a malaysian abroad

A tradition that was born in Malaysia and Singapore, Yee Sang is now consumed during Chinese New Year all over the world.

Yee means “fish” and Sang means “toss”: a simple enough name for a tossed fish dish, or salad.  However, Sang can also mean “rise up” or “give birth”, while Yee can also mean “prosperity”, so consuming this dish can symbolise an increase in your wealth for the year to come.

Here’s a before picture of the dish:

Yee Sang - before

Missing from the picture are crunchy noodles (kinda like lo mein), crushed peanuts and thin slices of raw fish.  All these ingredients are put together on a large plate in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Then…. you thrash it!

Tossing Yee Sang

Tradition has it that the higher the ingredients are tossed, the more luck or prosperity is generated - hence the need for a large plate: it gets messy, and you don’t want your luck to be spilling off the plate, do you? The tossing is usually accompanied by the shouting and yelling of “Lou Hei” or “Lou Sang”, which means to gather, or scoop, prosperity.

Here’s the end result:

Yee Sang - after the toss

It’s scrumptious! The delicate taste of plum sauce combined with sesame seeds and other spices PLUS the crunch of the noodles make for a great tossed fish salad. If you have the chance to try this, please do!

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My thanks to avlxyz who had these great photos in flickr under the creative commons license.

If you want to read more about Yee Sang, try these links:
1. Local, but yee sang tossed worldwide - New Straits Times online 2009/01/25
2. Yee Sang or Lou Sang - fooxion The Food Connection
3. Time Picture of the Week, Feb 2-8 2002: that’s one HUGE Yee Sang dish!

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