Fried Carrot Cake

Recently I introduced Fried Carrot Cake to my kids and now this item is under one of their favourite. 

I love my Fried Carrot Cake with dark sauce and lots of chai poh 菜葡 (prickle vegetable).

Long ago, I watched a TV program on how this chef helped a lady to create a recipe and help her to start a food stall with it.  It was very inspiring and I admire the chef for his unselfishness to share.

I really hope our TV station will work towards such program rather than all those slapstick.  I noticed that it is always that Chinese channel will have motivating and inspiring program rather than the English channel.  Such a pity isn’t it?  

When I chanced upon ieatishootipost’s, I knew I just had to give it a try.

Verdict: The texture of this recipe is very good.  Not hard and not too soft.  

What you need:

Rice Flour 250g
Tapioca flour 10g
Wheat flour 10g
Salt 5g
Sugar 15g
MSG 10g (optional)
Radish 500g
900ml chicken broth for radish

350ml water for the flour

Chye Poh (菜脯) - 1 packet
Garlic - 2 cloves
Pork Lard 250g (optional)

Method:

Coarsely grate radish.  Drain the liquid.

Mix the rice flour, tapioca flour, wheat flour with 350ml water into a thick slurry.

Heat up the chicken broth a separate pot and add salt, sugar. 

Once your stock is ready, add the radishes into the boiling broth and cook until the radish turns translucent. (5-10mins)

Add the flour mixture to the radish and stir until it has thickened evenly.  Do not cook it too dry.

Oil the pans and then add the thicken mixture.

Steam for 1 hours and leave overnight in the fridge to set.

For the condiments

Pork Lard (optional)
1.  Render the pork lard by cutting the fat into cubes and letting it render over a slow fire (takes around 30 mins).  You can add some pandan leaves for flavouring.

Chye Poh
1.  Finely chop two cloves of garlic and add them to the Chye Poh.  Add some pork lard or vegetable oil and cook until the chye poh turns brown.  You may add some sugar if you prefer your chye poh to be sweeter.


Method:

Cut the carrot cake into big cubes (abt 2cm)

Add oil to a non stick pan and when it is hot, add the cubes of carrot cake.  Press the carrot cake down gently onto the pan so that it breaks.  This creates an irregular surface which enables the chye poh and fish sauce to stick to.  This is much better then chopping the carrot cake with a knife into smaller cubes as you get only smooth surface on your carrot cake that way. 

That is why its better to start with larger cubes and break it into irregular shaped smaller chunks. The aim is to have some large pieces where you can taste the rice and radish and some smaller pieces that get charred and coated with chye poh and fish sauce.

Add fish sauce and continue to fry

Add Chye Poh mixture and continue to fry till it develops and nice crust.

Add eggs and fry till brown. 

Serve with chopped spring onions and a dash of white pepper

For a more detail step by step, visit Dr Tay's blog for a pretty comprehensive one.  So head over to his.

Source: ieatishootipost (Courtesy of Chef William Soh)


Cheers