Yee Sang ~ Chinese New Year Raw Fish Salad

This Chinese New Year I was determined not to miss out on this 'lucky' dish. After scrutinising several recipes to work out the main criteria for the dish I went on a scouting mission in the asian vegetable shops. Being overseas means having to substitute unavailable ingredients without changing the essence of the dish too much. If you are living in Malaysia or Singapore then you will have more choice of vegetables to use.

Yee Sang is a salad of raw fish surrounded by different types of colourful vegetables with a dressing of plum sauce. It is usually eaten on the 7th day of Chinese New Year with the salad tossed high with chopsticks as a symbol to mark the start of a prosperous new year.

Yue Sang is not that difficult a dish to prepare. It just needs a small amount of different vegetables shredded into long strips. I haven't included the quantity of vegetables as this is a very versatile dish. I have only bought one of each type of vegetable and in most cases only used half of it.

Ingredients

Vegetables (long shreds):
Daikon white radish (jicama or sar kok if available is best)
Green papaya (I bought this too early and it started getting ripe)
Carrot
Red capsicum
Green chilli
2 lime leaves
2 Tbsp pickled ginger
1 pickled onions/leeks
1 sprig coriander

3 Tbsp jelly fish (cut into strips and marinate with 1 Tbsp lemon juice)


Fish :
120g fresh salmon (partly freeze to cut into paper thin slices)

Marinade fish with :
½ tsp sesame oil
¼ tsp onion or corn oil
dash sugar
dash 5 spice powder
dash pepper
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Garnishing
1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 Tbsp coarsely ground peanuts
¼ tsp 5 spice powder
yam (shred, wash off sap, dry in sun and fry until crispy)

Crispy crackers
¼ cup flour
1 Tbsp water
dash salt
Combine flour, water and salt together until smooth. Set aside for 1 hour. Roll thin, cut into strips and deep fry until golden. Snap to 1 cm pieces for garnishing.

Sauce Dressing
3 Tbsp plum sauce
1 Tbsp ground sesame seeds (Note*3)
½ Tbsp sesame oil
½ tsp sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp water
Boil and set aside to cool.

Assembly
1. Arrange the different vegetables individually around the plate with the sliced salmon in the middle, the jellyfish around the fish. Top salmon with some pickled ginger. Sprinkle over with the garnishing of sesame seeds, groundnuts, five spice powder, fried yam and crispy crackers.

2. Just before lo hei (tossing), drizzle in the sauce. (Do not add all the sauce all at once. After tossing add more if required).


Note
1. I have not included the quantity for the vegetables as it depends on the size of your plate. The exactness of the amount used is not critical.


2. These are the cutters I used to help me shred the vegetables into long strands. The potato peeler has 2 blades. On one side it is an ordinary peeler but the one with the jagged teeth cuts the vegetables into long strands. Quite a useful gadget. I bought this sometime ago at Stevens for $11.50.

3. Ground sesame seeds. I used my Amazing Bullet to grind the toasted sesame seeds. It does an amazing job of dry grinding without liquid. For convenience sesame paste or tahini can be used.