Chinese Steamed Pumpkin Cake 金瓜糕
If there is just one traditional Chinese snack you want to pass down to your family, it has to be this scrumptious Chinese Steamed Pumpkin cake (金瓜糕). This is a typical and popular Chinese savoury snack enjoyed by many people who like traditional and steamed cakes.
Tap or Hover to Adjust Servings
Servings: 1 tray
Ingredients
Filling
- 500 gram pumpkin, shredded
- 200 gram meat, diced, seasoned with salt and pepper
- 100 gram dried shrimp, blended coarsely
- 4 shiitake mushrooms, blended coarsely
- 150 gram preserved turnip, tai tau choy, blended coarsely
- 1 tbsp garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp shallot, minced
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
Batter
- 500 gram rice flour, sifted
- 75 gram Tapioca flour, sifted
- 1000 ml water, 4 bowls
- ½ tsp alkaline water
Seasoning
- 1 tbsp salt, adjust to taste
- 1 tsp sugar, adjust to taste
- 1 tsp chicken stock granules
- 1 tsp ground white pepper
Garnishing
- 10 shallots, or more, peeled, sliced and deep fried
- 1 red chilli, sliced
- 1 bunch spring onions, chopped
First, skin and coarsely grate the pumpkin.
Dice some meat and season with salt and pepper.
Soak dried shiitake mushrooms till soften. Drain and chop or blend coarsely using a blender.
Soak dried shrimps till soften and blend or roughly chop.
Also, soak the preserved turnip (tai tau choy) to remove excess salt. Rinse and mince finely.
Then prepare the ingredients to make the batter.
In a mixing bowl, add in rice flour and tapioca flour. Add in water slowly while stirring at the same time. Stir till a watery batter is formed.
Then add in alkaline water and stir to mix well.
Mix in salt, chicken stock granules and ground white pepper into the flour mixtures. Stir to mix well. And we're ready to make the pumpkin cake.
First, fry some sliced shallots till crispy. Set aside to use for garnish later.
Using the same wok, heat up some shallot infused oil in wok and saute chopped garlic and minced shallot till golden brown. Add in chopped dried shrimps and fry till fragrant.
Then add in the diced meat and fry till all the meat is cooked.
Add chopped preserved turnips and diced shiitake mushrooms. Fry to mix well.
Next, add in the grated pumpkin and continue to stir fry to mix it well with the rest of the ingredients.
Using a strainer, pour the watery flour batter over the mixed pumpkin mixture.
Over medium heat, continue to cook and stir until the mixture thickens.
Transfer the cooked mixture into a lightly greased steaming tray. Even out the top of mixture with a spatula.
Steam it over high heat in a steamer for 40 minutes until the pumpkin cake is totally cooked through.
Remove the tray from steamer and immediately garnish with fried shallot crisps, chopped spring onions and red chillies. Leave to cool completely before cutting the cake.
Serve with sweet chilli sauce and ENJOY!
Instructions
Enjoy!
Tried this recipe?Mention @HuangKitchen or tag #huangkitchen!
Notes
You can reserve some of the fried dried shrimps to garnish the top of the steamed pumpkin cake together with the fried shallot crisps.
If adding chopped spring onions and red chillies, it is advisable to garnish it on the day of serving and these can turn soggy if left too long.
Try to make this cake the night before so that the cake has ample time to cool completely before cutting. This will allow cutting of the cake to be neat and easy.
This steamed pumpkin cake can be kept frozen for up to a month. Just thaw and pan-fried with a little oil before serving.
The texture of the pumpkin cake ideally should be neither too soft nor too hard.