January 22, 2007
Bay Area Chai Tow Kway (Radish Cake)
Yay! I got this right! Now I can have my (radish) cake and eat it.
I stir-fried an experimental dark Chai Tow Kway dish sometime ago, but that didn’t quite work out as I did not have sweet soy sauce, so I just used light and dark (savory) soy sauce and it tasted weird, really weird. I don’t suggest you go that route! I will make dark Chai Tow Kway again another day with the appropriate sweet soy sauce.
With the experience from that previous experiment, I decided to have a go at the light Chai Tow Kway instead. As self-made Singaporean millionaire Adam Khoo says in his life coaching classes, “There is no failure, only feedback”, the previous experiment was feedback to me on what I shouldn’t have used and also what ingredients to add to make the Chai Tow Kway tasty.
Experiment gone wrong: Dark Chai Tow Kway with wrong soy sauce.
Success: Light Chai Tow Kuay with a host of savory ingredients!
So here goes… the successful Chai Tow Kway recipe:
Ingredients (Serves 1):
- 2 cups pre-made Radish Cake, cut into 1/2″ cubes
- 1 tsp garlic, minced
- 1 tsp shallots, minced
- 1/2 small Chinese sausage, cut into small pieces
- 1 tbsp Chai Poh (dried radish)
- 1 tbsp spring onion, chopped
- 1 egg
- chilli paste (optional)
- 2 dashes fish sauce
Cooking Method:
1. Heat up 2 tbsp vegetable oil. Medium heat. Stir fry garlic and shallots until fragrant. Then add Chinese sausage and Chai Poh (dried radish) and stir fry for a minute or so to cook the Chinese sausage.
2. Add Radish Cake cubes, mix well with stir fried ingredients and spread well on the pan to let it pan fry until you get golden brown bits on the Radish Cake cubes. Add fish sauce and add more oil if necessary. Stir fry occasionally.
3. When Radish Cake cubes are quite soft and have brown bits on it, make a well in the center of the pan and add egg. Mix well.
4. When egg is cooked and slightly browned, you are ready to serve. Garnish with chopped spring onions.
Cooking Notes:
1. The Chai Poh (dried radish) and fish sauce are salty, so no salt or light soy sauce is required. Do a taste test before serving to decide if you want to add another dash of fish sauce then mix well.
2. If you want to add chilli paste, you can add it during step one. Stir fry the chilli paste to exude its fragrance!
3. I bought my pre-made Radish Cake from Ranch 99. It came as a block about 6″ by 4″ by 3″. I just portioned two half inch slabs for one person’s serving and cut the slabs into small cubes.
Bite This!
More recipes:
Found: Chai Tow Kway in Ranch 99
My Singapore Food Cravings (4): Kway Chap
The Unorthodox Char Kway Teow Recipe
Easy Chinese Recipe: Pork and Szechuan Vegetable
My Singapore Food Cravings (5): Mixed Pig Organ Porridge
Subscribe to feed
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
hmms.. this looks good. i never had radish cake before. is dry radish a must? where would you find it in a 99 ranch? in the seasoning aisle?
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Thanks BuddingCook! Dried radish is part of the ingredient list for this Chai Tow Kway dish. The dried radish is found in the dried ingredient section. Usually the same place you will find red dates, dried fungus etc.
If you haven’t tried radish cake before, then I suggest you try it by itself first to see if you like it.
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:29 pm
What is radish cake anyways? Is it made from radish?
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
It’s made from rice flour (mainly), shredded radish and sometimes with bits of Chinese sausage. You can get pan fried radish cake from dim sum restaurants. They are rectangular in shape and almost always look very oily.
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Looks like the real deal! Wow!
You found Chai Poh finally! I’m surprised it’s in the dried goods section instead of in the dried shrimp/anchovy section.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:46 am
Mine got more ingredients (liao4) than the real deal. This is a super deal. Haha!
Dried shrimp needs to be refrigerated, but not dried anchovies or chai poh. So the latter two are found in the dried ingredient section. Chai Poh can also be used to make Chai Poh Egg, so luckily I won’t be using it to just make Chai Tow Kway! Am making that again today. Woohoo!
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:04 am
I see that you make your own chai tow kway now :-) Looks good! I like the white kind just like how you fry it.
no need to come back to hawker centre in sg to eat liao… u are doing a great job!
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:12 am
Yum! We had chai tow kway while in Singapore. Good to know I can make them at home when I get the craving! I bought a pack of Chai Poh back from S’pore…it just taste different from the ones here. Thanks for the recipe!
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:58 am
I like the white one better anyways. And I LOVE Chai Poh egg. I bought some in Singapore, coz I feel it tastes slightly different from the U.S. version.
January 24th, 2007 at 1:03 am
oh my godddd, I always get this at ranch 99 too, not expensive at all, and much better than the taro ones, coz the dikon cakes is richer in taste, and already added the dried shrimps, damn good !! :) wahh, topped it off with some fried shallots, yummy oo :)
January 24th, 2007 at 8:44 am
KeropokMan - Hehe.. I still must render support to my Maxwell Food Center Chai Tow Kuay stall.
Mina & Ray - I am sure you had a GREAT time eating Hawker Food in Singapore. Can’t wait to read more about what you girls ate so that I can make sure I do not miss out on anything!
MW - I haven’t tried the taro ones, but I believe you and your taste judgement so I will stick to this daikon cake. ;)