Loh Dou Fung Shang Shui Hei! – Part II

Preparing lo hei yu shang at home is quite a lot of work, but oh, so fun! And in my humble opinion, so much tastier than the restaurant version, simply because we can tailor the dish to exactly how we like it to taste.

The Groundwork
This is my family’s version of loh hei. It differs very slightly from the versions served in restaurants. We have omitted and/or substituted some of the side ingredients (which I will point out as we go along). Our presentation of the dish and the “procedure” for tossing the salad has also been modified very slightly.

The pickled and preserved vegetable condiments, candied dried fruit peels, crunchy deep fried dough crisps, ground peanuts and sesame seeds are all bought ready-prepared. We buy them in “bulk” sizes, enough for around 10 large servings of loh hei. However, they are also available in “gift packs” of individual servings, and these sometimes come with pre-shredded radish and carrots, and even the raw fish.

These colorful preserved/pickled vegetables are supposed to be ready to use straight out of the tub, but we like to “dry” them out more, to enhance their texture. Using a muslin cloth bag, we squeeze out all possible moisture from these condiments. Once this is done, they can be refrigerated and will keep for several weeks.

The fresh vegetables – i.e. the shredded radishes and carrot, are prepared only on the day the loh hei is to be served.

Once the white radish, green radish and red carrots have been peeled and chopped into large chunks, they are kept soaked in cold water prior to being shredded.

(It is possible to substitute the green radish with cucumber. However, the latter will provide less color appeal due to the lighter color of its flesh, and the texture and moisture level – and thus the “crunch” – will be different too).

A mandolin makes short work of the shredding process. This can be bloody work, quite literally. So, mind those knuckles and fingers! The plastic “protector” (not sure what that is called actually) is absolutely wonderful. It secures the vegetable, and also ensures that most of the vegetable gets shredded (minus additional flavorings of human skin and blood! ), leaving only the thinnest slice of vegetable that can’t be used up.

Personally, I prefer the vegetable strips to be as thin as possible. Too coarse, and somehow the salad doesn’t look quite as elegant and the “mouth-feel” of the vegetables changes. Minimal pressure is applied when “grating” the vegetables to ensure long slim strands. But avoid getting the strands too thin and wispy though, as they are liable to break into a zillion tiny pieces when the time comes to “squeeze” them.

The vegetables are grated into a bowl of water.

Once shredded, the vegetables are given a rinse through, under running water (to remove any potential sappiness) and then drained well. Avoid keeping the shredded vegetables soaked in water, as this tends to cause them to break into tiny pieces during the “drying” process.

Now, this is the part when male assistance and strength is useful and desirable. Or at least, it is for me anyway, in order to get sufficient “dryness” and thus crunchiness and crispiness into the vegetables.

Again, using a muslin cloth bag, small batches of the shredded vegetables are “wrung out” (yes, much like wringing out a wet towel) to remove as much of their juices as possible (without breaking the strands). It is very important to get them as dry as possible. We find this step really determines the final texture, bite and thus taste of the salad.

An interesting aside: restaurants, because they have to prepare tens of kilos of these shredded vegetables each day, use a washing machine (yes, the type we use to do our laundry in) to spin out all the vegetable juices. Otherwise, it would take hours and hours, not to mention many raw palms, to manually wring out that amount of shredded radish!

Once done, the vegetables will feel “dry” to the touch, and have a certain “crispiness” to them. They should be kept chilled in the refrigerator until they are to be used.

The fish to be used in the salad (in this case, smoked salmon) also needs to be cut into smallish bite-sized pieces or strips, and then chilled until use.

The Partners in Crime

There are five other “side ingredients” that are only added to the plated salad in the presence of the guests. These are the ground peanuts (left foreground), toasted sesame seeds (left middle), pok cui or deep fried dough crackers (top left hand corner). The amount to be used depends upon the size of the salad (i.e. the amount of shredded radishes and carrot). In fact, the quantities of all other ingredients, namely the fish and the preserved/pickled condiments, also depend upon the quantity of shredded vegetables (and the number of people to be served). The aim is to achieve a nice balance of taste, color and texture between all the various ingredients, and this comes from a combination of instinct and trial-and-error.

