CSA week six - turnip cakes

It looks like there won't be many surprises this week as, for once, I'm making exactly what I said I would on Saturday afternoon. I looked around at the selection of recipes available online and settled on this one as it looks like the closest match to the Sunday morning dim sum version I've been craving. Plus, I always appreciate recipes that call for an actual volume of shredded vegetables instead of saying something like "two turnips". Who knows how big their turnips were and how the ones I've got compare, particularly with the much wider variety you get from local organic farms. Anyway, I made a couple small modifications. First, I added a dried shiitake mushroom, soaked, diced small and stir fried with the sausage and shrimp. That's a pretty standard addition. I also used the mushroom and shrimp soaking water in the batter to add a little extra flavor.

I used both daikon and both turnips and barely reached the 2 1/2 cups of shredded turnip needed for the recipe. However, one of my turnips was a tiny little thing so you may have an easier time of it.

Next time I think I'd reduce the water by a quarter or half cup. My batter ended up rather thin and all the good stuff floated to the top during the steaming process. I was rather hungry by the time the turnip cake had cooled so I skipped the final step of pan frying it. I recommend not doing that; the rice flour paste still tastes a bit raw and browning does it a world of good. I'll post a picture of that in a day or two depending on when I end up cooking the Indonesian dishes and when I pull out the leftovers. (There it is, badly lit and blurry but you should get the idea, below.)

I also recommend serving it with oyster sauce. It matches beautifully with the flavors in the dish.

Otherwise, I don't think I have anything more to add to the original blogger's write up; she's got it well covered.