Chef Keith Lam is the chef at Kelong Singapore Cuisine

Chef Keith Lam Presents: Kelong Restaurant's New Year Salmon Salad (Yu Sang or "Lo Hei")

This New Year Salmon Salad, traditionally served on the seventh day of Chinese New Year, celebrates "everyone's birthday". Each ingredient has a symbolic meaning. The raw ingredients signify the renewal of life. The Chinese word for fish sounds like the word for prosperity. To ensure good luck for the new year, everyone says "Lo hei!" while using chopsticks to toss the salad. "Lo Hei" means "to mix it up" but also sounds like the phrase "to prosper more and more."

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb salmon, sashimi-grade, sliced into 2" long, and 1/2" wide pieces
• 1/2 cup jellyfish
• 2 cups daikon (chinese white radish), peeled, julienned
• 1 cup carrot, peeled, julienned
• 1 cup white carrot, peeled, julienned
• 1/4 cup green onion, julienned
• 6 fresh young ginger, julienned
• 1/3 cup ginger, sweet pickled, julienned
• 1/4 cup peanuts, chopped
• 1 lime or lemon, cut in half, seeded
• Toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

Suggested sauce: Hoisen sauce

Optional marinade:

• 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 tbsp asian sesame oil
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp white pepper
• 1/8 tsp five-spice powder
• 1 lemon (juice)

Method

To assemble:

1. Toss fish slices with sauce or marinade. Place fish in center of a platter.
2. Arrange daikon, carrot, green onion and jellyfish around salmon.
3. Scatter fresh and pickled ginger over the salmon. Sprinkle with peanuts and sesame seeds.
4. Just before serving, squeeze the lime or lemon juice over .
5. It is customary for everyone to join in and toss the salad. Using chopsticks, each diner digs from the bottom of the salad and lifts the ingredients to mix it. Don't forget to say "Lo Hei"!

Kelong Singapore Cuisine
#130-4800 No. 3 Road
Richmond, BC.
Telephone: 604.821.9883
Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00am-2:30pm / 5:00-9:30pm
Sat-Sun 11:00am-9:30pm, closed Monday.

TAKING A FRESH LOOK AT SALMON

Fresh to your table year round

Health Canada recommends that a healthy, balanced diet should include two to three servings of fish per week, with at least one portion being an oily fish like salmon. Just 20 years ago, fresh salmon was a food not seen on the table of the average family or an affordable restaurant.

Today, thanks to technology that allows salmon to be raised year round, this tasty delicacy is fast becoming the fish of choice for millions of people in restaurants and at home. Salmon farming makes it possible to enjoy great tasting and affordable fresh salmon year round.

Some consumers, largely due to negative reporting, are raising concerns regarding the use of antibiotics in salmon farming. In fact, the use of antibiotics in salmon farming is extremely low compared to any other type of livestock such as chicken or beef. Less than 3 percent of salmon feed contains any antibiotics.

Farmed salmon are normally very healthy and it is common for 90 to 95 percent of the fish to survive, compared to in the wild where only 2 to 4 percent of most salmon stocks live to maturity. Farmed salmon are not fed medicated feeds as preventative treatments or as a growth promoter. While all farmed salmon enter the water healthy, they may become ill, as with other farmed animals despite the care of farmers. Since fish health technicians monitor stock regularly, illnesses can be detected. If required, antibiotics may be administered under the care of a licensed veterinarian. If fish are treated, they will not be harvested for a mandatory period to allow the treatment to clear from the fishes' system.

Our salmon are not fed dyes or artificial colourants in their diets to tint their flesh pink--rather they receive the same carotenoid pigments in their feed that give their wild cousins their flesh colour. Although the pigments are made synthetically, this supplement is similar to humans taking a vitamin C pill instead of eating an orange.

Farmed salmon is harvested in a matter of hours. After they leave the water the salmon will arrive at its destination within two days--fresh and ready for the consumer.

Because of the high level of care for these fish, over 90% of farmed salmon are typically rated as premium quality. The consistent high quality and year round availability of fresh farmed salmon has contributed to a growing demand for salmon around the world.

All species of salmon are excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids, which are considered important in preventing heart disease and reducing the risk of cancer, as well as lowering cholesterol levels. Both wild and farm-raised salmon are excellent sources of these important omega 3's fatty acids.

DID YOU KNOW

1. Farming means consistent quality. With farmed salmon, you know that it will taste as good as the last time you enjoyed it.
2. The farming process is under tight control. Each salmon can be traced back to the source; quality checks are made before it is sold to the consumer.
3. Farming means you're never short of salmon. At a peak catch year, wild salmon can only supply about one-third of growing worldwide demand.