Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 Steamed Radish Cake 蘿蔔糕

Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 or also known as 蘿蔔糕 is known as a carrot cake in Singapore.  It is a gluten free and meat free cake but it has dried prawns.  You can eat this when you have yum cha 飲茶 in Chinese restaurants. 

Yum cha 飲茶 is a Cantonese word which means to have dianxin 點心 in a Cantonese restaurant, eating little snacks and drinking tea.  The actual direct translation of yin cha 飲茶 is to eat light refreshments while drinking tea.  In the old days, people would pay for the tea and have these dianxin 點心 free as tea is very expensive, even today.  Do you know good Chinese tea is as expensive as gold?  

There is a joke amongst us Chinese about bad tea.  We say we are punished when we are served bad tea to drink and we also say this bad tea is restaurant grade tea.  So, when I go and have yum cha 飲茶 I often bring my own tea leaves and ask them to brew tea from my tea leaves. 

Yum cha 飲茶 - Cantonese - In Mandarin it is yin cha - in Teochew we just say ziah dê 食茶 - and a Teochew in Swatow, China who says "yum cha" 飲茶 like the Cantonese

Dianxin 點心 - Mandarin - In Cantonese is dimsum - in Teochew we say diamsim.  We all use the same characters 點心.

Chinese people eat Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 during Chinese New Year because they believe it will bring them lots of money - as it sounds like cai dao 財到 in Mandarin, which means "prosperity has arrived".

When the cake goes cold, you could slice it and fry it until crispy and eat it with Teochew chilli oil 潮州辣椒油.  However, I prefer eating this cake steaming hot from the steamer with diam zion 甜醬 a sweet sauce. 

Ingredients

300 grams Rice flour - In Taiwan this rice flour is known as 在來米粉 and in HK is known as 粘米粉.

30 grams glutinous rice flour + 30 grams potato flour

2 Chinese rice bowls of stock [500 ml] 高湯 or 清雞湯 

700 grams of roughly grated bêh cai tao 白菜頭  This white turnip / carrot / raddish is called bêh cai tao 白菜頭 in Teochew and other Chinese calls this radish 白蘿蔔.  Japanese call this daikon, meaning big root, and its Latin name is Raphanus sativus longipinnatus.

80 grams echalion shallot 紅蔥頭 finely sliced and fried.  Some people scatter  iu cang 油蔥 fried shallots on top of the cai tao guê and some people also scatter roasted peanuts on the top of the cake too.  I keep my simple and I add none of these iu cang 油蔥 or peanuts as I am going to cut the cai tao guê and fry them on both sides eat them with Teochew chilli oil 潮州辣椒油.

1 continental spring onion 蔥 [60 grams] white part only, thinly sliced. 

30 grams of dried Chinese mushrooms 香菇  hio gou– about 5 pieces, soaked overnight in cold water until soft, stem removed, diced and sautéd until fragrant

50 grams of dried prawns 蝦米 he bhi, soaked overnight or for at least 20 minutes, sautéd until fragrant

80 grams of kêng cai bhuah 芹菜末 Chinese celery / Chinese parsley, finely sliced – use only the stems and not the leaves

2 tbsp cooking oil 菜油

Salt 鹽 to taste and not too much

1 tsp of Sarawak white ground pepper 沙撈越白胡椒粉

Prepare all your ingredients to make cooking easier

You can also add lah deung 臘腸 Chinese preserved sausage, if you are into high fat preserved meat with lots of added E numbers.  I am not into eating this kind of food and I have therefore omitted this ingredient. 

I steam this Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 in whatever I have in my Westernised kitchen.  I use a 18 cm spring form baking tin, line it with parchment paper, spray with olive oil on the tin and wrap the whole baking tin in tin foil to stop water entering the Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 and cover the top like as if I am steaming a Christmas pudding.  I just do not have a large Chinese steamer made from aluminum, which you see in Chinese shops.  The likely hood of me buying one is also zero.  I have an induction hob and I need iron based pots to work on my hob!

A lined 18 cm spring form baking tin

The cake is steamed in my stock pot which sits on a tripod like steaming Christmas pudding

I think you should just use whatever you have in your kitchen and not go out and buy more clutter which you will only use perhaps make this cake once or twice a year. 

Method

1.  Fry the shallots until lightly brown in about 2 tbsp of cooking oil and then add the diced mushrooms and after frying  for about a minute or two, add the soaked, drained dried prawns and fry until fragrant and then add the sliced spring onion. 

2.  After a few minutes of sautéing the above, add the grated radish, the Chinese celery / parsley and the two bowls of stock and simmer slowly, add salt and pepper to taste and taste for seasoning.

3. Switch off the heat and then fold in the flour and make sure that there are no lumps of flour in the cake mixture. 

The cooked radish before the rice flour is added

4.  Pour this cake mixture into a lined tin, wrap up with aluminium foil and also cover with foil to stop water entering into the cake.  The general instruction is to steam for 50 – 60 minutes but I am steaming mine for one and a half hours.  It does not harm the cake if you over steam it.  However, it would be a disaster if I were to under cook the cake. 

The cake mixture in an 18 cm spring form tin

The cake tin is wrapped in tin foil to stop water getting into the cai tao guê

At the end of the steaming period and the cake is revealed for the first time