Taro Cake (芋頭糕)

Step 1

Wash and rehydrate the dried shrimp. In a bowl, wash the shrimp in warm water for a few seconds and drain the bowl. Pour hot water into the bowl, and let the shrimp rehydrate for 5-10 minutes. The shrimp should be soft and tender to the touch when rehydrated.

Step 2

Chop our lap cheung, ginger, garlic, green onion. For the lap cheung, cut off a few coin-sized slices as garnish for later, and cut the rest into small pieces. Mince the ginger and garlic, and chop the green onion into small pieces. When the dried shrimp is fully rehydrated, chop the shrimp into very fine pieces.

Step 3

Precautions: wear food-safe gloves and place a hand towel underneath our cutting board.

Step 4

Set the stove to its highest heat setting, and heat the wok for 3-5 minutes as we prepare our regular ice flour. Using a food scale, weigh out the rice flour into a bowl, add water, and mix together for 30-60 seconds.

Step 5

After the wok is hot enough (you should see it releasing a tiny amount of smoke), add vegetable oil and mix it around the surface of the wok.

Step 6

Before we add the taro, start boiling water - enough water for the taro + enough water to minimally submerge the plate in the wok as it sits on top of the steamer rack.

Step 7

Add salt, sugar, chicken bouillon, and oyster sauce to the wok, and stir it around for another minute.

Step 8

Pour the boiled water into the wok, stir for a few seconds, and cover the wok until it starts boiling again (about 2-3 minutes.)

Step 9

Coat the plate that you'll be using with a little bit of vegetable oil. This is so that when we're done cooking, the taro cake won't stick to the plate.

Step 10

When boiling, uncover the wok. Sample the taste of your taro, and adjust if necessary. Stir the flour mixture for a few seconds and pour it into the wok, as well as sesame oil. Stir the wok around for about 90 seconds, so that the flour and taro are evenly mixed together.

Step 11

Scoop out the taro cake mixture into the plate you oiled earlier, and smooth out the surface of the cake so it's flat. Wash the wok before we start steaming.

Step 12

Place a steamer rack in the wok, and add enough boiling water to the wok so that when the plate sits on top of the rack, the water is just touching the bottom of the plate.

Step 13

Once the 20-25 minutes is up, let's uncover the wok. To check if the taro cake is ready, poke it with chopsticks. If it's not ready, the cake will stick to the chopsticks.

Step 14

After the taro cake is cooled, you're ready to cut it.