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Yee Sang is one of my very favourite Chinese New Year foods, together with bah kwa and pineapple tarts that I had previously blogged. In my first few years in the UK, I sorely missed yee sang. I even got boxes of prepacked dried yee sang sent over; but it was never quite the same. Not only does this craving happen in the UK; when I was in the US a bunch of us ordered yee sang at a chinese restaurant one Chinese New Year; only to be served sashimi! It only served to compound my yearning for this obscure dish – and in the end, it was just easier to make it myself. Which also means I can put in more smoked salmon. WIN!

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Yee Sang is a traditional dish only eaten by the ethnic Chinese population of Singapore & Malaysia. It does not originate from China and very few Chinese people out of Singapore & Malaysia know it. It is also only available during Chinese New Year; as it is a popular ‘prosperity’ dish served during the festive period only. Yee Sang really means raw fish (thus the sashimi adventure we had) , and usually it is served with jellyfish, raw hamachi or raw salmon. Here in the UK, I always use smoked salmon when a recipe calls for raw fish; it is pretty obscure to find sashimi-grade fish here. I can get jellyfish though; which bacon actually prefers so it’s smoked salmon for me and jellyfish for him.

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My recipe is not totally authentic; but the textures and colors are spot on; and most importantly, it TASTES the same. This dish is traditionally eaten with a tableful of friends and family; and making it myself allows me to have it in smaller portions, but have it at any time I like. It would be pretty hard to find 10 people to eat this with me every day as tradition calls for . I came up with quite a number of replacement items (missed out certain things like sweet preserved melon ect) ; you can change and tweak the recipe below as per availability of ingredients to you.

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Yee Sang

thinly shaved cucumber
thinly shaved carrot
thinly shaved daikon
thinly sliced pickled sweet onions
thinly sliced spring onions
fried wonton skins, crumbled
smoked salmon or jellyfish
cilantro
julienned gari (pink sushi ginger)
flaked pomelo (chinese grapefruit)
toasted & chopped peanuts
toasted sesame seeds

sauce:
plum sauce
white pepper
5 spice powder
sesame oil
honey

Arrange all the ingredients together on a plate/platter in a nice circular style. Pour sauce over. Toss with 10 other people. That’s it! Oh, and shout ”Lo Hei” when you are tossing.

It’s crunchy, fresh, crispy and soggy all the same time. The flavours of sesame oil,pepper, 5 spice powder and plum sauce flavour packs this dish and makes it awesome. And with a dish rhyming with prosperity, what is there not to like??

Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!

UPDATED 12 Feb 2011: Step by step pictures

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I have been meaning to publish this recipe for ages now. Since making it the first time around, I’ve reproduced it with varying success – mostly due to me changing the recipes slightly and tweaking thickness. ‘Bah Kwa’ is a traditional favourite within the chinese community in South East Asia and Taiwan. ‘Bah Kwa’ is literally translated from the Fujian dialect to mean dried meat. It is pronounced as ‘Yuk Kwong’ in Cantonese, but most people irregardles of dialect, understands bah kwa. Especially popular during Chinese New Year as a gift for family and friends, the price of bah kwa shoots up during that period, with a corresponding hike in demand. However, l I love it at any time during the year and I can just eat it….all…day…long. It tastes fantastic grilled and sandwiched in a sweet bun; I regularly have this for breakfast and just microwave the whole bun for 15 seconds when I get to work. It brings back a rush of childhood memories of watching chinese opera and then heading to the charcoal-fired pushcart hawker for a freshly grilled bah kwa sandwich .

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I would have been more than willing to pay through the nose for this delicacy in the years that I’ve spent abroad – alas, I had never managed to source some authentic tasting bah kwa. They were mostly too dried, under flavoured and not to mention way too overpriced for the quality and quantity. So this recipe is heaven-sent for a bah kwa addict like me, I no longer have to import it from Malaysia nor miss it !

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Some people associate this with the American-styled beef jerky, but the depth of flavour and the texture is completely and utterly different from the dry stringy meat of the American styled jerky. I have tweaked this recipe from various others that I found online, and you might want to experiment yourself on the amount of sugars and seasoning – or even using minced chicken or beef! Caution: if you are using 5-spice powder purchased from the supermarket, it might be an idea to put more in – the one I use is freshly mixed 5-spice powder which is way more fragant than the supermarket version. Too much 5-spice powder can make food taste slightly bitter, so just becareful, but do not be afraid to season away! It’s the same with all other ingredients, do not be afraid to change and tweak the levels, this has been tweaked to my taste, but I do sometimes add an extra splash of soy sauce or different sugars i.e. muscavodo.

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Recipe for Bah Kwa – Chinese sweet meat jerky

500g minced pork (slightly fatty)
2 Tbs five spice powder
150g sugar (more sugar will caramalise the meat more, but less with be tasteless)
2 Tbs shaoxing wine
1 Tbs fish sauce (this is very important)
3 Tbs light soy sauce
red food colouring – optional, it turns out brownish otherwise. I do not use this

waxed/parchment paper
cookie trays

Step 1
Marinate all the inggredients for at least 6 hours; best if left overnight.
Ensure that it is well combined before leaving it in the fridge.

