Jellyfish Salad

Jellyfish Salad

Recipe source :  Doris Choo @ Sumptuous Flavours

Jellyfish salad is served in my family on the 7th day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. The 7th day or 人日, literally means "Human Day' or everyone's birthday.  In Malaysia, the Chinese celebrate  人日 by eating 七彩魚生, meaning seven-coloured raw fish salad or popularly known as yee sang. 

Most people opt for yee sang or raw fish salad at Chinese restaurants. My office mates and I usually group together to have yee sang during the Chinese New Year Year season during lunch break. It is a great time to eat together. We can order many variety of dishes since we always go in a big group. It is a great time to bond and enjoy good food and good company while we forget our work pressures and datelines for an hour or two!

However, my family does not really fancy yee sang. We prefer jellyfish salad at home. This is the way we celebrate "yan yat" or everybody's birthday which falls on the 7th day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. 

We just love the crunchiness of the jellyfish.Tasty!

Ingredients

300g jellyfish or 'hoi chit' in Cantonese
2 chilli paid, sliced
1 sprig Chinese parsley, chopped
2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp soy sauce, or to taste
1 tsp sugar

Raw jelly fish or 'hoi chit' which has been soaked in water 

Method

1.  Soak jellyfish for several hours, preferably overnight. Keep changing water several times.
2.  Slice the jelly fish into thin strips.
3.  Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Quickly blanch jellyfish strips for 1 minute.
4.  Drain dry and dab dry.
5.  In a small bowl, mix all the sauce ingredients together with chilli padi and Chinese parsley. Stir to blend well.
6.  Add in the jellyfish strips. Transfer to serving plate.
7.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
8.  Ready to serve.

Tasty and crunchy jelly fish salad

Steamboat 火锅

Steamboat 火锅

Setting the table and getting the food ready for the steamboat dinner

Steamboat is my family's favourite choice for reunion dinner. We like our steamboat light and easy after a heavy lunch of steamed chicken and various meat dishes which were prepared for ancestral worship. Steamboat is pretty easy to prepare and there is literally no "slaving over the hot stove".  It  largely involves cleaning and washing vegetables and getting our favourite seafood items together on the dinner table. The "cooking" is done by dipping pieces of food into the hot boiling stock. If you are particular about sauces, then you have to make your own chili sauces or ginger sauces. As for my family and I, it is just cutting a couple of chili padi and squeezing the juice from one small lime into the chili padi and soya sauce. This chili padi and lime sauce is a great dipping sauce for seafood. 

Ingredients

2 litres of clear chicken stock
10 medium-sized prawns
2 cuttle fish ( the pre-soaked variety )
2 tins of canned abalone
30 pieces of sui-kow dumplings
1 kg jelly fish, soaked one day in advance. You need to change the water several times

1 can of sea asparagus

1 packet of bottle-shaped mushrooms ( or Hang Pau Koo in Cantonese ) 
2 packets of inoki mushrooms

1 handful of glass noodles, soak in water until soft

4 large leaves of Wong ngah pak, wash and cut into sections

1 small head of Chinese cabbage, wash and cut into bite-sized pieces

1 small head of lettuce, wash and cut into halves

2 stalks of Chinese celery, wash and cut into sections

Chili Sauce

8 chili padi, cut into small pieces
1 small lime, squeeze out the juice
2 tbsp soya sauce

Mix the ingredients together and you'll get a hot, and sour sauce

 Canned baby abalone

A plate of wrapped sui-kow dumplings. You can read up my previous post on how to make sui-kow dumplings

 2 pre-soaked cuttle fish, cut into small pieces

Canned sea asparagus

 A handful of glass noodles, soaked in water until soft

 Medium-sized prawns, trimmed and washed

 3 bottle-shaped mushrooms, cut into thin slices

Inoki mushrooms

Chinese cabbage on the left and lettuce on the right

Bottom : Chinese celery cut into sections

 

Jelly fish, soaked overnight and cut into small pieces

4 leaves of wong ngah pak, cut into sections

Place the steamboat over the gas stove

Instructions

 

1.  Prepare all the ingredients and place them around the steamboat.
2.  Fill the steamboat to two-thirds full of clear chicken stock
3.  Place the steamboat over the gas stove and bring the stock to the boil.
4.  Add pieces of the above ingredients into the stock and boil them until cooked.
5.  Dip the cooked food into the chili dipping sauce
6.  Enjoy !


Note :  You can use store-bought chili sauces of your choice, tomato sauce, hoi sin sauce or just plain soya sauce.