Favorite food meme - Fried Carrot Cake ~ Teczcape-An Escape to Food

Fatty Poh, Lyrical Lemongrass, and Little Corner of Mine, all of them should know I'm a glutton by now, so they put me through a difficult test in wanting me to pick my favorite food. :O Yes, it's hard, it's tough. Hey, not talking about the food, referring to the level of difficulty to do this meme. I have many favoriteS (if there is a plural to this word, it means I can have many?) - how to pick one, just one? I'll let Fried Carrot Cake steal the limelight this time. I have soooo many favorites like all these and all these - rojak, laksa, chicken rice, bak chor mee ...the list goes on and on. Oops, my gluttony characteristics are exposed again! Hey, not this carrot cake, ok? It'll be a culinary adventure if they were FRIED?!

老板, 一盘 Chai Tow Kway, 炒黑的! (in not-so-perfect Mandarin...can someone help?)
Lao ban, yi pan Chai Tow Kway, chao hei de! (try pronouncing this, you be speaking Mandarin)
Boss, I like to order a plate of fried carrot cake, fried "black" (black: fried with black sweet sauce)

They all mean the same thing, in different languages, and yes, this is the fried carrot cake, Chai Tow Kway, I'm talking about. Singaporeans can have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even supper!!!

The main ingredient is the white radish The white radish is grated, mixed with rice flour, and together with water, the mixture is stirred while cooking. Then the thick mixture is poured in a round pan and steamed to form the carrot cake. The carrot cake is then cut into pieces and stir fried with eggs, diced garlic, spring onion, preserved radish and occasionally dried shrimp. And if you order a larger portion (higher price), some hawkers will serve it with prawns too.

When I stir fried my chee cheong fun, some readers said it looked like fried carrot cake, chai tow kway. I thought so too :) ...so much so that when I actually tried a semi-homemade fried carrot cake, it turned out another way.

Can you remember how you eat the leftover nian gao -年糕 (directly translated to "Year Cake"?- a sweet, sticky glutinous rice cake, traditionally eaten during Chinese New Year?). My family will usually cut up leftover sweet, sticky glutinous rice cake into rectangular pieces, coat them with egg and deep fry them. And this time, I thought my fried carrot cake look like fried nian gao. What do you think?

So there goes, my radish/turnip cake in fried niao gao style.

Pan fried radish/turnip cake (serves 2)
Ingredients:
-Ready made turnip/radish cake (available in some Asian supermarkets, together with the frozen buns sometimes)
-2 eggs, whisked
-green onions, chopped finely

Method:
1. Cut the radish/turnip cake into rectangles
2.Add the chopped green onions in the whisked egg
3.Heat some oil in a shallow frying pan. Add the rectangular pieces of radish/turnip cake in the eggs and mix them well for coating to spread evenly
4.Add 5-6 pieces at one time. Pan fry 2-3 mins one side till browned, then flip over and fry 2-3mins other side, till browned
4. Serve warm

Dipping sauce to recommend : Chilli sauce (garlic, or sweet...your preference)

Crispy egg edges and firm cake texture. I prefer my carrot cake "cubes" to be softer.

I don't think I can replicate fried carrot cake (chai tow kway) 100% homemade + ground-zero, with my current cooking skills. Meanwhile, every time I think of fried carrot cake, I would always think of heading back to Singapore to have it.

I'm not going to tag anyone here since I don't have such a broad database of names to choose from. But if you are YOU, and have a favorite food, rant it, rant it, we would all love to hear about it. Just do your favorite food in your blog post, and link back here. :)