Wishing all my Chinese visitors a Happy & Prosperous New Year.
My New Year gift of a Yu Sheng recipe follows..
Enjoy.
My Yu Sheng recipe
Around this time of the year, pre-packed Yu Sheng galore are found in various shopping centres & markets.
In each pack, you'll find some green, red & yellow pickled stuff. Their very high sugar content & colourings, meant "chemicals" to me. The purpose of those pickles are to add colours to the dish and to make it "chi chai" (7 colours)
I prefer to employ the natural colours of the different vegetables to fulfill the 7 colours in the dish
Let me share the recipe & method of how I do it.
Ingredients: 150 gm each of the following (A)
Purple cabbage,
Radish,
Carrot,
Green carrots,
Cucumber (please get the Japanese type which is slender, firm & has very little seeds)
Turnip
(B) One Beet-root -- small to medium size
(C) A fistful of corn cereals
(D) A pc of ginger -- thumb size (abt 3 cm)
(E) 4 bulbs of pickled leek
(F) 2 red chilly (optional)
(G) Remove the pulps of 2 slices of pomelo & break them into small pieces
(H) Slice your choice of fish/seafood: (parang, Salmon, abalone...)
Omit (H) if you want a vegetarian "yusheng"
Sauces & spices:
1 bottle of plum sauce
2 dessert-spoon of Soya sauce
3 table-spoon of oil with fried shallots
3 tea-spoon of sesame oil
1 tablespoon of fried white sesame
100 gm of grounded, roasted peanut
1/3 small teaspoon of Pepper
A pinch of 5 spice powder
A few shakes of sea salt (optional)
2-3 small lime cut into half
Chopped spring onions & Chinese parsley for garnishing
Method
Slice (A) into long thin strips with a slicer, soak the sliced vegetable in ice water for about10 minutes, squeeze dry & keep in the fridge.
Most slicer can't handle (B), (D), (E) & (F). So you need to slice manually. Keep in the fridge, after slicing.
Just before dinner, take (A) out of the fridge. Lay out the all the sliced radish flat, on a large plate.
Next, place 3/4 of the the sliced carrot on top of it, in a slightly raised circular, mound. Do not cover all the radish with the carrot. Leave a circumference of about 3 -4 cm uncovered.
Divide the turnip, cucumber, carrot, beetroot & purple cabbage into 3 portions each.
Imagine that the plate has 3 sections. Distribute one portion of the turnip, cucumber, carrot, beetroot & purple cabbage in that order within one section, covering the radish circumference on the plate.
Repeat that in the other 2 sections on the plate.
Divide the ginger, pickled leek & chilly into 3 portions.
Place the ginger & chilly on top of the turnips & the leek on top of the beetroot.
Sprinkle the grounded peanut, pomelo,fried shallots, roasted sesame, chopped spring onions & parsley evenly over the arranged vegetables.
At the table:
Squeeze the lime over the fish (not necessary if it is abalone) & watch it "cooked"
Pour the fish onto the vegetable
Scatter the corn cereal on top
Add the sauces & spices according to your personal preference.
Invite everyone to toss the yu sheng together & wish everyone with the various well wishes before you tuck in.
Happy Chinese New Year
Fatt ah!!