The shredded radishes and carrot provide a fresh crunch, the various pickled/preserved vegetables give the salad sweetness, the different gingers add aroma, the dried orange peel gives fragrance and sweetness, the candied winter melon also adds sweetness, the peanuts add beautiful fragrance and aroma, as does the sesame seeds, while the pok chui adds delicious crunchiness and crispiness. Everything should be in balance. The salad should not be overly sweet nor overly tangy. It should not be bland (from too little of the pickled and preserved condiments). There should be enough fish so that one can taste the distinctive flavors of the seafood, and yet it should not be so abundant that it overpowers everything else. No single individual flavor should stand out. Everything melds into this harmonious, yet incredibly complex taste sensation, with many layers of different flavors and aromas. So simple, and yet so rich in complexity.

The colors are important too. With a little experience, one can usually judge how much of the pickled and preserved stuff as well as the dried peel to place on the platter. Once the salad has been tossed, there should be a nice balance of red, green, yellow, orange etc running through the entire salad. Of course, in an informal setting, it is still not too late at this point to add any ingredient that seems somewhat lacking and simply mix it into the already tossed salad. Just let your eyes and tongue be the guides.

The oil and the plum sauce dressing (right of picture) are also only added to the salad at the table. Instead of using plain uncooked peanut oil (as in the restaurants), we prefer to use garlic oil. This is just some finely chopped garlic quickly sautéed in a little peanut or vegetable oil, and then allowed to cool to room temperature again. I think this adds so much more flavor to the salad then just plain oil. And the taste of the oil changes – it softens and has less “edge” after being quickly heated through and sautéed. Only a tiny amount of oil is needed for a large salad for 10-12 persons – maybe 1½ to 2 tablespoons of the garlic oil only. I find the much larger amounts used in restaurant versions makes the salad rather cloying on the palate, which limits the amount of loh hei one can handle at any one seating.

We use my mum’s own plum sauce dressing concoction. It’s an extremely simple recipe. Bottled plum paste (we prefer the Woh Hup brand – after tasting many brands, we find this one nicely balanced, neither overly sweet nor overly sour, as some of the other brands can be – plus, it is free of MSG, colorings and preservatives) is placed in a saucepan and heated on low heat. When it comes out of the jar, it is a very thick paste, but as the plum paste warms up, its consistency lightens and liquefies somewhat. The taste and texture of the plum paste evolves and changes once it is heated and cooked through.

Stir gently to get a smooth silky, somewhat thick sauce. Add a little light soy sauce, sugar, a pinch of salt and white ground pepper to taste. The seasonings are added very much according to personal preference. My mum doesn’t have any accurate measurements for this unfortunately. As usual, she uses the “agak-agak” (estimation by feel and taste) method. If I was to hazard a guess, I would say perhaps around one teaspoon of sugar, same amount of light soy sauce, maybe around 1/8 teaspoon of salt and just a dash of pepper for a 400g jar of the plum paste. For most of our cooking, we like to use both salt and light soy sauce, as they each have a different type of “saltiness”, and it just gives an added dimension of flavor to the dish.

One can definitely play around with the sauce and find something that suits personal preferences. It also depends very much on the brand of plum paste used. The amount of sugar or light soy sauce added will depend on what needs to be balanced out in the original paste.

Bring the sauce to a boil. Remove from the heat as soon as it starts to boil. We don’t want to over-cook the sauce, which changes the plum sauce's consistency completely. But it is important to bring it to a boil though. This sauce can be kept at room temperature in a jar (even in the tropical heat) for 2-3 days, provided it has been allowed to come to a boil before being cooled.

The sauces used in restaurants are slightly different from the one we use. Each restaurant will have its own unique sauce recipe. Some of them might add a fruit jam of some kind for added sweetness. Or some simply add sugar. This can sometimes be a little overpowering, as a lot of the condiments – pickled vegetables, preserved vegetables, dried fruit peel, and candied winter melon – are already very sweet in of themselves. Other versions may have white vinegar added to the sauce. This gives the dressing a “harder” edge and can sometimes be overly sour and vinegary for the salad. I think a better way to add tanginess would be with fresh lime juice, if the preference is indeed for more zest and tang. A lot of restaurants simply use straight (uncooked) plum paste/sauce with no other added flavorings.

