LoBakGo (Dim Sum Daikon Cake)

As a kid I actually hated radish cake, not because I’d ever eaten lobakgo (萝卜糕) but because I associated daikon with this thing that was bitter and spicy, not realizing that in the cooking process, all of that goes away. Anyways, glad I finally gave them a shot and learned to love them! But real talk, why are these often called turnip cake when they’re made of daikon radishes??

Fair warning, making lo bak go at home is a labor of love. You can speed up certain steps by using a food processor to grate, and even dice, but it’ll still take time! If I were to break it into major sections it would be 1) prep work 2) steaming 3) chilling, and 4) pan-frying.

If it’s not already clear – I’m very much a use-what-you-have cook when it comes to tools. For this, I used a steamer basket and a glass tupperware as my steaming dish. For a ~1lb daikon, you want something that has some height (~2 inches+) and something that’ll give you roughly 65-70 total cubic inches of volume. You can definitely use something shorter based on what you have in hand, you’ll just get shorter pieces (but they’ll still taste great and that’s what truly matters!!)

More snaps of the process is over on Reels!

You’ll need (makes ~12 pieces of lo bak go):

• ~1 pound daikon, peeled and coarsely grated or julienned (life hack: use your food processor grater if you have one! it saves you a ton of time and an arm workout)
• 1 cup rice flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 4 medium dried shiitake, rehydrated in 1.5 cups hot water and finely diced, save soaking liquid
• 1 Chinese sausage, finely diced
• 1 tbsp dried shrimp, minced. First soak the dried shrimp in Shaoxing wine for 10 minutes and then wash it out and remove impurities (especially where you see little black chunks of sediment)
• 1 scallion, thinly sliced
• 2 tsp oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• dash of ground white pepper
• neutral oil (such as vegetable, canola, avocado) for cooking + greasing pan

To make:

• Prep your ingredients: Peel and grate your daikon, rehydrate and dice your shiitake, soak your dried shrimp and mince, dice the sausage
• Add grated daikon to a wok or nonstick pan along with 1.5 cups of reserved shiitake soaking water (straining out sediments). Bring to boil over medium heat and then simmer covered for 10 minutes. Season with sugar and salt
• Remove the daikon and reserve the cooking liquid. I like to pour all the contents into a bowl first and then drain the liquid into a separate smaller bowl. It’s easier to handle than a wok
• Clean out the pan and heat up some neutral oil over medium heat then add in the sausage and cook for a minute, followed by dried shrimp and shiitake for 3-5 minutes until mushrooms look like they’ve shrunk. Finally, add the scallions and sauté for another minute. Add additional oil if it’s looking a little dry. Everything should be pretty fragrant at this point – especially the shrimp
• In a medium/large bowl, mix together the rice flour and corn starch. Add in daikon, and 1 cup of reserved cooking water. Then, mix in the cooked ingredients along with the oyster sauce and white pepper.
• Grease your steaming dish with a neutral oil and transfer batter into dish (I used a 6.5″x5″x2″ glass Tupperware).
• Set up your steamer basket/trivet and bring the water to a boil. Place your dish on the basket/trivet and steam over medium heat for 50 minutes. Let cool for ~10 minutes before removing from steamer
• Drain any water that has formed at the top. Cover and let cool for 1-2 hours or overnight in the fridge
• Slice the cake into squares and pan fry both sides in oil over medium heat until golden brown
• Serve with dipping sauce of soy sauce + chili oil
• Make ahead: After chilling and slicing your radish cake, you can freeze them on a tray lined with parchment for ~2-3 hours until frozen and then pop them into a ziploc. Pan-fry them straight out of the freezer whenever you’re craving a bit of lobakgo! Over medium heat for 3-4 minutes per side, covered, until golden brown