Radish cake is eaten during Chinese New Year as a symbol for togetherness.   My friend, Ophelia, made the dish this year again….I wish she lived closer coz I would love to get together and have a slice delicious law bak goh!  She shares the secret from her mom — the oil keeps the batter together.  In addition, she recipe-tested my recipe and this is what she says:  “I added one cup less water than your [original] recipe – I judged it by the consistency … when it looked too watery, I added a little more rice flour.  It was 11pm by the time I was done steaming.  I decided to put the whole pan outside the door, and by the Monday it was nice and firm, ready to be fried for New Year breakfast! “  Looks like the 2010 Washington DC snowmageddon did come in useful afterall!

Anyways, I promised her if she shared the picture, the recipe will be on the blog forever so she needn’t search high and low for her copy each new year!  Here we go! Do note to add more water/ rice flour as needed.

2 lbs Chinese white radish, grated
1 cup water + about 1  1/2 cups water

4 Chinese sausages, finely diced
1/4 cup dried shrimps*, soaked in warm water with 1 tablespoon sherry, drain and chopped roughly
2 + 2 tablespoons oil
4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked, or use fresh, finely diced
2 cups rice flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon five spice powder

1 tablespoon cilantro, finely chopped
1 tablespoon scallion, finely chopped

1. Peel and grate radish. Place shredded radish in a small pot or saucepan with 1 cup of water. Bring mixture to a boil, than reduce the heat to a low and simmer for 15 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.  Transfer to a large bowl.  Let cool.  Drain radish.  Save cooking liquid.
2. Pour cooking liquid into a measuring cup. Add remaining water to make 2 1/2 cups of liquid.
3. Start a steamer over a wok of boiling water.
4. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in wok. Stir-fry sausage, 1 minute.  Add the shrimp; fry 30 seconds and mushrooms, 1 minute.  Remove from heat. Set aside.
5. To the cooking liquid mixture, whisk in rice flour, sugar, salt, pepper, 5 spice powder and reserved radish and mix until consistency of thick oatmeal.  You may need to add more water or rice flour.  Add remaining 2 tablespoons of oil.
6. Add in sausage & mushroom mixture, scallion and cilantro.  Mix well.
7. Line a 6 inch by 9 inch (or a 9 inch diameter) cake pan with parchment paper and grease with oil liberally. Pour mixture into it. Place on rack in steamer. Steam over briskly boiling water 1 hour.  The cake is somewhat gooey at this stage.
8. When cold, refrigerate overnight to firm up the cake.
9. To serve, slice 1/4 inch thick, 2 inches wide, and 3 inches long. Fry slices in 1 tablespoon canola oil until golden brown. Serve hot.

Serves: 6-8

Tags: Cantonese, Chinese, dim sum.

Rice porridge “jook” is an all day food, although typically eaten at breakfast.  Some people like their jook simple with only one choice of meat, others may add a whole enchilada of meats, pickles and vegetables. There is a popular “whole hog” version that essentially includes all parts of the pig such as large intestines croutons, red tofu – quite literally from head to tail except for the meat – before whole hog dining became trendy!

The recipe below is a base recipe for jook.

Chef’s tip:  Soaking the rice overnight helps create a smooth porridge.    Some folks believe that if you add a handful of cooked rice to the raw rice, it makes for an even starchier consistency.  If you prefer a heavier consistency, reduce the amounts of liquid.

1/2 cup jasmine or arborio rice
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
2 Tablespoons canola oil
4 cups chicken broth
4 cups water

Serves: 4

1. Rinse rice. Soak rice with salt and oil overnight in 2 cups water.
2. In a large pot, add rice with soaking water, broth and remaining water.
3. Bring to boil and turn down heat. Simmer for 1-1 1/2 hour, stirring occasionally until the rice breaks down and forms a smooth gruel.  Stir occasionally to help breakdown the rice morsels.

Variations:
For chicken jook, add sliced chicken that is marinated with sesame oil, soy sauce and a little corn starch.    Bring to a boil until chicken is cooked, about 3 minutes.  Serve with juliened fresh ginger, green onions, generous sprinkling of white pepper, a dash of sesame oil and fried garlic crisps.

For fish jook, placed sliced white fish onto a serving bowl with some ginger and white pepper. Ladle on some boiling jook.  Bring back to boil and remove from heat.  Serve immediately with julienned fresh ginger, green onions, generous sprinkling of white pepper and soy sauce.

For meatballs jook, mix ground pork with some sesame oil, soy sauce and white pepper. Using 2 teaspoons, form meatballs and drop into some boiling jook. Bring back to boil until meatballs float to the top.  Serve with julienned fresh ginger, green onions, generous sprinkling of white pepper, a dash of sesame oil and soy sauce.

