Taro Cake
Back to the South Arm Community Kitchen, Peggy demonstrated to us how to make Taro Cake. Taro Cake is a common dim sum item. It can be eaten fresh from the steamer or lightly pan fry to give it a crispy outer layer. The Taro Cake can be eaten as a snack or even as a meal.
Peggy made two loaves of Taro Cake in the kitchen. She also brought one which she made earlier as the cake needs to be cooled down before you can slice it up into pieces for frying. The Taro Cake is so good that the group finish all the three loaves of Taro Cake.
Peggy’s Taro Cake is filled with pork and mushroom. However, you can substitute the filings with dried shrimp and Chinese sausage which are more commonly found in Dim Sum places.
Ingredients
- 2 cups grated Taro
- 1/2 cup ground pork
- 1/4 cup chopped shallot
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced dried mushroom
- 2 cups rice flour
- 1 cup cold water
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- soy sauce paste as dipping sauce
Instructions
 Wash, peel and grate the taro. You might want to wear a pair of glove when you wash and peel the taro as the taro skin can cause skin irritation. |
 In a large bowl, mix rice flour with cold water until the flour dissolved. |
 Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the shallot until lightly brown and fragrant. |
 Add the mushroom and ground pork and stir fry until the pork is cooked. Use the back of the ladle to break up the ground pork into very small pieces. Season with salt and soy sauce. |
 Add the grated taro and immediately remove from the pan from the stove. |
 Combine the taro with the pork mixture well. |
 Add the taro mixture into the rice flour batter and mix well. |
 Add the boiling water into the mixture and stir quickly to combine well. The batter may look a bit watery but it’s ok. |
 Divide the batter into two greased loaf pans.
Steam the taro cake for 30 minutes or until a tooth pick into the center of the cake comes out clean. Set aside to cool. |
 When the taro cake is cool down, loosen the edges and invert the cake onto a chopping board. |
 Slice the cake into 1 cm thick slice. |
 In a lightly oiled frying pan, pan fry the taro cake slices until golden brown on both sides.
Serve with store bought soy sauce paste or make your own soy sauce paste as below. |
| Soy Sauce Paste:
1 cup water 1/4 cup soy sauce 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tablespoon corn starch or sweet potato starch, mix with 1 tablespoon cold water Add garlic and water to a pan. Bring it to a boil and add the soy sauce when you can smell the fragrance of garlic. Finally, add the corn starch solution a little at at time while stirring until the desired consistency. Peggy, thank you so much for sharing this popular Dim Sum recipe. |
Categorized Under: 2009 • Chinese New Year Food • Snacks
Suanne, can i use substitue taro with white radish and make lo bak go?
Hi Phil, I’m not sure if you could directly substitute taro with white radish (in term of quantity) as white radish itself has more liquid. I have a blog on how to make the turnip cake @ http://chowtimes.com/2006/02/10/lo-bak-go-chinese-turnip-cake/ but I dont have the exact amount of ingredients, just go by feel. If I can find a tested recipe, I’ll email it to you.
Thanks for the step by step photos. It’s really helpful. How long will taro cake keep?
[...] the day we made the Taro Cake in the South Arm Community Kitchen, it was an exceptional cold spring day with temperature as low [...]
Just wanted to say that I live in Friendship, WI and eat this all the time when I am in Hong Kong. When I am home I will drive to Chicago’s China Town (4 hr drive) just to eat at the dim sum restaurant and this is always one of the items that I have at the restaurant…. Thanks for the recipe as I will be making these at home…..
[...] Taro Cake – ่้ ญ็ณ – Very similar to radish cake, except the change of taro instead of radish. ย It offers a different texture than the radish cake, slightly denser. ย Here’s a good recipe from Chow Times. [...]