Red daikon, red mochi.

A colorful version of the Chinese snack that is called in Japan daikon mochi and I can’t pronounce any of its names in Chinese dialects… Well, radish cake.

I washed and grated my red skin daikon radish. It’s white inside as usual.

I steamed the daikon. Added an equivalent volume of mochiko (sticky rice flour) with enough water to get it creamy. For flavoring : salt, chili pepper flakes, dry shiitake mushroom, fish flakes (skip for vegan version). And fried slices of garlic.

I steamed the cakes. Let them chill.

Then pan-fried cuts of very cold cakes in sesame oil. They become creamy inside, crispy around. The flower is a slice of raw daikon.

For sauce : sweet chili sauce + Bulldog Worcester style sauce.

Sesame jewels. The Chinatown treat home-made.

Let’s continue with the Chinese festivities for Lunar New Year, click here for many ideas).
Now, 芝麻球 , zhimaqiu, pearls with sesame. Hot, golden, crispy, and the inside sweet and melting. Everybody buys them it seems. But they are really quick and simple to make. Also you will know what they are made of.

The inside is boiled azuki beans mixed with sugar (here kurozato black sugar), mashed with a fork.
The dough is made of mochiko, and you can also use shiratamako, both are processed glutinous rice flour. You really need this ingredient, or an equivalent, and not ordinary rice floor. (read here about these rice flours)
Add enough lukewarm water to obtain a sort of playdo.

Then shape the balls and roll them in sesame seeds.

Then fry about 5~8 minutes in oil at about 160 degrees Celsius.

Freshly made. They have to be served hot.
They are not as perfectly round as those you buy, but you’d solve that as doing like they do at the stalls : taking them out of the freezer into the oil. They hold their shape… I don’t think that’s necessary.

So you have a crispy thin crust around, soft white dough and creamy filling.

Enjoy with jasmine tea.

Daikon mochi, the lucky white carrot cake

That’s not a dessert of course, but the dim sum classic. Turnip cake, radish cake and I spare you the Chinese names, mostly because I’m unable of typing them. In Japan, it’s called daikon mochi. It’s actually made of daikon radish, even in China. But usually not of mochi (sticky rice), but plain rice flour.

So, shred 2 cups of daikon radish. Add 1/2 cup of water, cook a little till daikon gets a little tender.

Add rice flour. I use 上新粉 (joshinko), a processed Japanese flour. Add as much as you can to make a solid dough, still stick.

Flavoring : I fried onion, garlic and some red chili. Cut negi leek greens. Plus salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

Steam the mix till it changes of color to slightly yellow and slightly transparent. I put it about 40 min, in the rice-cooker with some water under the bowl.
Then if you’re a perfectionist, you let it chill, then place in the freezer 1/2 hour to harden and you can slice it perfectly when it’s half-frozen.

Yes, I made the casual version, I took the paste still soft with a spoon and stir-fried both sides. Serve with hot chili sauce and sesame oil as a dip. And Chinese tea.

Steamed rice pudding and burnt kabocha.

A November meal. Well, some days nothing seems to work… but at the end, you can arrange it all.

I wanted to make those fluffy streamed rice bread. Due to a problem of flour or baking powder, or both, they never raised. I got whitish puddings. SoI’ve refried them with minced onions and they took that golden colors.