By Request

BETTY SHIMABUKURO

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Delectable turnip cakes
merit the time

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The Chinese turnip cake is a dim sum family member that's kind of like a pancake stuffed with stuff -- mushrooms, pork sausage and shredded turnip.

Making this cake -- the traditional name is Low Bak Go -- requires a devotion of time and ingredients, beginning with quite a bit of shredding and mincing, followed by the simmering of raw ingredients, then a mixing in of rice flour to make dough, followed by steaming, following by frying.

Miriam Ching is willing to make the effort and wrote for a recipe. The following comes from a classic cookbook in the dim sum repertoire.

Turnip Cakes

(Low Bak Go)

"Classic Deem Sum," by Henry Chan and Yukiko and Bob Haydock (Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1985)

4 medium dried Chinese black mushrooms, soaked in tepid water 30 minutes
1/3 cup dried shrimp, soaked in 1/4 cup tepid water 10 minutes
1 pound daikon, peeled and shredded
1 cup chicken stock
1 Chinese pork sausage, minced
2 tablespoons minced scallion, white part only
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon Shao Hsing (Chinese rice wine) or sherry
2 tablespoons shortening
2 cups rice flour (not sweet)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Squeeze liquid from mushrooms, remove stems and mince coarsely. Set aside. Drain shrimp, reserving liquid. Mince shrimp coarsely. Set aside.

Place daikon, chicken stock and shrimp liquid in a pan and simmer, covered, 10 to 15 minutes, until daikon is tender. Add mushrooms, shrimp and all remaining ingredients except flour and oil. Cover and simmer 10 minutes; cool to room temperature. Stir in flour and combine well.

Oil the sides and bottom of an 8-inch-square glass dish. Spoon mixture into dish and smooth top.

Fill bottom half of a steamer with water to 1 inch below the level of the steamer basket. Cover and bring water to a boil. Place pan in steamer and steam over rapidly boiling water for 1 hour, or until a pick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

(You will need to keep a pot of hot water on the stove to refill the steamer as necessary. Or, if your steamer basket fits over a large stockpot that holds more water, use that instead.)

Cool cake and invert onto a cutting board. Cut into 1-by-2-inch pieces. (Pieces may be refrigerated at this point.)

Just before serving, heat oil in a skillet and fry cakes until lightly browned. Serve with a dip of soy sauce mixed with corn oil and hot peppers. Makes 32 cakes.

Approximate nutritional analysis, per cake: 85 calories, 5 g total fat, 1 g saturated fat, 5 mg cholesterol, 125 mg sodium, 9 g carbohydrate, 1.5 g protein.*

Food Stuffs: Morsels

Send queries along with name and phone number to:
"By Request," Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
500 Ala Moana, No. 7-210, Honolulu 96813.
Or send e-mail to bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com

Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.