Lo Bak Go (Chinese Radish/Turnip/Daikon Cake)

(This tastes way better than it sounds, I promise). 

If you've tried this dish before, it was likely at a dim sum restaurant. Dim sum places offer a quick lo bak go fix, but usually leaves me unsatisfied as restaurant lo bak go contains too much gloppy rice flour filler and isn't as firm and flavorful as my grandma's recipe. My grandma is one incredible lady though, so it might be unfair to compare anything to hers. When I lived in Vancouver, each Chinese New Year, I'd be the lucky and grateful recipient of a pan or two of my grandma's homemade lo bak go, ready to be steamed or pan-fried, heavily dipped into oyster sauce, and delivered to my belly. Man, I miss those days. 

My grandma speaks Cantonese only, and my Cantonese abilities are limited and sometimes laughable. Luckily, she's passed the recipe on to her daughters, and my mom learned the recipe from her sisters-in-law and wrote it all down in English, yay! During my last visit home, my mom bought all of the ingredients so I could learn the recipe myself. What a great way to spend a day - chopping, measuring, stirring and chatting with my mom in the kitchen, all the while preparing what we hoped to be as delicious a lo bak go as my grandma puts out! This recipe does not disappoint.

This recipe is for three 7" foil pans. This may seem like a lot, but if you're a lo-bak-go-fiend, like any self-respecting Chinese person, these 3 pans won't last long at all. Plus, there's quite a bit of prep work involved, so it makes sense to make a larger batch while you're at it. 

Yields three 7" round foil pans 

• 12 large dried Chinese black mushrooms
• 4lbs "lo bak" (daikon or Chinese radish: please see photo to the right as these are not the usual radishes used in Western cuisine)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3 Chinese sausages
• 1 tbsp dried shrimp
• 1 tbsp dried garlic
• 3 cups rice flour
• 1 cup corn starch
• 3 tbsp wheat starch
• 2 tsp salt
• chicken broth (14.5oz can, 1/4-1/2 cup as needed, and 1/2 cup as needed)
• optional garnish: sesame seeds
• oyster sauce (for serving)

Prepare the dried Chinese black mushrooms in advance, as they take some time to rehydrate and soften. Place dried mushrooms in a large bowl and cover with hot water. Let soak until softened (about 20min), then cut off stems (can be discarded or saved for other use such as soup). Do not discard the water used to soak mushrooms as it now contains a deep mushroom flavor, and will be used later in this recipe. Transfer the mushrooms to a medium pot with 2 cups of water and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low-med, cover, and let simmer for 45min until soft, checking often to ensure there is water left in the pot (add more water, 1/2 cup at a time, as needed). Remove from heat, uncover, and let cool.

Peel diakon as you would a carrot, then slice into small strips about 2 inches long. In a large pot, bring 1 1/2 cups water and 1 tsp of sugar to a boil. Add sliced daikon to pot, reduce heat to medium, cover, and let cook until daikon appears transparent (pictured left). Stir occasionally, and top up with water, 1/2 a cup at a time, if none left in the pot. Once transparent and very little liquid remaining, leave daikon in pot, remove from heat and set aside.

Fine dice the Chinese sausage, cooled black mushroom and dried shrimp. Diced pieces should be small, about the size of your pinkie finger nail. 

Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a medium non-stick pan over med-high. Add diced sausage, mushroom, dried shrimp, and dried garlic. Add a pinch of ground pepper, and stir fry til fragrant, about 8min. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the rice flour, corn starch, wheat starch and salt. Stir. Add one can of chicken broth and stir til dry ingredients moistened. Add 1/2 cup of the reserved water used to soak mushrooms, and stir. Stir in an additional 1/4 to 1/2 cup chicken broth, as needed to mix well. Set aside. 

Reheat the pot of daikon, then remove from heat. Add stir-fried mixture of sausage, mushroom, dried shrimp and dried garlic to daikon. Stir. Add the flour mixture to the pot of daikon, stirring well to mix. Add up to another 1/2 cup of chicken broth, if consistency is too stiff to mix thoroughly. Stir well. 

