White on white…

When you order Chinese carrot (chai thow koi) cake from your favourite hawker stall…

*recycled pic*

…rest assured that carrot will be the last thing you can find in that culinary favourite of many. The main ingredient is the Chinese white radish (pek chai thow) or lo bak…which, I understand, is also called Daikon.

My father would not touch it at all as he claims that it will “wash away” all the medicine in the body. But lately, I’ve heard that there are a lot of health benefits that one can derive from eating it and they claim that it can detoxify one’s body system and remove all the unwanted toxins. Well, I guess that makes sense…and certainly confirms my father’s claims that it will flush out all the medication that one has taken.

My missus will cook it as a soup…

…by boiling pork bones for the stock and adding the radish, chopped into chunks, plus salt and msg according to taste. You can add chopped daun sup (Chinese celery, which they say lowers high blood pressure) or spring onions to make it more fragrant or perhaps, you would want to add some fried sliced shallots instead.

According to this website, the Chinese white radish is also known as little ginseng in China. You can click the link to go and read about all the health benefits that it is claimed to have. In the meantime, excuse me while I go and enjoy my soup…