This year, we also tried out Kwong Cheong Thye’s proprietary “Raw Fish Sauce” (see very first picture of this post) which they had specially introduced as a “time-saver” for home-preparation of the loh hei salad. However, the family still prefers my mum’s recipe.

In addition to the above five side ingredients, restaurants also usually have four others: ground pepper, cinnamon powder, five spice powder and lime juice. We add the first into the sauce itself instead of serving it up separately. By allowing it to heat through with the dressing, the flavors meld together better and has a “softer” more cohesive taste. We omit the next two as our family finds them rather jarring in the overall taste combination of the salad. A lot of people do like the addition of the cinnamon and five spice. For us, to date, in the last 10 years that we have been serving up loh hei at home, none of our guests have missed these condiments, and everyone has raved about the flavors of the final salad. So, it’s a personal choice whether to add these two aromatics.

For those concerned about losing out on the auspicious connotations… there is no tradition of symbolism associated with cinnamon or five spice powder. However, because these flavorings are among those served up by the restaurants, they have come up with lucky-sounding sayings to go with these condiments. Ah! The wheels of big business!

We only add the lime juice if we are using raw fish in the salad, otherwise we omit that too. Yes, not even when using smoked salmon. We use it to lightly "cure" the raw fish, otherwise we feel that the lime juice, even in small amounts, tend to tip the flavor balance too much into the tangy quadrant. Plus, it doesn’t really work with things other than fish, such as duck or abalone. Again, it is down to personal taste preferences whether to add it or not.

The Presentation
The salad is ready to be plated. There are dozens of ways to plate this. I’ve seen some really imaginative ones, some really elegant ones, some very rustic, down-to-earth ones, and some very casual ones too. So, it’s just you, your own imagination and the desired effect you are trying to achieve.

This is my preferred plating…

We use a large white platter 18” in diameter to serve the salad in. (I’m still looking for my ideal 24” or even 30” wide platter ) I like some height to the salad, so I usually pile the white radish, red carrot and green radish neatly into a graduated “tower”. This also shows off the vibrant color combination of the three different vegetables to good effect. Usually, we serve the salad with the fish already plated, as opposed to adding it to the platter in front of the guests, as happens in restaurants. I just think it adds so much to the visual appeal of the salad to have the fish beautifully ringing the shredded vegetables, instead of being somewhat unceremoniously dumped on top of the vegetables in the presence of the guests. This is another reason why, if entertaining, I like to use smoked salmon rather than other types of fish, for its gorgeous rich color. White colored fish and other seafood (lobster, geoduck or even abalone) do not create quite the same visual impact.

I also sometimes like to create two mounds of each of the pickled/preserved condiments across the plate from each other (depending on how many people I’m trying to feed, and how big the salad is). This allows for a more even and thorough mixing of the ingredients into the salad. Sometimes, amidst the madness and chaos that reigns during any loh hei session, the ingredients do not get thoroughly mixed in, and so some diners end up with whole mouthfuls of red ginger for example, whilst others don’t get to taste any.

(For descriptions of the various pickled and preserved vegetable condiments, please refer to Part I).

The 5 side ingredients are placed in small bowls, ready to be added to the platter just before the tossing.

(Oh, by the way, the above picture shows a portion big enough to serve between 10-14 people, depending on how big a serving each person gets. This may help as a gauge as to how much of each ingredient to use).

The Fun Begins…
The tossing of yu sheng in restaurants is a rather ritualized procedure. As the server adds the various ingredients to the dish, auspicious sayings are uttered. While these sayings may vary slightly from restaurant to restaurant, the essence of the phrases remains the same: wishes and hopes for prosperity and abundance in the year ahead.

The original sayings are in Cantonese, although most restaurants in Singapore have servers who do the honors in Mandarin instead.

* The version below is edited and modified from an article by Solomon Lim that appeared in The Straits Times on 18 January 2004, and is based on the Swissotel Merchant Court Hotel’s version.

