CNY 2017 - Welcoming the Rooster Year

Aoi Robin says "gong hei fat choy"!

So though we were away in Phuket for the first 4 days of the Chinese New Year, we still go through various traditions at various points of the 15-day period, like every CNY: visiting relatives; giving and (for some) receiving hongbao; making, giving, receiving and eating CNY goodies; eating auspicious foods like yusheng. Sometimes to the point that people can get pretty tired and sick of the festivities. Eating yusheng, for example, seems to be an increased activity in the last 5 years here. Frankly, I actually quite like eating yusheng, but am quite picky about the quality, freshness, flavours and balance of its various components.

A post shared by @yotsub4 on Feb 4, 2017 at 9:26pm PST

Anyway, yusheng (魚生) is a raw fish salad that is made and eaten during CNY in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but the characters "魚生" are homophones of "余升", which means increase in abundance. To start off, arranged on a large platter are various ingredients - mostly fresh, preserved, and candied vegetable ingredients, and raw fish slices, usually salmon sashimi. In the case of my husband's family, my mother-in-law sometimes likes to be indulgent and substitute the salmon with abalone (鲍鱼, bào yú). Then various auspicious idioms are recited as other ingredients are added - crushed peanuts, sesame seeds, oil, a sour plum dressing, little puff crackers.... Then everyone gathers round with chopsticks and tosses the yusheng together while calling out more auspicious idioms and well wishes.

The girls have been clamouring to do a CNY feast among themselves (and with me). They've been telling me the intended menu includes white chicken (chicken rice-style), steamboat, and whatever other delicacies Mitsuha and Hinata feel like making. But it's been pretty tough with all my weekends booked up!