Divide evenly between the three 7" foil pans, smoothing over the top to finish. Sprinkle sesame seeds over top. Steam using a large pot with steamer baskets, by filling the pot with just enough water not touch the steamer basket at the bottom. When placing the steamer baskets/pans inside the pot, make sure edges of pan do not touch the sides of the pot. Bring to a boil, then steam for one hour, or until the daikon cake sets and is firm to the touch. Replenish pot with boiling water if necessary during steaming. Once the daikon cake is set, carefully remove from steamer, and cool on rack for at least 1 hour. Cover and refrigerated for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight before preparing to eat. Stored properly in airtight containers, the steamed daikon cake keeps about a week and a half in the fridge. 

When ready to make for serving, loosen the sides of one pan by running a knife along the edge. Flip over into palm of one hand to unmold, then place right-side up onto cutting board. Slice into rough squares/rectangles about 1/2-inch in thickness. Heat a small amount of oil on a non-stick an over medium heat. Add sliced daikon cake to pan and cook 3-4 minutes each side, til golden brown. You may need to cook in batches depending on how many slices you can fit onto the pan (sliced daikon should only be placed single layer onto pan). Serve hot, with oyster sauce. 

Spicy Chicken & Vegetable Stirfry on Udon

More often than not, I make noodle stir fries using the thin yellow chow mein noodles (see: Kung Pao Chicken Chow), but it's a delicious change of pace, when I remember to mix things up a little with udon. Udon is usually served as a hot noodle soup, but I find these fat, juicy noodles are particularly susceptible to soaking up sauce, so I like to use them in stir fry. 

This recipe also uses red cabbage, which I recommend over the usual green variety, because it contains significantly more protective phytonutrients (cancer-fighters) and 6-8 times more Vitamin C! 

Serves 4

• 1 skinless, boneless chicken breast
• Chicken marinade: 
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sriracha
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp cayenne 
• 7-8 cloves garlic (less if you don't prefer garlic)
• 2-3 dried red chili peppers 
• 1 small onion
• 1 carrot
• 1/2 small head red cabbage
• Sauce: 
• 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper
• 2 cups water 
• 1/3 cup oyster sauce
• sriracha, to taste
• 4-5 packs of fresh udon (200gr per pkg)
• 4 cups packed fresh spinach
• 1 small bunch cilantro
• sesame seed, garnish

A couple hours in advance, trim any fat off chicken breasts, and slice into bite-size pieces. Mix well with all marinade ingredients and set aside in fridge, allowing marinade to soak in.

Mince garlic and dried chili peppers together. 

Prepare the remaining vegetables: Thinly slice the onion. Julienne (matchstick) the carrots and red cabbage. Chop cilantro. 

Heat a small amount of olive oil over med-high in a large non-stick frying pan. Add minced garlic and dried chilis. Cook for a few minutes, stirring, til fragrant and edges of garlic turn golden brown. Remove from pan and set aside (use a large bowl or container so you can continue adding stir fried items to the bowl before mixing together at the end).

Using the same frying pan, and without adding more oil, add marinated chicken over high heat. The moisture from the marinade will keep the chicken from sticking to the pan. Stir for a few minutes until cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside. 

Using the same pan, add onion slices, reduce to medium, and let cook until onion softens and becomes clear (about 5min). Add small amounts of water occasionally as the pan becomes dry. Remove from pan and set aside when cooked. 

Add half a cup of water to the pan, increase heat to med-high, and add julienned carrots. Let steam-fry for 1min, then add the red cabbage to the carrots in the pan. Stir, and allow to steam-fry for another minute or two. Remove from pan and set aside.

Prepare the sauce in a small bowl, mixing together the cornstarch, soy sauce, ground pepper and water. 

Add the udon noodles to the frying pan over high heat, and add half a cup of water. Add more water as necessary as the water will steam off. Once the noodles have warmed up a bit, you can use a pair of chopsticks to loosen them up from their packaged brick form. When the noodles have been loosened, stir in the spinach, cilantro and all other stir fried ingredients set aside in the bowl. Give the sauce a stir as the cornstarch will have clumped at the bottom, then add to the pan, along with the oyster sauce, and sriracha to taste. Reduce to med-high heat and stir to mix everything together. Add more water to achieve desired sauce consistency. 

Serve in deep dish bowls (the noodles are slippery!), and garnish with sesame seeds.