As the dish is placed on the table, the server says: “gong xi fa cai, wan shi ru yi” (congratulations and may you be prosperous, may everything go according to your wishes).

While squeezing the lime over the fish: “da ji da li” (good luck and blessings).

While placing the fish over the shredded carrot and radish: “nian nian you yu” (may you have an abundance of wealth every year).

While sprinkling the pepper on the dish: “hong yun dang tou” (may you have good luck at your doorstep).

While sprinkling the cinnamon powder: “qing chun chang zu” (may you be forever young).

While pouring the peanut oil: “rong hua fu gui” (may you enjoy prosperity).

While pouring the plum sauce: “tian tian mi mi” (may sweetness enter your life).

When adding the pok chui crackers: “man di huang jin” (may gold fall at your feet).

The salad is then tossed by all diners using chopsticks.

Now, Renee’s family’s version…

Generally, we leave the saying of all the auspicious sayings to the actual tossing.

First though, a few pointers. Loh hei is best done standing, around a round table if possible. Loh hei can (and usually does) get rather messy. It is not uncommon for the entire dining table to be splayed with flying vegetables! Yes, people do get caught up in the overwhelming excitement of the tossing and saying of auspicious wishes… So be prepared.

When all the guests are gathered around the table, we add the toasted sesame seeds and the ground peanuts, sprinkled around the shredded vegetables.

Next, the pok chui are sprinkled on top.

The garlic oil is drizzled over the shredded radish. We prefer to drizzle the oil on the shredded vegetables. I know it doesn’t seem like it should make much of a difference, but it does seem to. Somehow, having most of the oil coat the shredded vegetables during the toss seem to work better. But that’s just our opinion.

Finally, the plum sauce is drizzled over the vegetables and the other ingredients. (Again, the amount of plum sauce used depends on the size of the salad. The aim is to get a salad that is neither too “wet” nor too dry. The salad should just hold together without any perceptible appearance of the sauce, if that makes sense. Experience helps in determining how much sauce to use. Or simply add more sauce during the tossing process if the salad is turning out too dry. I think it is better to add less to start with if unsure, as it is easier to add than to remove. A too “wet” salad will feel too cloying on the palate.)

And then… the frenzy begins. Everyone, armed with a pair of chopsticks, starts tossing the salad with gusto (sometimes too much gusto!) The higher the salad is tossed, the better, as it symbolizes growth, progress and going to great heights.
It is a fairly common sight to see people in restaurants or at functions (especially at large raucous gatherings) toss the salad outwards rather than upwards, splaying the vegetables right across the table. This is considered “not good” as it signifies the throwing away and the “wasting” of the good luck, prosperity and abundance that is being tossed up! For the same reason, the entire salad must be eaten up, with none left over. So make sure to divide up and serve the entire salad.

While tossing the salad, everyone utters auspicious wishes or sayings. It’s pretty much free for all. Each person contributes whatever comes to mind. It can be all said at the same time. It really doesn’t matter. It makes for a noisy, boisterous, happy and tremendously fun occasion.

Some of the sayings that can be uttered (in either Cantonese or Mandarin):
• Loh hei! Loh hei! Lou dou fung shang shui hei! (toss, toss, toss till the wind grows and the waters rise)
• Xin nian kuai le (happy new year)
• Shen ti jian kang (good health to all)
• Xin xiang shi chen (may your heart’s desires be realized)
• Yi fan feng soon (may all things be smooth sailing in the year to come)
• Nian nian you yu (may there be abundance every year)
• Ma dao chen gong (may all endeavors be successfully completed – literal translation: when the horse arrives, the work is accomplished)
• Bu bu gao shen (growth and success at every step)
• Shen yi xin rong (may business boom and grow)
• Shi ye jing bu (may your career advance – i.e. promotions)
• Hua kai fu gui (abundant blessings and prosperity)
• Hong yun dang tou (may you have good luck at your doorstep)
• Da ji da li (good luck and blessings)
And so on…

This is the final, very, very delicious result! Now, this is what I call a truly shiok experience!

Here’s to tossing up a great and wondrous year ahead!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.