Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year is fun because it is a time for great family gatherings!

Each year we eat lots and tonnes of good food, and of course this would include the traditional chinese new year cakes! This year, I made my second attempt to make the turnip cake.  It was very delicious, obviously, because I put soooo many ingredients inside! My mom almost wanted to kill me because I used sooo much of her very expensive dried scallops... lol

Anyway, I was very happy with the finishing product and it was a fun experience although it was very tiring to shred all the ingredients... and it was very sweet that my boyfriend did all these with me, and tolerated my bad temper throughout cooking.. shouting at him ... haha.

Here's the recipe!

CNY Turnip Cake

For one 6" pan:

Ingredients:
Turnip 1200g
rice flour 125g
corn flour/ corn starch 1tbsp
dried big mushroom (花姑) 10 pieces (or less)
dried scallops 10 pieces (or less)
dried shrimps 15 pieces
oil 2tsp
oyster sauce 3tbsp
pepper 1tsp
diced shallot 1 tbsp

Procedure:
1. Shred the turnip into ribbon like pieces and save up the water that comes out from the turnip.
2. soak the mushrooms, dried shrimps and dried scallops in separate bowls of warm water to soften them and then steam them for 20 minutes.  Tear the dried scallops into little pieces.  Cut the mushrooms and dried shrimps into little pieces. Save up the water that was used to soak the dried scallops and mushrooms.
3. Heat the pan with 1tsp of oil and add in the turnips plus the water that came out from the turnip. Stir-fry until the turnip pieces become soft. Turn off the fire and add in oyster sauces and 3 tbsp of water that was used to soak the dried scallops.
4. Heat another pan with 1tsp of oil and stir-fry the mushrooms, dried shrimps and dried scallops. Add in the turnip and mix well. Add pepper to taste.  This is the turnip mixture.
5. Sieve the rice flour and corn flour/starch and add them into the turnip mixture. Mix well.
6. Put the mixture into aluminium foil bowls that are slightly scanted with oil. Steam it for approximately 40 minutes. You may pour all the water that was used to soak mushrooms, dried shrimps and scallops into the water for steaming the turnip cake. It will add to the smell of the turnip cake. :)
7. Add in the diced shallots.
8. Ready to serve or can be fried again to serve.

It can be kept for around 1 week in the refrigerator.

The original recipe can be found here.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! :)

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY (January 2012) hosted by Wen of Wen's Delight.