The options for toppings are endless – from thousand year old eggs to pickled mustard, fried baby anchovies and peanuts to smoked tofu, pork liver, etc.

Tags: Cantonese, Chinese, dim sum.

Last night in class, we made Hainanese Chicken Rice.  The dish, often being claimed as the national dish of Singapore, always surprises folks unfamiliar to it on how tasty and flavorful it can be for a poached chicken and rice dish.  You need to use a whole chicken – chicken parts just won’t do.  Preferably a yellow-feathered, free range, organic chicken, or what they say back home, a “kampung” chicken.  The sauces are a must.

Chef’s tip: Poaching the chicken as described in great detail in the recipe – hot dip, long bath, and cold plunge  – may sound like a spa treatment, but it makes for really tender and moist chicken.  There you go -  proof that spas are good for you.

Rice:
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2 inches ginger, peeled
2 tablespoons sesame oil
3 cups jasmine rice
4 ½ cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
4 Pandan (screwpine) leaves

Chicken:
1 small chicken, about 3 lbs
2 tablespoon ginger, grated
1 teaspoon five spice powder

Soup:
2 inches ginger, peeled, smashed
3 stalks green onions, cut into 4 inch pieces
2 tablespoons Chinese wine
3 tablespoons kosher salt

1 small head of napa cabbage, tear into large pieces

Dressing Sauce:
3 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
¼ cup canola oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
½ teaspoon brown sugar

Garnish:
½ English cucumber, sliced thinly
1 cup green onions, julienned
1 cup cilantro

Preparing the Rice:
1.    Smash garlic with skin on lightly, lightly smashed with the back of the knife, garlic should still be somewhat whole.  Peel ginger.  Smash into large pieces.  Set aside.
2.    In a 6 quart pot, fry garlic and ginger in sesame oil till fragrant. Add dry rice and coat the rice with the oil.  Saute for 1 minute until rice is translucent.
3.    Add chicken broth and salt.  Tie the pandan leaves into a knot and embed into the rice.
4.    Bring to a boil.  Wrap the pot cover with a tea towel and cover the pot and simmer under low heat for 20 minutes.  Do not open the cover at all.
5.    Remove from heat, and let sit 10 minutes.
6.    Remove garlic, ginger and pandan prior to serving.  Fluff the rice.
Preparing the chicken:
7.    Mix grated ginger with the five spice powder. Rub the chicken inside with it.
8.    Fill a large stockpot of water enough to cover the chicken.  Add ginger, green onions, Chinese wine and salt and bring to boil. When water boils, dunk in the chicken and bring to a boil again.  When it comes to a boil, cover, turn heat down and simmer 5 mins. Turn off heat & leave chicken for 40 mins in the covered pot.  Remove scum that forms on top with a slotted spoon.
9.    Remove chicken, and plunge chicken into a ice water bath for 5 mins.
10.    In the meantime, bring the chicken soup back to a boil.   Turn off heat. Plunge chicken back into hot soup for 2 mins to reheat. Remove chicken, and drain. Cut up chicken to 8 pieces.
11.    Add napa cabbage to the soup, salt to taste, and boil another 10 minutes till soft.
Preparing the dressing sauce & garnish:
12.    Mince garlic.  Brown garlic in oil till light golden brown.  Remove from heat.  Let cool.
13.    Whisk into the garlic oil the sesame oil, soy sauce and brown sugar.
14.    Slice cucumber.  Finely shred green onions (length wise) and cilantro
Assembling
15.    Mount a bowl of rice, top with chicken pieces.  Drizzle dressing on chicken. Garnish with cucumber, green onions and cilantro.  Serve with Ginger-Green Onion Sauce and Chili Garlic Sauce and a bowl of the soup.

Serves: 8

Chili Garlic Sauce

4 cloves garlic
10 fresh red chilies, deseeded
5 small sweet red peppers, deseeded
1 ½ inch ginger, peeled, chopped
2 small shallot, peeled, chopped
2 tablespoons sugar
Juice from 2 limes, to make ½ cup
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
½ teaspoon kosher salt

1.    Process to a fine paste all ingredients together in a food processor
2.    Season with sugar and salt to taste.
3.    Add more lime juice if needed.

Sauce will last for 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

Ginger-Green Onion Sauce

3 inches length young ginger, peeled and grated to make to make 4 Tablespoons
1 stalk green onions, green parts only, finely minced
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 – 2 teaspoons kosher salt

1.    Grate ginger with a microplace and mince green onions
2.    In a small pot, mix all ingredients together and heat mixture.  Bring to boil for ½ minute until the mixture fully sizzles.

Tags: Singaporean, street foods.