A few weeks ago, my mom made this steamed yam cake and gave me some. It brings back my memory of my grandma making it. Grandma have more ingredients in hers, and my mom change some ingredients. This yam cake is grandma all-time favourite. Ask mom for recipe, I too change the ingredients.

Yam cake is a popular Chinese dessert for Malaysian and Singaporean. Perhaps in many Asian country are also making them. Yam cake is also known as Taro cake, it’s a savoury treat that you can find in the Dim Sum Restaurant and shops serve as breakfast, along with har kao (shrimp dumplings), siu mai, char siu pao and many others.

Grandma’s yam cake usually garnishes with deep fried shallots, spring onions, chillies and dried prawns. I didn’t garnish it like my grandma and my mom. I just make the yam cake and have it with siracha chili sauce. This is my first time making it and I am happy it turned out well, firm and taste delicious.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups rice flour
1/2 cup cornflour
1 L cool water (Tap)
4 Tbs vegetable oil, divide
200 g dried shrimps soaked in hot water 30 minutes, squeezed and finely chopped
3 dried mushrooms, soaked in hot water 30 minutes, diced
2 Chinese sausages /lap cheong, finely chopped
Half yam, about 380-400 g, remove the skin, diced into 1 cm cubes
1 Tbs garlic minced
1/2 Tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
1 Tsp salt, plus extra
1 Tsp pepper, plus extra
1 Tsp sugar

Method

Mix rice flour and cornflour with water, then stir until it forms a smooth paste. Make sure there are no lumps in the mixture. Heat 1-2 Tbs oil in deep saucepan on medium heat, fry garlic, shrimps, mushrooms and sausage till slightly coloured and fragrant about 3-5 minutes. Add yam, five spice powder, salt, sugar and yam batter in.

Cook on low heat, stirring and scraping sides of saucepan continuously for 10–15 minutes, till the mixture is a thick starchy paste. Taste and check seasoning if needed more salt or pepper.

Transfer to greased 1-2 Tbs oil all over the round tin with handles on both side about 22 cm. Smooth the top. You will need a big wok and lid that can fit your round pan. Place a round iron rack in the wok to hold baking tin on. Fill with enough water say about 2-3 cm space to the rack.

Put yam cake pan sit on top of rack and turn heat high and steam yam cake with lid on wok for about 40 to 45 minutes or until cooked. Don’t worry if yam cake looks a little wobbly when you bring it out of the steamer, it will definitely firm up when it had cool completely.

Be careful when lifting the hot yam cake pan out of wok. Let’s it cool for about 2-4 hours by then it would have firm up. Cut into a long strip and then cut into pieces. Serve it with chili or tomato sauce or garnish with fried shallots. If it had gone cold you can warm up in microwave for 20-25 seconds. Enjoy!!!!

https://helenscchin.com/2022/04/23/yam-cake/

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