Fuck Yeah, Yee Sang!
Singapore | Wednesday, March 4, 2015 | 1 photos
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Check this prosperous motherfucker out - no biggie that it took me a few hours to shred this shit up. Yo judging' homies, are you really gonna replicate this labour intensive bastard? Sheeeiiiiiiit, I knew I should have made a lemon cake.
A. LIST YO INGREDIENTS (TL:DR - ALL OF THEM)
OK HOMIES, you gotta get ready to shred a fuck tonne of stuff. You might have a spiraliser, if you’re some sort of paleo, gluten free homie and you’re trying to trick yourself into thinking that zucchini noodles are an acceptable substitute to real pasta. If not a vegetable peeler with teeth will do. You need the following all shredded:
200g daikon/white radish (divide into 3 piles, dye one green and one red using food colouring)
100g carrot
100g sweet potato
Finely chop up:
50g spring onions
3 small red chillis. Deseed them if you don’t want to burn people’s faces off. Leave it in if you don’t give a fuck.
Get yo fine shred on:
20g young ginger (clean, pale looking ginger, not that tough old shit)
20g pickled ginger (the pink sushi shiz)
300g smoked salmon or sashimi grade raw salmon
Other shit you’re gonna need:
50g toasted sesame seeds
70g roasted peanuts, pounded into small pieces
1 packet shredded jellyfish
1 packet wonton skins
100g shallots
Peanut oil to fry shit up in
SCARCITY OF INGREDIENTS DISCLAIMER:
End of the day, if you can’t find something, just skip it. Just not the fish though, cause people are gonna notice that auspicious shit’s missing. If you check my photo you might see that I’ve used shredded green cabbage instead of dyed green radish, cause my green food colouring went AWOL and fucked if I was missing out on ‘eternal youth’.
Following could be harder to find:
50g candied winter melon, cut into fine long shreds
100g green mango or papaya cut into fine long shreds (but fuck, don’t cry if you can’t find neither)
4 kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded (if not, use the zest of 3 small limes)
100g pomelo wedges, peeled and separate the sacs (replaceable with red grapefruit)
SAUCE INGREDIENTS
300g plum sauce
6 tbsp Ribena
3 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp garlic oil
1/2 tsp salt or to taste
Authentic touches:
1 tsp each of black pepper and 5 spice in a red packet / laisee
B. HOW TO PREPARE YOUR RECIPE
Listen up homies, this is gonna make you prosperous as fuck but imma gonna be real, prosperity don’t come easy. I recommend prepping over 2 days to avoid my 2015 five hr kitchen marathon.
DAY BEFORE
JELLYFISH: Rinse in cold water and soak for 60s in boiling water. Drain and soak in many changes of water overnight, keeping that shit in the fridge.
SHALLOTS: You can buy pre-fried but to avoid the chance of fuck no stale oil, here’s how to reduce shallot-related tedium:
1: Soak shallots in boiling water for 30 seconds
2: Immediately place in ice cold water to prevent soggy fuck no shallots
3: Cut the tops + bottoms off, the outer skin should slide straight off
4: Slice with a sharp knife or a garlic slicer. THIS BAD BOY = GAME CHANGER
Fry in hot oil, constantly stirring until they’re lightly golden. Drain on paper towel.
WONTON CRISPS: I used to make my own goddamn dough but concluded that reward << effort. So cut yo wonton skin into triangles and deep fry in hot oil until those motherfuckers are lightly golden. Mix with the fried shallots.
GARLIC OIL: You can buy this premade but for max foodie douchebag points you mince 3 peeled garlic cloves and fry in oil until lightly golden. Scoop out the garlic and reserve the oil.
HOW DO YOU LIKE DEEZ NUTS: Smash these symbolic legumes by putting them in a plastic bag and using something heavy (wine bottle, rolling pin, whatever homies no judgment).
SAUCY TIMES
Combine the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a simmering boil. Leave aside to cool before use.
WINNING FRIENDS WITH SALAD
Arrange your ingredients on a platter, ensuring that your hard labour looks hot as fuck. Just copy my photo, ok? Sprinkle the spice mix from the red packet over the salad, followed by the peanuts, sesame seeds, crisps and then the sauce. Everyone should use their chopsticks to toss the salad high while making auspicious wishes. Snack down on that magnificent sweet though piquant bastard and ponder, HOW’S THE PROSPERITY?
C. THE STORY BEHIND MY RECIPE
During Chinese New Year, everyone goes on a serious bender to make like a Daft Punk summer hit and GET LUCKY. Underpinning any good Chinese celebration is eating your way to more FUCK YEAH luck. Examples include snacking down on cut leeks (cause they look like coins), black hair seaweed called ‘fat choy’ which sounds like the prosperity part of “kung hey fat choy” and clawed crabs to guarantee you can pincer in dat coin all year.
With my familial homies, the centerpiece of every CNY celebration is a lucky salad, called yee sang (魚生) which is popular in Singapore and Malaysia. Yee sang translates directly to ‘new fish’ but in Chinese, sounds like 余升 meaning an increase in abundance. The ingredients all represent something, eg. fish symbolises a year full of excess. The 5 spice powder should attract more money and valuables. Peanuts symbolise gold and eternal youth. Sesame seeds represent a flourishing business. Scattered wonton crisps represent a floor that’s gonna be filled with motherfuckin’ gold!
For the sentimental backstory you could insert my Joy Luck Club montage here but TL:DR, this shit’s significant to me because my family labours over this each CNY to ensure we all have a prosperous as fuck year before we come together to toss that shit together. No one really makes this dish anymore because it requires some hard kitchen graft, preferring to eat it at restaurants for megabucks or buying a pre-made kit. FUCK THAT, my bad ass kitchen boss mum would disown my lazy ass if she ever caught me using a kit. This is why I’ve started slaving to make this for my Singaporean and Malaysian homies in HK, so even if we don’t get home for CNY we can get our luck on.
To serve, everyone uses their chopsticks to toss (lo hei) the salad as high as possible while making lucky wishes like mo money, a hot boyfriend or good health. Make a mess cause no1curr if shit doesn’t stay tidy. Cause per those overplayed summer hits, we lo hei to have fun, we toss yee sang to GET LUCKY.
