Fried Carrot Cake

Fried carrot cake (chai tau kuih) with bean sprouts

I couldn't resist the temptation, so I made carrot cake a few days ago. Making the cake itself is not difficult. It's made from grated daikon/radish, rice flour, water, tapioca starch and seasoned with salt, soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil. I also added a little alkaline water to improve the texture. This is steamed for about 40 minutes, and then cooled before cutting into cubes for frying.

I fried the carrot cake two ways: the white version and the black one. The black version has dark caramel soy sauce added to it, plus extra sugar for sweetness. I also used a little kecap manis as it has a sweeter flavour compared to regular dark soy sauce. No salt or soy/fish sauce is added to the dish when frying as the preserved radish (chai poh) is already salty. However, I did add a little fish sauce to the beaten egg mixture before pouring them over the carrot cake in the pan, just for a touch of seasoning.

I like my carrot cake cut up into tiny cubic pieces, covered with moist bits of egg. I don't particularly fancy chunks of egg in it, so I make sure that I mix the carrot cake around in the egg before it sets so that it coats all the pieces evenly. At this point, I also add a little of the dark soy sauce over the eggs so that they are slightly sweet and moist, before adding more sauce over everything else. To make the dish more substantial, I also tossed in a few seasoned prawns. The beansprouts are added towards the end along with the chopped spring onions. Yum yum....carrot cake is served!

Fried carrot cake with bean sprouts, shrimp and sweet black sauce