Loh Bak Goh - Chinese Radish Cake

Today is the last day of Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year was a much more hectic affair when I was younger, as we'd be constantly visited and would be out visiting relatives. Nowadays as we're in England and they're not, we don't do a whole lot to celebrate it. Many Chinese friends and contacts have expressed surprise that I didn't spend Chinese New Year with my family.

One of the highlights of Chinese New Year is this cake, made with Chinese radish / daikon / mooli. It's not a cake in the sweet sense, but a highly savoury dish. It's a popular dim sum dish, but home-made is infinitely better. It's first steamed, then cooled overnight in the fridge, and then sliced and fried.

This is my first attempt at making this dish, and a few things went wrong. Firstly, after I bought the ingredients, I realised I didn't have a big enough steamer. I improvised and decided to steam it in a sort of bain marie - the mixture went into a 2lb loaf tin in a baking tray of boiling water, then covered in foil and into the oven.

However, before this, more other things went wrong. I decided to follow Appetite for China's recipe but of course, I didn't read the recipe through properly. I lobbed the radish right on in there with the mushrooms and sausage while it was frying, instead of setting those ingredients to the side first. I also sliced the radish up a touch too large, so I ended up with rather chunkier pieces than anticipated. I then added too much dark soy to the mixture, staining the radish a darker brown colour which then made my finished cake a light brown colour, instead of white (meanwhile, I managed to smash a pint glass and break my food processor. Whoops).

No matter, it still tasted great, but let this be a lesson to me - always read the recipe in full first!