Do you have any particular food that you’ve been wanting to make, cook or bake but never realizes?

Yam cake or better known as ‘wu tao gou’, ‘yu tou gao’ is one of those foods that falls right into the category above for me. You know.. no sense of urgency to make it, because it is readily available everywhere… Until one fine day, when i tasted the homemade version given to me by the boy’s teacher.

That was when i went, ‘whoaaaaaaaa!’

Needless to say, i was blown away!

Homemade version tasted so darn good!!!

So good that i actually finished up the whole box while driving, picking the yam cake up pieces by pieces by hand(!) – something which i never do while driving because i do not like to dirty my steering wheel and my car. (me no like baby roaches “shopping around” when i’m driving halfway, WHICH, had happened before… not once, not twice but many times!)

Of course i managed to get hold of the recipe from the dear teacher, die die must get it ah! :P

Yam Cake

Makes 1 round metal container (diameter : 27cm)

300g rice flour – soak in 900ml water for 30 minutes before cooking
700g yam – shave off skin, dice into 1 cm cube and soak in a basin of water
50-100g lean meat – diced finely
1 no chinese sausage – skinned, steamed and diced finely (i skipped this)
6 nos dried mushrooms – soak in water until soft, wash thoroughly and dice finely
8 tbsp dried prawns – washed, soak in water till soft and pound roughly (i’d pounded 5 tbsp and cut up the other 3 tbsp)
5 tbsp sesame oil
salt & pepper to taste

Garnish
10 nos shallots, fried
1 spring onion, cut finely
2 red chilies, cut finely

Method
1. Using a wok, stir fry pounded dried prawns in sesame oil for 3 mins till fragrant
2. Add diced meat and mushrooms and fry for another 2 – 3 mins
3. Drain diced yam and add to the fried ingredients and fry
4. Fry well for 2-3 mins till yam changes colour
5. Stir rice water mixture till well blended and pour into wok
6. Combine all ingredients and stir vigorously to prevent clumping at the base
7. Add seasoning to taste
8. When mixture thickens, turn off fire
9. Transfer half cooked mixture to a container for steaming
10. Steam for 30-40 mins. Test for doneness when diced yam breaks easily
11. Sprinkle garnishing and ready to serve!

Tip : choose yam that is light weight to get the ‘melt in the mouth’ effect. leftover yam cake can be lightly fried or steam the following day

Note : i would halve this recipe the next time. way too much for my family of 6 :)

Note 2 : homemade version doesn’t have smooth, clean-looking surface like the ones outside. don’t be upset by its ugly appearance yeah even though i did, for a while .. thinking i had done something wrong! alas, i found out home made ones with tonsss of yam cubes are all like that! ;)

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That evening, i gave boxes away to friends and family.

To my surprise, one of my friends i gave the yam cake to, made me some dried prawn chili sambal that day as well! The sambal went swimmingly well with the yam cake.

“Dried prawns + sambal + yam cake which also contains traces of dried prawns….”

Life cannot be better!! *grin*

On a serious note, because of this homemade yam cake version, i have sorta stopped eating the ones sold out side. They may look prettier yes, but taste wise… this one wins hands down!!!