Radish cake in XO-sauce

With La Chouette de Champillon, Champagne brut, Blanc de Noirs

Adding the premium XO-sauce to the traditional radish cake is a popular way to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Adding sauce to radish cake is a great way to enhance the taste. This is a popular one - radish cake fried in XO sauce. XO sauce is made of roughly-chopped dried seafood, including dried scallops (conpoy), fish, and shrimp, which are cooked with chilli peppers, onions, and garlic. Since dried seafood is expensive and premium cooking ingredient, XO-sauce is also seen as a premium high-price sauce. In Chinese New Year, we put out our best ingredients to welcome the new year. Therefore, adding XO-sauce to the traditional radish cake is a popular way to celebrate the festival.

Radish cake in XO-sauce

Ingredients:

• Radish cakes, cut into 2-3cm cubes (check out my radish cake recipe here)

• 3 tablespoons of XO-sauce

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

• Toasted sesame and thinly sliced spring onion, for garnish

Methods:

1. Heat a non-stick pan in high heat and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Insert a chopstick to the oil, if the oil starts bubbling, the oil is hot enough. Add the radish cake cubes and fry each side until golden. Take out from the pan and set aside

2. Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, heat in medium-high heat. Do the chopstick test again. When the oil is hot enough, add the XO-sauce and blend well until the sauce is soften and evenly distributed in the pan

3. Add the fried radish cake cubes to the XO-sauce, fry gently for 3-4 minutes until the XO-sauce wraps evenly on all radish cake cubes

4. Remove from heat, garnish with toasted sesame and spring onion and serve

Tips:

• Frying the radish cake first before adding the sauce helps the cake to absorb the flavour. It also avoids the cake from becoming saggy and pasty

• Cutting the radish cake in cube increases the surface of the cake that is exposed to the sauce, hence it increases the flavour intensity

Wine pairing:

XO-sauce has strong salted seafood taste, it also has a hint of spiciness. The flavour is strong and can be overwhelming. I paired this dish with a glass of champagne which makes it more refreshing. As the radish cakes becomes quite oily when pan fried plus XO sauce is quite a heavy spicy sauce, the acidity citrus taste of the champagne balances out the oiliness. The toasty yeasty taste from the traditional method rounds up all the flavours nicely.

In addition, what can be better at matching the premium touch than a glass of champagne?

The champagne I tried is a little gem. It is very reasonably priced yet the quality is very high. The balance between acidity and toastiness is very well done. Finish is long and it gives complex flavour characteristics.