 2 loaf pans or any container you choose to use and add the half-cooked mixture to the pans
Get your steamer ready, make sure the water is boiling, and there's steam coming out of your steamer before adding the pans
Steam for 30 mins to 1 hour, poke a chopstick into the center and comes out without white uncooked paste
Remove from the steamer, brush a thin layer of oil on top to prevent drying and let cool before removing from the pan
Serve immediately with garlic soy sauce or fry it!
Notes
Add only HOT BOILING water to the steamer if you run out of water during the steaming process The cake will seem super soft and almost gooey to cut, chill it over night and it will become a lot easier to cut. Radish cake that's made with raw rice is usually a lot softer than ones made with rice flour