Singapore New Year raw fish salad

Tam West

This is my Kiwi version of the Singaporean Chinese New Year salad. Many of the ingredients have symbolic meanings such as oil wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year. Plum sauce: may your house be full of treasures. Lime: may you have luck, success and prosperity. Raw fish: wishing you surplus wealth. Pepper and five spice: may fortune smile on you. The salad is presented with the other ingredients around the fish, then everybody digs in with their chopsticks to toss to prosperity. The higher you toss the salad, the more luck you will have in the coming year. The salad is usually served with deep-fried prawn crackers but this is optional.

For the dressing

1 Tbsp	Sambal oelek
1 Tbsp	Sesame oil
75 ml	Lime juice
75 ml	Chinese plum sauce, I used the Lee Kum Kee brand

For the salad

1 cup	Grated carrot, peeled
1 cup	Daikon, peeled and grated (Main)
300 g	Boneless salmon fillets, very fresh, skinned and sliced thinly across the grain of the fish, lightly sprinkled with salt, then put in the fridge
2 stalks	Celery, thinly sliced
2 cm	Peeled ginger, sliced paper thin
2 Tbsp	Japanese pickled ginger, pink
¼ cup	Cocktail onions, white pearl onions, halved (Main)
1 large	Kaffir lime leaf, central rib removed, very finely sliced
1	Spring onion, thinly sliced on the diagonal
2 Tbsp	Toasted sesame seeds
½ cup	Roasted unsalted peanuts, crushed coarsely
½ tsp	Ground white pepper
¼ tsp	Chinese five spice
1 handful	Coriander sprigs

Directions

1. Mix all the dressing ingredients together well, taste and season with salt and reserve.
2. Put the carrot and daikon in iced water for 10 minutes, drain well just before needed.
3. Put the salmon in a pile into the middle of a large serving platter.
4. Put the carrot, daikon, celery, both gingers, pearl onions, lime leaf and spring onion evenly around the salmon.
5. Sprinkle the peanuts and sesame seeds on top. Mix the white pepper and five spice powder together and sprinkle this on top too.
6. Drizzle the dressing all over the salad. Sprinkle the coriander sprigs over everything.

More of Ray's Chinese New Year recipes

• Chilled cucumber noodles
• Pork spring rolls
• Sticky hoisin chicken wings
• Peanut and sesame brittle