yusheng Raw fish salad. ‘Yu’ means ‘fish’ in Mandarin, but is also a homonym for ‘abundant’, while ‘sheng’, which means ‘raw’, also means ‘vitality’. This dish is thus considered auspicious. Traditionally, fishermen in Guangdong feasted on their catch to celebrate the seventh day of Chinese New Year. Chinese migrants in Singapore modified this practice, dipping raw fish slices in hot rice porridge and consuming it. In the 1960s, four chefs, Hooi Kok Wai, Lau Yoke Pui, Sin Leong and Tham Yui Kai, combined the raw fish slices with other ingredients to create a new dish.

Today’s yusheng consists of raw fish slices, shredded carrot, radish, pomelo, ginger, crackers and crushed peanuts, all laid out on a large dish. A dressing of plum sauce, vegetable oil, pepper, five spice powder and lime juice is added. Diners then gather round the dish, armed with chopsticks, and mix the ingredients together by tossing them high in the air to cries of ‘lo hei’ (which in Cantonese sounds like ‘to prosper more and more’) or utterances of auspicious sayings. Traditionally, ikan parang (wolf herring) is used, but popular variations include carp, salmon or even lobster. The dish is served throughout the Chinese New Year period.

Photo credit: Singapore Press Holdings/ Berita Harian