daikon turnip pudding

(Date: 5 Feb 2013)

The 25th recipe in 2013. This recipe is heavily adapted from "Savoury Kagoshima Thick Cut Daikon Turnip Pudding" from a cookery class organized by Intercontinental Hotel. I basically followed the ingredient ratios with some modifications. A very different method had been used to make the puddings though.

What I used? (for 6 small trays of 13x4cm, 420g each)

1.1kg daikon turnip

300g rice flour

80g water chestnut flour (馬蹄粉)

200g Chinese preserved sausage (臘腸)

115g dried shrimps (蝦米)

30g dried scallops (乾瑤柱)

60g sunflower oil (approximately)

1000 + 200ml water

15g coarse sea salt

6g granulated sugar

4g low sodium chicken powder

a pinch of white pepper

What I did?

Mix the rice flour & water chestnut flour in a large bowl. / Chop the turnip into 2-inch sticks. Half of them is as thick as index fingers, while another half is as thin as chopsticks. / Add thicker turnip sticks into 1000ml of boiling hot water in a pressure cooker, together with chicken powder, white pepper, salt and sugar. / Add the remaining turnips after 10 minutes and continue to boil. / Drain after another 10 minutes. Keep the resulting turnip soup. / Soak dried shrimps and scallops into the turnip soup. Meanwhile slice the Chinese preserve sausages. / Briefly stir fry with sausage slices with sunflower oil. Add the cooked turnip and the dried shrimps & scallops. / Pour the remaining turnip soup (which was used to hydrate dried shrimps & scallops) into the large bowl of flour. Mix well until there's no lump. / Pour the flour mixture into the pressure cooker. Mix well while cooking at low temperature. Add more water if it looks too dry (I added an extra 200ml here - it really depends on the quality and water content of the turnips.) / Stir till all ingredients are well mixed. Taste and see if additional seasoning is needed. / Divide the mixture evenly into 6 small trays. / Wrap with aluminium foil. Steam for 20 minutes with pressure setting 2 (or steam for 1 hour if using non-pressure pots)

What I felt?

This is my first time to make turnip pudding with water chestnut flour. I was a bit disappointed with the texture at first because it's very soft and actually a bit too soft compared with the two different recipes with wheat flour (澄麵) I tried last year. It didn't feel like the traditional Cantonese turnip pudding I used to have but more similar to Taiwanese rice flour pudding (米糕). But fortunately they did harden up after cooling down and became much more delicious. I believe they will taste better after a light stir-fry. Flavour-wise, I am quite happy with it.

How good was it? 7/10. I think it is quite flavoursome but a bit softer than I'd like. Yet I suspect it may keep longer and better in fridge compared with the wheat flour ones -- I found wheat flour harden up pudding too much after two or three days. If I made it again I would try to replace half of the water chestnut flour with wheat flour.

How easy was it? 5/10. Turnip pudding isn't exactly the easier and quickest Chinese New Year treat to make. I think the problem is that every turnip is different. Some people may get turnips with higher water content, dependent on how fresh it is or what breed it is. That's why some recipes work for someone but not for others. It needs a bit of subjective judgement (and experience) to determine how much water to be used. It can be quite daunting and demanding for beginning home cooks.

How economical was it? 6/10. Not very economical. Now we can often buy Daikon turnip from ordinary supermarket at reasonable price (UK supermarkets Waitrose, Tesco & Asda all carry it almost throughout the year). However Chinese preserved sausage, dried shrimps & scallops are still regarded as specialty ingredients which may only be readily available in Asian supermarkets (which unfortunately is a synonym of overprice). The 6 trays of pudding cost about £8 to make -- and the cost of the aluminium trays is not included. That's another £2+!

Will I make this again? Yes. I'm likely to make turnip puddings again next year with this recipe with some modifications. Am glad that through this recipe I've learnt the use of water chestnut flour can soften up turnip pudding. But I think I'll replace half of the water chestnut flour with wheat flour to add a slightly harder and crunchier bite as well.

Note to self? (1) I used cuttlefish preserved sausage (吊片腸). Got a feeling that it's not as flavoursome as other types of preserved sausages but the bright side is it's not too oily and heavy. (2) I read from somewhere that the end sharp tip of daikon turnip has pungent sharper taste while the rest part of the turnip has a mellow fuller flavour. Hence I think it'd be good to remove the tip or pick one without it.