Recipe: Fried Carrot Cake

Note: Further tries of this recipe has resulted in refinements.  Please note that I've made changes to instructions below. (Nov 8, 2013)

What we call white carrot is radish/daikon to others.  One of Singapore's favorite breakfast hawker food is fried carrot (radish) cake.  While it wasn't one of my must-have dishes when I go to a hawker center, of course, with distance and time, I crave it recently.

There are two steps to making fried carrot cake from scratch.  Part 1 - making the steamed carrot cake. Part 2 - frying the steamed carrot cake.

There are many recipes for steamed carrot cake online and I can't believe how many don't have idiot-proof instructions - I'm an idiot in the kitchen and without clear instructions, I am unable to get the ingredients to speak to me in a coherent way.

So of course, the first attempt was a near-disaster.  I had too much water in the mixture, too little radish and the cake didn't quite firm up, ending up with the consistency of mochi.

Then I did more research and with some guesswork, my second attempt turned out better.

Part 1: Steamed Carrot/Radish Cake  (Makes 4 portions)
500g julienned white radish
300g rice flour
350ml room temperature water
800ml hot water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon stock powder of your choice

1. Mix rice flour into room temperature water.
2. Heat 800ml water in a wok/pot and add radish when boiling.
3. Cook until radish is transparent.
4. Add salt.5. Add rice flour slurry.  Stir until mixture is thick and pasty - won't take long.
6. Pour into a shallow tray and steam on medium to high for 1.5 hours.  
7. Remove and let it cool to room temperature.  It should firm up by then.  Cut and store in container in fridge until you're ready to use them.  Consume within days because this doesn't have preservatives.

The "steamer lifter" tool Leon brought from Singapore came in useful! 

Part 2: Fried Carrot Cake
2 cloves of chopped garlic
2 cups of cut up carrot cake
1 tablespoon or preserved salted radish (chai poh - soak in warm water for 5 minutes and then squeeze it dry with your fingers before using.  This stuff is freaking salty.)
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
White pepper powder
2 eggs, beatened

1. Stir-fry garlic in heated non-stick pan until fragrant.
2. Add carrot cake that you want to eat. 
3. Stir-fry with fish sauce.  You can also add a bit of prawns if you like.
4. Give it a chance to brown slightly on one side first before chopping up the carrot cake with your spatula. Resultant pieces should be dainty bite-size.  ("dainty" is important because to my husband, bite-size is about fist size or what he can bite off in a huge bite.)
5. Spread pieces of carrot cake in a single layer.
6. Add remaining fish sauce and a puff of white pepper powder.
7. Pour beaten eggs over carrot cake.  Wait for eggs to brown and cook on one side.
8. Flip over to continue cooking, like cooking an omelette.
9. Cut into large blocks and serve with another dash of white pepper powder and chopped spring onions.

Tastes pretty authentic.  Texture not quite there.