Carrot Cake and Otah (Asian Spiced Fish Paste)

In most of Asia, we do so love our starch and carbs. So much so, that sometimes for breakfast, we have meals that are like an entire course in itself. My family has such habits over the weekends when everything slows down a notch or two and we can enjoy a leisurely breakfast together.

One of the regular breakfast foods we have is Fried Carrot Cake. Over here, we are not referring to the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting that is literally a cake. The ones we have here, uses white carrots (I think?) and it is a smooth paste that is steamed, before being fried, cutting the cake into tiny bite sized portions. We have two versions, the 'white' and the 'black' and it is usually fried with eggs and spring onions. The white is fried as is, the black is a sweet black sauce.

Recently, mom bought another version of this Carrot Cake also known to locals as 'Cai Tao Kway' (Loosely translated to mean Carrot Top Cake). It is about the size of an index finger and it is pre-fried. I have tried this before, piping hot with a warmed otah. Otah is another local speciality. It is a fish paste mixed with herbs and spices, spread onto banana leaves measuring 15cm by 3cm. It is then placed on one of those small grills and toasted till slightly burnt.

I forgot to take a pic of the Otah in its entire glory, but this is what I had for brunch yesterday. It is quite delish if not overly carb filling and not something I can take too many times in a month.

Fried Carrot Cake and Otah

Does it resemble french fries? It probably has the same amount of oil since it is soaked in as much oil during the frying process.

This is the famous Otah.

Quite a nice match if I do say so myself.