Steamed / Fried Carrot Cake

What's the best thing about home-cooked food? You can make it anytime and you're assured only the best ingredients goes into the making!

I've been having this unsatisfied craving (I can't take those sold outside for health reason) for fried carrot cake (or what we call "Chai Tow Kway" in Singapore), I just want to eat it, regardless if its the black version fried with sweet soya sauce or the white version fried with egg and chai po.

Finally the craving overwhelmed me and I knew I had to learn to do it myself I want to eat it. So what do we start with? Making the steamed carrot cake of course =), luckily this is easy and can be done quickly. The challenge is to produce a carrot cake that is not too soft (you wouldn't want a mashy chai tow kway would you) or too dry.

I used almost equal amount of carrot and radish and hence my carrot cake is "decorated" with orange strips of carrots which I think looks quite nice haha. This is what I get:

You can eat it on it own with chili sauce or your favourite sauce, but for me, I love it fried. The first chai tow kway from my kitchen!!

The black chai tow kway, fried with sweet soya sauce (Kicap Manis)

The white chai tow kway, fried with lots of eggs.

These might not be the best chai tow kway around, and definitely do not have the "wok hei" or the charness of those sold in hawker centre, but who cares, its tasty enough for me and I've got my cravings satisfied and I'm comforted that these are much healthier than those sold in hawker centres. Now I can have it anytime I want!


Steamed Carrot Cake

Ingredients

200g radish, shredded, squeeze dry
150g carrots, shredded, squeeze dry
350g rice flour
1L water
30g dried shrimp, diced
Olive oil for frying
salt, sugar to taste

Method

1. Mix the flour with water.
2. Heat some oil in a wok and fry the dried shrimps till fragrant. Add in raddish and carrot and fry for a while. Mix rice flour solution well and pour into wok slowly.
3. Add seasoning, mix well and cook at medium heat until mixture starts to curdle.
4. Pour into a greased 7" baking tin and smooth the top of the mixture with the back of a spoon.
5. Steam on high heat for 40-45 minutes till cooked.