when my younger daughter brought a pumpkin to my elder girl's place (in melbourne), i decided to use it to make a steamed pumpkin cake ('kim kuay kueh'). my late mother-in-law used to make this kueh, using a circular aluminium tray. we would usually cut the steamed kueh into rectangular pieces and fried them until they were golden brown and crispy. it is best eaten by dipping it in chilli sauce or the 'chee cheong fun' sauce.
the ingredients for making steamed pumpkin kueh include rice flour, dried shrimps (hae bee), shitake mushrooms, chinese sausages and fried shallots. you may opt to add a couple of spoonfuls of tapioca flour to the rice flour. the hae bee have to be softened by soaking them in warm water; and the chinese sausages and the mushrooms have to be sliced thinly.
instead of steaming the pumpkin before mashing it, i cooked it in boiling water until it became soft. the next step was to fry the dried shrimps, shitake mushooms and chinese sausages. i fried them until the fragrant aroma pervaded the kitchen.
the 400g of rice flour was poured into a pot. 5 cups of hot water was added to it, one cup at a time. after adding each cup of hot water, stirred the mixture ( the 400g of rice flour plus a spoonful of salt and two tablespoons of sugar) thoroughly. after all the water had been added, the mashed pumpkin was then poured into the pot. this was followed by the fried ingredients of shrimps, cut mushrooms and diced sausages.
when everything had been added, a low fire was turned on. i continued to stir the mixture well until it became almost dry.
then i tranferred the content into two shallow trays and steamed them for one hour in a multi-tier steamer.
i left the cake to dry overnight. the next day, i cut the cake into rectangular pieces and fried them until each piece was golden brown. my younger daughter's comment: good enough to be sold.