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Step 2

Cut two pieces of parchment paper that is the same size as the cookie sheet
Lay one sheet on the upturned cookie sheet (turn it upside down)
Scoop about 1.5 cup of the meat mixture on the bottom parchment that is resting on the cookie sheet (approx – depending on tray size)
With the other parchment sheet, slowly press the mixture down from the top, trying to spread the meat mixture as evenly as possible over the cookie sheet.
Try to get it to cover the whole cookie sheet, using more meat mixture as needed and another cookie sheet if it is not large enough
Your meat mixture should be around 5-7mm thick, and even all around.Use a rolling pin over the top parchment paper if needed; I usually only use my fingers to flatten it out.

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Step 3

Traditionally, this meat mixture is then air-dried for a day or two in the sun. The modern way would be:

Leave it in a 80c oven for 50 -60 minutes to dry it out. Do NOT turn the oven up higher than 100 degrees as this will cook the meat.
We want to dry it out, not cook it.
After about 1 hour, the meat layer should be ‘welded’ together from the fats in the mince.
Leave to cool, and then carefully cut it into squares at this point.
You can freeze this for later, OR

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Step 4

Turn on the grill (charcoal bbq is best) and grill it for about 4-5 mins on each side
The bah-kwa should sizzle and spit and be slightly charred on both sides
Leave it to cool before tucking in – or stuff it into some sweet buns immediately for a great snack
You can keep this (wrapped in more parchment paper) in the fridge for at least a month in a tightly sealed container.
It tastes best warmed- up, you could grill it again prior to consumption or I just stick it in the microwave for 15 seconds

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UPDATED INSTRUCTIONS: Step by step pictures

1) Empty cookie tray with parchment paper
2) Marinated meat
3)Spread meat on tray with fingers
4)Flatten it out an oiled spoon

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5) Should look pretty flat like this
6) Place another piece of parchment paper on top. Flip the parchment sandwich paper over; so the top paper is now on the bottom.
7) Slowly peel the top parchment off. Use your fingers if nessacary to ensure all the meat is ‘peeled’ off.
The meat-sheet should now be flat on both sides. Stick in oven at under 100C for 50 minutes.

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9) When it comes out it should look like this, still soft but the meat has all melded together.
10) Cut into squares -the meat sheet now looks like this with the bottom part a lighter brown
11) Put the oven on broil/grill function at circa 180 on the lighter side up, and grill on both sides, around 5 mins each. Watch carefully to ensure it doesn’t burn.
12) Cool on wire rack once both sides of the meat has sufficiently caramalized. Serve up!

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I’ve even managed to bring a couple of pieces back to Malaysia over the summer, and everyone agreed that it tasted like the real thing! Amazing! I made a batch for my grandmother as well and she was amazed – I don’t think anyone I know had ever thought that bah kwa can be made at home. It is cheaper, better for you (no preservatives – or colourings if you don’t mind it brown) and as you can control the seasonings and tailor it to your tastebuds. Seriously – the best invention yet from my kitchen. And what’s more, I’ve trained bacon to make this!

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If you had never tried bah kwa before, I strongly suggest that you try this recipe out. It is amazing what sweet-salty meat tastes like – I know most people that had not tried this would be pretty skeptical on a ‘sweet’ meat – but it really IS mind blowingly amazing. I can chomp on it all day long….all day every day….

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As sourrain.com prepares to welcome the year of the Rat, here’s my home decoration (not decorating my own house this year) a rip off from 5xmom’s falling flowers. Many thanks to Guru Moo for uploading it

The flowers seem to dissapear when i scroll down to the next page – anyone having the same issues?

A little chinese urban legend goes that if you have conjuntivitis, that means you’re a peeping tom…either spying at your neighbour showering or your brother in the loo. Did you guys get that when you were young? I hated getting conjuntivitis – my whole family would tease me mercilessly and I can’t even cry with my poor eyelids stuck together. Hamsup (seedy/kinky/dirty old man) would be the least insult that’ll be used on me.At 4 years old.

Yesterday I nearly could not open my eyes. It hurts to even blink. My left eye is nearly swollen shut now. Probably due to the fact that I had peeped at bacon bathing OD-ed on chocs & mandarin oranges for my CNY self-celebration. It’s like as if I cannot stop peeling them oranges – best part is any other time of the year I DO NOT LIKE TO EAT CITRUS. Only in this 15 days of Chinese New Year that I go bonkers over it. Sigh.Anyway. I believe that due to the OD I am now ‘yit hei’ (too much yang, too much heaty food ect ect) and I wish i could just pop into any coffeeshop and ask for a pack of ice cold barley water with lime.All I have now is a measly bottle of Optrex, hopefully to keep my eyes free from infection before I get to the doctor’s tomorrow.Which, due to UK’s absolutely failure of a state-supported medical care, I cannot see until 2.40pm tomorrow.You think got 24hrs clinic ar?? Even hospital also they ask you NOT to go – unless you really are dying.

Best part? I have an extremely important interview tomorrow. Which I shall now be going in a Captain Hook eyepatch.

Hello God.It’s me. If you are listening, might as well you just shoot an arrow through my heart and kill me, kill me now!