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Turnip cake is a popular Cantonese dish served during Chinese New Year and at dim sum restaurants. It is made with daikon radish and rice flour, and can be deep-fried or steamed. It can also include other ingredients like green onions, mushrooms, and Chinese sausages. It is easy to make at home using ingredients from Asian markets or large grocery stores.
Turnip cake or law’s bock gow is a Cantonese dish that is traditionally served in Chinese New Year and dim sum parlors. Like many Cantonese foods, law’s bock gow is popular in many regions of China and is also readily available outside of China, with most dim sum restaurants offering turnip cakes on their menus. This food can also be found frozen in Asian markets for home preparation, or it can be made from scratch at home, using ingredients that are readily available in Asian markets and large grocery stores.
Despite the name, a turnip cake doesn’t actually include turnips. The main ingredients in this dish are chopped daikon radish, sometimes known as “Chinese turnip” and rice flour. Radish and rice flour are mixed with water to form a thick batter which is poured into a mold and steamed. After steaming, the turnip cake can be cut into pieces and eaten as it is, or it can be cooked again, more classically in a pan and served.
A deep-fried turnip cake has crispy, slightly sweet outer layers and a soft, almost chewy interior. Turnip cakes can be eaten plain or served with fermented black bean sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, chilies, and a variety of other ingredients. This dish is very thick and intensely flavorful. Some cooks prefer to steam their turnip cakes for a lighter dish, though without deep-frying, the texture of the turnip cakes may be less interesting. Like many other dim sum items, turnip cakes are very self-contained, making them easy to make for lunch or snacks.
Besides daikon, a turnip cake may also include chopped green onions, mushrooms, Chinese sausages, water chestnuts, prawns, and so on. These inclusions tend to be more common in more expensive versions of bills, with some cooks dusting them on top instead of mixing them into the batter. Many cooks develop their own favorite version of turnip cakes.
To make turnip cakes at home, peel and grate a daikon radish and simmer in enough water to cover it until the grated pieces soften. Let the radish and water cool and add the rice flour to the dough until it reaches the consistency of thick oatmeal, adding salt and pepper to taste with a pinch of sugar. If you want to add inclusions, chop or chop them very finely, fry them and then add them to the turnip cake mixture. Pour the mixture into an oiled skillet, then place the skillet in a steamer and steam for an hour. After steaming, turnip cakes can be cooled, cut and stored for later use or eaten immediately.
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