新年食谱：简单美味芋头糕。Tips for Yummy Homemade Traditional Yam Cake!
The first memory i have about this dish was when I am still studying in primary school. One day, when I came back from school, I saw my mum and my elder auntie were busy in the kitchen. Both were preparing the yam, chopping, and dicing dried shrimp while I was anticipating a bite of the yam cake. However, after hours of waiting, the dish was declared a semi failure because it was too soft and couldn't hold the shape after slice. Still, I enjoyed every bite of it while smiling from ear to ear. Yam cake is not a common food that can be found everywhere in the 1980s compared to now. The only way you can taste them is to make them yourself. Furthermore, all recipes are past down verbally and have no demo or details instruction. Therefore, most nyonya recipes require certain years of accumulative experience through failures. Recipes: 1 Yam (purplish in colour) 280g Tapioca flour 220g Rice Flour 180g Dried shrimps 5 - 10 shallots 2 chillies for garnishing 1 cube of chicken stock 1 - 2 tbspn of Sugar 1 tspn of Salt Notes: So, I am here to highlight a few important steps to avoid such problems in making a yam cake. 1. In order to make your yam cake tasty and fragrance, dried shrimp is a must add on ingredients. Some will add in shitake mushroom and Chinese sausages into yam cake. However, I personally will not do so because shitake mushrooms fragrance will cancel off the beautiful fragrance of dried shrimps and lose the authentic of a yam cake. I have tried and personally don't prefer it. 2. In order to enhance the fragrance of dried shrimps, pre-stir fry them in hot oil is a necessary step. I prefer to use the same oil that I previously used for frying shallots to stir fry the dried shrimps. This will further enhance its fragrance. 3. Water and flour ratio in making all nyonya cake. In the old times, people only use one type of flour to make one cake. Seldom people will mix a certain ratio of this and that to come out a dish. The reason is that not all households have weighing machines, and all measurements are done using the same bowl. So with the recommended flour ratio, do not use more than 3 cups of water. 2 cups are already ideal. The additional cup of water is when your yam is too dry and causes your entire dough too hard. 4. While steaming the yam cake, make sure no water vapour that cooldown (condense) at the cover drip into the dough. That's why I use a bamboo steamer to cover the top. You may use cloths to cover it or wrap your pot cover with cheesecloth. This is the reason why my aunt's yam cake failed, though she measured the ratio of water and flour correctly. So BEWARE!
