Sunday, June 20, 2010
Food In Singapore 7: Chai Tao Kway

In this post today I will be blogging about Chai Tao Kway, the singaporean version of Carrot Cake.

The Carrot Cake

Before misunderstandings arise, let me make it clear that there are no connections between this dish and the Western Desert of the same name, "Carrot Cake".

For our local Carrot Cake, it is made with rice flour and fried daikon (daikon is a type of radish, which might be a reason to the name of the dish). The other ingredients in this dish includes egg, spring onion, garlic and occasionally fried shrimp.

There are two variants to this dish, the black carrot cake, whereby soy sauce is added, and the normal (supposedly white) carrot cake, whereby no sweet soy sauce is added.

Preparing the Dish
The dish is prepared by first preparing the daikon cake itself by steaming it. After it is steamed, it is normally cut into pieces and stir fried together with the other ingredients (Egg, spring onion, garlic and maybe fried shrimp).

There are different ways of adding egg to the dish, depending on the customer's order of black or white carrot cake. For white carrot cake (the normal one), carrot cake is fried on top of a beaten egg to form a crust, but for the black version (the one with sweet soy sauce), the egg is simply mixed in with the carrot cake.

Spring onion is usually added just before serving the dish, spreaded over the dish itself. Chilli sauce may also be added as some people like spicy food.



Personal Opinion
I used to be a big fan of this dish, until when I was around primary 6, then I didn't like it as much, because there was a period of time when I kept eating carrot cake, and my body got so sick of it and I sort of reject it a bit nowadays. But that doesn't mean that I have some Carrot Cake phobia; I'll still continue eating it.

For carrot cake, I feel that the most important thing about the dish is not a particular ingredient, but the taste of it overall. This is because of the use of rice flour. This means that if the dish is not made properly, it will make a person sick of the dish after 2 mouthfuls of it. Thus, it has to achieve a good taste without making the consumer have the "oh my i'm sick of this disgusting flour" feeling.

Personally, I prefer normal carrot cake (without sweet soy sauce) in general. This is because sometimes hawker may add too much sweet soy sauce and thus ruin the taste of the dish totally.

Food for Thought

There are two colours to this dish, black and white. Which one do you prefer, and why?

Credits:
http://www.grampianspyreneespcp.org.au/Image/Agency%20Logo/Food%20For%20Thought%20Logo%20Reversed.jpg
http://aromacookery.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/seng_kee_carrot_cake.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai_tao_kway
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Chai_tow_kway.jpg