Rehydrate dried shrimp and mushrooms in hot water. When both are fully hydrated, drain all liquid and squeeze gently to remove any excess liquid. Save some cooled soaking liquid to make up your 2 cups of water;there is a lot of flavour in there, don’t throw it away!
Combine rice flour,cornstarch, sugar, salt, chicken bouillon and pepper in a bowl, mix in water to form slurry and set aside.
In a hot wok or pan over medium high heat, sauté diced sausage, prosciutto, dried shrimp and mushrooms until aromatic and lightly browned. Add in soy sauce and sesame oil, mix well and set aside.
In the same pan with 1 tsp oil, add grated daikon. Sauté over medium-high heat until simmering and water slightly reduced, approx. 8 minutes.
Return the sautéed meat and mushroom mix back into the wok and mix well.
Reduce heat to low, add in slurry (mixing it well first to ensure there’s no settled starch), and mix well until a thick pasty batter is formed. Keep stirring, you don’t want any browned bits here!
In a lightly greased 9 x 9 baking pan (or loaf pan), pour in your batter. Tap gently to release air bubbles.
In a steamer with plenty of water, steam pudding over high heat for 50 minutes.
When your timer goes off, sprinkle on toasted sesame seeds and/or green onions. Remove from the steamer.
You can eat it right away (which is how some dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong do it), or cool completely and place in the fridge overnight to fully set.
Once the pudding is set, slide it out of the pan. Slice into 1-inch-thick pieces.
At this point, you can either reheat using a steamer for 10 minutes until hot, or pan fry pudding slices with some umami chili oil (recipe linked on the right).
If you are pan frying, fry slices in neutral oil in a frying pan over medium heat until golden brown, then add in chili oil near the end.
Plate and garnish with green onions, more sesame seeds, and more chili oil, as desired.
Eat it while it’s hot, because when there’s lo bak goh at our house, everyone wants a piece!