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Recipe for "turnip-cakes"

NAME

     TURNIP-CAKES - An easy recipe  for  Cantonese  salty  turnip
     cakes
     We usually make this cake in winter time.  I got this recipe
     originally  from  a  magazine  in Hong Kong. It is a new and
     easy way to make this Cantonese  specialty.   I  have  tried
     this recipe on about ten Americans.  They all like it.

INGREDIENTS ()

     500 g     corn starch
     800 ml    cold water
     3 kg      turnips, peeled and grated
     300 g     Cantonese sausage (about 8 sausages)
     50 g      Chinese dried shrimps
     100 ml    cooking oil
     5 ml      soy sauce
     2.5 ml    sugar
     500 ml    chicken broth (or use water and bouillon cubes).
     100 ml    water
     15 ml     cooking wine
     15 ml     sugar
     20 ml     salt
     5 ml      ground pepper

PROCEDURE

          (1)  Soak  dried  shrimps  in  lukewarm   water   until
               softened, drain. Mix well the corn starch with 800
               ml of cold water, by hand.
          (2)  Dice the sausages. Heat 30 ml of oil in a pan  and
               stir  fry the sausages and dried shrimps for about
               7 mins. Add the soy sauce, cooking wine,  and  2.5
               ml  sugar. Stir fry for 1 more minute, remove from
               heat, and set aside.
          (3)  In a large stock pot, heat up 60 ml  of  oil,  the
               chicken broth, 100 ml of water, 15 ml sugar, salt,
               and ground pepper.  Add the grated turnip and  mix
               well.  Cook,  covered, over high heat for about 15
               minutes.
          (4)  Grease four 20-cm round cake pans with some  shor-
               tening.
          (5)  Add sausages to the cooked turnip mixture and  mix
               well.  Then  add  the  cornstarch mixture and stir
               quickly over low heat until it looks  transparent,
               about 7 mins.
          (6)  Place cake mixture in greased pans, and steam over
               high heat for 1 hour and 20 mins.
          (7)  Let the  cakes  cool  completely  before  cutting.
               Cooled  cakes  can  be  easily  taken  out of pans
               upside down. Turnip cakes taste better when served
               warm and topped with soy sauce and a little bit of
               chili sauce. Or they  can  be  cut  up  into  thin
               slices  and  pan  fried  slightly  with oil before
               serving.

NOTES

     If you don't have a steamer, a 16 quart stock pot can  be  a
     very good steamer. Any casseroles that can fit in your stea-
     mer can be used instead of cake pans.
     Cantonese sausages are usually made with  pork  cubes.  They
     are  made  by dehydrating the sausages with cold air and are
     usually available in the winter time. The diameter is  about
     the  same as American breakfast sausages but is about 5 to 6
     inches long. The sausages have to  be  cut  into  very  fine
     cubes  so  that  they  mix  well with the turnips.  The cake
     tastes good partly because of the flavor of the sausages.  I
     have never tried anything else. But I think bacon bits might
     be able to mix well with the turnip mixture. Of course,  the
     cake will taste different with bacon bits.

RATING

     Difficulty: moderate.  Time: 1  hour  preparation,  2  hours
     cooking and cooling.  Precision: measure the ingredients.

CONTRIBUTOR

     Infan Cheong
     Computer Science Dept., U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
     cheong@uiucdcs.cs.uiuc.edu