Guest Blog: Zucchini Gao！（American-Chinese 萝卜糕, LoBakGo, LuoBoGao)

Ever go to Dim sum to eat that steamed radish cake that is freshly pan-fried, with delicious thick soy sauce? Turns out the same tasty treat made at fancy dim sum restaurants can be easily made at home! And since the local grocery stores do not have daikon radish available for curbside pickup, an easy, delicious and economical substitution is zucchini! 

... especially if your zucchini plants look anything like ours. 😁

First start with fresh, tender zucchini. You need about 4 pounds. 

Next, grate it. You can use a hand grater, a food processor, or be like me and zap for a minute or so in the dry Vitamix container (on variable speed 2). 

Here are all 4 pounds! 

Then stir-fry with a tablespoon of oil, adding 1/4 cup of water until nearly translucent. Below is what it should look like AFTER cooked (check out my well-seasoned wok in the back -- oh yeah!). 

 

 

While the zucchini is cooking, mix 1 pound of rice flour with 3 cups of water. This is the rice flour I used, but the Red Elephant brand is good too. 

This is also when you can get your steamer setup ready. You can use the traditional bamboo steamer trays inside of a wok filled with water. 

Or, you can use steamer trays over a rice cooker (quite convenient!). 

If you are using a steamer tray, one easy way to set up the tray is to line it with aluminum foil, grease it, and use bamboo segments to keep the steam vents open. Alternatively, you can use heavy duty aluminum foil, which holds its shape enough to keep the steam vents open. 

But in this case I just greased some glass oven loaf pans and placed them in my steamer. 😉

Steam for 1 hour. Turn off the heat and let sit for 10 minutes before removing. 

Then remove, slice, pan-fry and enjoy! 

You can eat them plain, or with soy sauce paste. 

Optional: You can add soaked, sliced shiitake mushrooms, soaked dried shrimp, and/or pork/Chinese sausage. If using optional add-ins, stir-fry these prior to adding zucchini. 

Steamed Zucchini Gao Recipe

Ingredients: 

1 lb. long grain rice powder mixed with 3 cups water 

~4 lbs. zucchini + 1/4 cup water

Optional add ins: shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, pork/Chinese sausage 

2 1/2 tsp. salt 

1. Stir-fry optional add-ins, if using. Then stir-fry zucchini with 1/4 cup water until translucent. 

2. Add rice powder/water mixture slowly. Mix well, until thick, then turn off heat. 

3. Steam for 60 minutes in greased dish. 

4. Let sit for 10 minutes before removing. 

5. Remove gao, slice, saute, and serve with soy sauce paste!