The cake within

Now that I have tried my hand at chai tow kway, I realize the one I ate at Makansutra Gluttons Bay that had impressed me so much was scant on the eponymous ingredient. That would be the carrot cake, which was not at all made of carrot, but radish.

Confused? Let’s start by stating categorically: There is no carrot in Chinese carrot cake. There are actually two components to the dish. The first is the cake itself, made from rice flour, water, and sautéed grated radish, steamed until set. It can be eaten as-is, or, better, sliced into sticks and fried to a soft crisp, like French fries. It traces its origins to the Teochew rice cake dish mi gao or gao guo, which was traditionally marinated in fish sauce and/or dark soy sauce prior to being fried. The Teochew are from the Chaoshan region in eastern Guangdong, historical homeland of many Thais, Singaporeans, and Malaysians of Chinese descent, one of whom eventually added radish to the traditional rice cake in the 1960s. It is also interesting to note that they call carrot “red radish.”

Chai tow kway, on the other hand, is more like an omelette, with cubes of fried radish cake, soy and/or fish sauce, and in some cases pickled radish mixed into fried scrambled eggs. That’s the carrot cake I refer to here. And just so you get a fuller picture, it comes in two varieties, dark and white — the former using dark soy sauce, with the latter using only lighter-colored fish sauce, this also being the more recent variation.

Well, is the carrot cake pictured here dark, or white? It started out white — because that was the kind I had in Singapore. But then I got curious what dark soy sauce brought into the equation, hence a belated drizzle of kecap manis or sweet soy sauce. Tasted better that way, too.

The recipe was from Epicurious. To make the radish cake, sauté half a kilo’s worth of daikon radish, grated. Season with two teaspoons of salt and one of fine white pepper, and cook until tender/mushy. In a bowl, mix two cups each of water and rice flour, then stir in sautéed radish. Pour into oiled pan and steam for an hour (or until set). Let cool and store in refrigerator until using. Or fry a few slices right away; it’s really good.

For the carrot cake itself, fry cubed radish cake — the more, the better. You only need about a tablespoon or so of oil for this, and do not worry if cubes stick to the pan — just scrape the bottom. Meanwhile, scramble three eggs with a quarter teaspoon of salt, a dash of ground white pepper, and half a teaspoon of good patis or fish sauce. When cubes are golden brown, stir in two cloves’ worth of minced garlic, followed shortly by egg mixture. Keep beating with fork until fluffy but not dry. Serve with a garnish of chopped spring onions and cilantro (I only had parsley), and a drizzle of sriracha (or any hot sauce — even chili oil). For a darker version, some kecap manis.

But what about that funky radish smell? you ask. Interesting, because no one who ate the carrot cake brought it up (some were even surprised that it had radish at all). I take another sniff of the radish cake and it is there, all right — the smell — so I guess it’s the frying stage that finally tames it. Or is it the egg? Because the omelette somehow tastes more “eggy” with radish. I certainly had no idea I was eating radish at Makansutra, only that the dish tasted pretty good. Actually, I was wondering if the cook at Huat Huat had somehow forgotten to put in the carrot. These things happen, you know.