Celebrating Chinese New Year as an overseas family

'The first day of Chinese New Year is almost over and I am already running out of steam!' - I said on Thursday, and here we are, on the third day of the Year of the Rabbit, and we have all but forgotten that it's New Year.

We probably bloomed too early - to use the analogy normally reserved for daffodils that are open too early only to have had it when CNY finally comes. We've had a go at making homemade turnip cake at home for the first time, as in previous years we were actually in Asia to celebrate the festival and there was hardly the need to make anything at home because of the abundant choice in the shops. My 4-year-old did his bit and grated a good amount of the turnip we needed, but went off quickly to play with his aeroplanes.  The recipe was a cut-out from a Chinese magazine years ago when I first got married.  Never did I think that I'd be establishing a family tradition years later by making it with my children.  Here goes - with all the taels and catties (Chinese measurements) stripped out plus a little twist added by my mum:

Chinese Turnip Cake
- 800g Turnip, grated and liquid squeezed out (long type turnip from Asian or Japanese/Chinese/Korean shops in the UK)
- a teaspoon of sugar
- 160g 'Jim Mai Fun' white rice flour (from Chinese shops)
- 20g 'Deng Meen' wheat starch (a type of Chinese flour, also from Chinese shops)
- one and a half to two Chinese preserved sausages, 'Lap Cheung' pre-steamed to cook for 10 mins (from Chinese shops)
- a handful of dried shrimps, pre-soaked in water for 10 mins
- a stalk of salad onion, chopped into small pieces
- 7-8 shallots, chopped small
- 500 ml hot water or chicken stock (I had to use Chicken Bovril because I had run out of everything else!)
- preferably a non-stick saucepan

Method
1. Put a teaspoon of sugar in the turnip to take away the aftertaste. Drain the dried shrimps of the water and reserve for later. Fry the dried shrimps and Chinese sausage with the shallots until soft and add the grated turnip until all turns soft and turnip turned transparent. Add the salad onions and stir into the mixture.
2. Add the flour and stir so that it is well mixed in with the moist turnip mixture.  This stage is similar to the 'roux' stage of making a bechamel sauce.
3. Slowly add the hot water or stock to the mixture and stir to make it into an even paste.
4. Transfer the paste into a heat proof dish that you can fit into a large saucepan, with a gap for steam to come through.  Ideally one ought to buy a Chinese metal steam rack that are like metal legs that prop up a dish for steaming food.  Pop the dish of turnip paste on the metal steam rack and steam the turnip cake for at least 40 mins.
5. The cake is thoroughly cooked if you push a skewer through the middle and it comes out clean.
6. Allow the cake to cool and cut into 3/4 inch slices.  Serve warm or reheat by frying on a pan with a little oil until slightly golden.

Enjoy!