Daikon radish cake is a classic dish eaten at dimsum and during Chinese New Year. This version is a vegan take on my grandma’s recipe.
I am overwhelmed and thrilled with the positive response we’ve received on my grandma’s cook-a-long stories earlier in the month. Ya’ll have been loving her sweet rice cake (nian gao) recipe as well! We had to rearrange our publishing schedule a bit so this radish cake recipe had to wait until after Lunar New Year to be posted. Fret not because this dish is commonly eaten year-round!
My family had our new year’s eve meal in advance this year; I feasted on various types of veggies and tofu (life of a Chinese vegetarian, love it!). I told my grandma (po-po) that she’s well-loved by our followers and that more cooking tutorials have been requested. She bashfully said that she’s only half decent at cooking but we can all attest that’s untrue. My mom and aunt chimed in and told her people actually make a living from online cooking videos, as if that was incentive for a grandma who doesn’t own a smart phone nor have wifi in her home. When we went back home to chat, grandma told me all about the many dishes she used to prepare for the holiday, and then trailed off to talk about all her old bffs and how she raised my mom and her siblings. There next dish I really want her to teach me to make is called ‘zai’ (齋), which pretty much just means ‘vegan’. It’s kind of like a Buddha’s Feast but made with a specific type of fermented tofu paste.
My grandma’s cooking isn’t the only thing I love about her. Her attitude towards life and life story is inspiring and really puts into perspective how fortunate I am to be raised and to live in Canada.
Po-po was orphaned during the second world war and married at the age of sixteen. She never went to school and taught herself to read and write Chinese. On top of managing a household of eight people, she still managed to make a little bit of extra money assembling fishing baubles. That extra money allowed her to go out for dimsum and grocery shopping excursions with her best friends and she said that was such a happy time for her. The world war left everyone penniless, but still having a living breath was enough to rejoice everyday.
Po-po said she got very savvy at stretching each dollar so that she could provide the most nutrition for her kids. Despite having no refrigerator and limited money, she still made soup, a massive cauldron of rice, and put eight dishes on the dinner table daily.
I always told myself that I can’t let my kids be short (i.e. stunted)! You don’t know the pain of not being able to see past people’s shoulders, or not being able to reach things on the shelf, or to have your legs dangle from the movie theater chairs. So I had to be prudent with grocery shopping. I’d go around scouting which stalls had the best deals or just go to the grocers I was familiar with because I know they wouldn’t cheat me. Being economical with your own money is not harming anyone, but scamming and cheating people does. If you’re on a budget, you have to learn to spend wisely. I always told my kids that.
When po-po was pregnant with her sixth and final child, she snipped the slit on the sides of her shirt bigger and bigger to accommodate her growing belly. One neighbour sneered at her for not buying new maternity clothing but being the practical lady she is, grandma couldn’t care less. Why spend money on a shirt that would never be worn again? I can see who my mom and I get our sense of practicality from. She taught her daughters not to covet external beauty, but rather study well in school so that they could live comfortably. Then at that point you can have all the high heeled shoes and fashionable clothing you want, because you worked for those bonuses. And that’s exactly what they are: bonuses.
I strive to live life with the kind of optimism, humbleness, and integrity my po-po has.
‘Carrot cake’ in Chinese cuisine is galaxies away from what we know as ‘carrot cake’ in North America. It’s not slathered with a thick layer of cream cheese frosting or tempting me from the shelves at Whole Foods (ugh I do love their carrot cake). Chinese ‘carrot cake’ looks nothing like a cake, isn’t sweet at all, and isn’t even made with the orange carrots we feed to bunnies. Funny enough, ‘carrot’ in Chinese can be directly translated into ‘orange daikon radish’.
Daikon radish is in season during wintertime, right around Chinese New Year. Many dishes eaten during this holiday involve daikon, this radish cake being a prominent exemplar. Usually po-po flavours her daikon radish cake with cured meats and dried shrimp but I’ve replaced all that with extra shiitake mushrooms, shallots, and green onions. Much prettier and not harming the piggies that we’re celebrating this year (2019 is the year of the pig).
I’ve also shared po-po’s recipe for Hakka-style sweet rice cake, and we have a baked coconut rice cake recipe from the archives; both are classic desserts eaten during Chinese New Year. Wishing everyone good health and happiness this new year!
- 1 large (~3 lbs) daikon radish, shredded*
- 1 bag (400g) rice flour, as needed
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil** + more for greasing pans
- 1 shallot, finely diced
- 6 dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated and diced
- 1 small carrot, finely diced
- 2 green onion, diced
- 2 to 3 tsp sea salt
- ¼ tsp ground white pepper
- Hoisin sauce and hot sauce, for serving
- Grease a deep large round pan (8 or 9 inches wide, 2 inches deep) liberally with oil. Set aside.
- Put the shredded daikon radish, and all its water, in a large mixing bowl. Add half a bag of rice flour (approximately 200g) to the radish and mix thoroughly. Keep adding rice flour until there is very little water at the bottom of the mixing bowl and the mixture becomes thick and gooey. The amount of rice flour needed will depend on the size of the radish and how much water was naturally in it. I used about ¾ of a bag.
- Heat 3 tbsp of vegetable oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, sautee the shallot until fragrant. Then add the shiitake mushrooms and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Finally, add the diced carrot and cook for another 1 minute or so.
- Add all the cooked veggies, and the oil that it was cooked in, into the radish mixture. Add the green onion then season with salt and white pepper. Mix until everything is evenly combined.
- Transfer the radish cake batter into the greased pan and cover loosely with aluminum foil. This is to prevent any water from dripping onto the cake while it steams.
- Steam*** for 1 hour 30 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool to room temperature then cover and refrigerate overnight.
- Sliced chilled radish cake into rectangles about ½-inch thick.
- Heat a dribble of oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Sear both sides of the radish cake until golden brown. Serve hot with hoisin and hot sauce.
**Do not skimp on or omit the oil or your cake may turn out dry and rough
***Usually these cakes are steamed in a double broiler-type set up but if you happen to have a steam oven like me (mine is from Cuisinart), use the Super Steam setting at 300°F and put the pans on the top rack to prevent the bottom from burning.
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