What To Eat, What to Cook

Yu sang, or yee sang, is the familiar dish every family “lou” or toss thoroughly during Chinese New Year before consuming, hence it is also called “lou sang”. This colourful dish, which is eaten after a hearty toss by everyone with a pair of chopsticks bears auspicious meaning, promising a smooth sailing year ahead.

The lou sang for my reunion dinner last year.

While most restaurant serves this dish with either raw or smoked salmon and other types of fishes, and even jellyfish, I normally shy away from having the restaurant version because they contain a lot of junks that are made by fried coloured dough. Very unhealthy, and hard to stomach. Similar version of lou sang could be bought conveniently from the supermarket, but nothing beats the healthy, homemade version of this auspicious dish, and I am very fortunate that every year ever since I could remember, my aunt would make this this for the whole family to savour, and I am going to write down the recipe based on what I could remember.

Rest assured that everything is natural and healthy, and it contains no colouring and additives

Ingredients:

The colourful raw stuffs:
While the restaurants use colourful crispy dough, we use these stuffs, and they must be grated. So all you need is a grater, and teamwork

A grater makes your life very much easier.

1 radish
1 cucumber
2 carrot
2-3 red chillies

Red and white pomelo

1/4 red pomelo or 1 grapefruit
1/4 white pomelo

The garnishing:
white sesame seed - toasted
peanuts - deskinned, toasted and chopped

The crispy crackers:

flour
margarine
cold water
a pinch of salt

Either one of these, or all of them, as you like:

jellyfish, cleaned and seasoned in lemon juice, and cut into thin strips
raw or smoked salmon, cut into thin strips

For the sauce:

One bottle of plum sauce
Juice of 1/2 a lemon (use the leftover from the lemon you used to prepare the jellyfish)

Method:

Clean and grate the radish, cucumber and carrot. They must be in thin strips, like those thin cucumbers strips in the temaki. Arrange them nicely on a big platter. Likewise, slice the red chillies thinly (You can’t possibly grate them, no?)

Separate the red and white pomelo from their skin, and separate them sac by sac. (Did you get the idea?). Arrange them depending on your creativity, together with the ingredients you grate into thin strips just now.

As for the crackers, you can skip and have them store bought, or you can make them. I have to confirm the measurement though. Add the salt into the flour. Rub the margarine into the flour and add cold until a workable dough is formed. Flatten with rolling pin and cut into the strips. Heat up sufficient oil in wok and deep fry until the crisps are golden brown. Dish and drain on kitchen towel.

Prior to serving, gather everyone around. Spread the toasted sesame seed, chopped peanuts and crackers onto the raw vegetable. Drizzle the sauce generally, and let everyone take part in tossing.

Let the fun begins!