turnip cake

Turnip cake is a traditional Chinese snack served at dim sum. Our family turnip cake lo bak go recipe uses Chinese sausage, dried shrimp, mushrooms and more.

Turnip Cake (Chinese Lo Bak Go)

daikon radish ((about 20 oz., grated))

water

vegetable oil

shrimp

shiitake mushrooms ((washed, soaked, and chopped))

Chinese sausage ((diced))

scallion ((chopped))

rice flour ((130 grams))

cornstarch ((8 grams))

salt

sugar

white pepper ((to taste))

Oyster sauce ((for dipping, optional))

Add the grated turnip and 1 cup water to a wok or large pan, and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally so the turnip does not brown. The turnip will produce liquid, some of which will evaporate. You will have liquid left in the wok with the radish that you will also use. Scoop the cooked turnip into a large mixing bowl to cool. Pour any remaining liquid in the wok into a measuring cup, and add water until you have a total of 1 cup of liquid. Add it to the mixing bowl with the cooked turnip.

Clean your wok or pan and place it over medium heat. Add a couple tablespoons oil. Add the shrimp, mushrooms, and sausage, and cook for about 5 minutes. Stir in the chopped scallion and remove from the heat to cool.

Add rice flour, cornstarch, salt, sugar, and white pepper to the mixing bowl with the radish and cooking liquid. Mix well until the dry ingredients are well-incorporated. Add in the cooked shrimp, mushrooms and sausage, and be sure to scrape the oil from the pan into the batter. Mix well and let sit for 15 minutes.

Give the batter a final stir, and pour it into a well-oiled loaf pan. Place the pan into a steamer with plenty of water and steam over medium-high heat for 50 minutes.

Remove the pan from the steamer and let your turnip cake set for about 30 minutes. Once cooled, loosen the sides with a spatula and turn it out onto a cutting board. It should come out quite easily.

Use a sharp knife dipped in water to slice ½-inch thick pieces. I know people who’d enjoy it just like that, but most people pan-fry the turnip cake first. Add a couple tablespoons oil to a non-stick or seasoned cast iron pan over medium heat. Fry the cakes on both sides until golden and crispy. Serve with oyster sauce!

Note: You can also make this turnip cake in advance, refrigerate it in the loaf pan, and slice/fry later. If you’ve refrigerated turnip cakes that you’ve already fried, the best way to reheat them is to re-fry them in a pan.

Learn how to make this classic Cantonese dim sum dish & Chinese New Year favorite!

Chinese Turnip Cake (萝白糕)

lb turnip

oz regular rice flour

Chinese sausage

tbsp corn oil

tsp sesame oil

garlic

chicken bouillon

0.5 tsp white pepper

green onion

Prepare ingredients

We'll be prepping several ingredients here:

Cook ingredients

We'll need to cook everything for a bit and add some flavors before it becomes a turnip cake mix that we can steam. 

Prepare cake pan

While our wok is cooking, we'll prepare our cake pan by:

Steam turnip cake

Once the turnip mix is done cooking in the wok, we'll prepare for steaming.

How to tell if the cake is done?

To tell if the cake is done, you can stick a chopstick straight into the pan. 

Garnish, let turnip cake cool

While the cake pan is still in the steamer, we'll sprinkle some of our leftover Chinese sausage onto the pan and cover it for 30 seconds.

Remove from cake pan, pan fry

Once it's cooled, you can take the turnip cake out from the pan however you'd like, but my dad has a pretty elegant sequence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN3hdW2it-0&&list=PLvd5bo3J-_kq4FcYVCOK6ZR87dCGDqrSH&index=2

Top 2 turnip cake recipes from across the web

The most viewed turnip cake recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine

Top Tags

Turnip Cake (Chinese Lo Bak Go)

Chinese Turnip Cake (萝白糕)

Top 2 turnip cake recipes from across the web

The most viewed turnip cake recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

Top Tags

Turnip Cake (Chinese Lo Bak Go)

Chinese Turnip Cake (萝白糕)

The most viewed turnip cake recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine