1 lb Corn starch
3 c Water, cold
6 lb Turnips,
-peeled and grated
10 oz Cantonese sausage
-(about 8 sausages)
1/2 c Chinese dried shrimps
6 tb Cooking oil
1 ts Soy sauce
1/2 ts Sugar
2 c Chicken broth
-(or use water
-and bouillon cubes)
1/2 c Water
1 tb Cooking wine
1 tb Sugar
1 1/2 ts Salt
1 ts Ground pepper
Soak dried shrimps in lukewarm water until softened, drain. Mix well
the corn starch with about 3 cups of cold water, by hand.
Dice the sausages. Heat about 2 T of oil in a pan and stir fry the
sausages and dried shrimps for about 7 mins. Add the soy sauce,
cooking wine and about 1/2 t sugar. Stir fry for 1 more minute,
remove from heat, and set aside.
In a large stock pot, heat up about 4 T of oil, the chicken broth,
about 1/2 cup of water, about 1 T sugar, salt and ground pepper. Add
the grated turnip and mix well. Cook, covered, over high heat for
about 15 minutes.
Grease four 9-inch round cake pans with some shortening.
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 minutes.
Place cake mixture in greased pans and steam over high heat for 1
hour and 20 mins.
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:
* 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.
* 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 steamer 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.
: Difficulty: moderate.
: Time: 1 hour preparation, 2 hours cooking and cooling.
: Precision: measure the ingredients.
: Infan Cheong
: Computer Science Dept., U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
Illinois, USA : cheong@uiucdcs.cs.uiuc.edu
:
Yields
1 batch