My first Yee Sang of 2026
If you have found this post, then you must be looking for yee sang or what is also known as loe hei to usher in the Chinese New Year. Apologies for not being able to point you to any restaurants serving this superlative salad dish in London. However, if you have a round of drinks handy, good friends you can call on and some patience, then please consider making this at home.
This is an extremely popular dish to brighten the dull post-Christmas days of January and February here in London. Some friends have even asked why we don’t make it all year round. I guess the answer is that we now live such globally-connected lives, there is always something else to celebrate at any time of the year. By way of an example, the first day of CNY 2026 is on the same day as Shrove Tuesday. This must be a call to eat Chinese Pancakes, surely.
Here are the creations from Junior 2 + Co for the following animal years: Snake in 2025 (part 1 and part 2), Dragon in 2024, Rabbit in 2023, Tiger in 2022, Lockdown Ox in 2021, Rat in 2020, Pig in 2019, Dog in 2018 and Monkey in 2016. We missed a family gathering in the Year of the Rooster in 2017 due to my travelling, as my father was receiving medical treatment at the time.
This year, 2026, is the Year of the Fire Horse. At the time of writing I am still working out how to shape a horse as the centrepiece of the salad. At dinner with friends last Friday (photo above) I made a simple round salad served on a large tray.
Whilst I am thinking, here is a rundown of all the ingredients you will need. The salad is vegetarian and you can add raw fish if you like. Our family likes it just with vegetables.
Yee Sang in a Nutshell:
The shopping list is long and colourful. It would easily help towards your 30 plants a week: red and green salad leaves, orange and purple carrot, white daikon/mooli, yellow mango, pink or cream pomelo, red pomegranate seeds, fresh green coriander, spring onion, pickled sushi ginger, pickled silverskin onions, roasted unsalted peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, red and green chillies, lime leaves, plum jam, limes and rice vinegar. The crackers are deep-fried sliced gyoza skins.
Yee Sang in Detail:
Wash and refresh one or two heads of red salad leaves e.g. radicchio, red oak leaf, red chicory or ruby gem lettuce. Sometimes we add green salad leaves e.g. rocket, little gem or butter lettuce. This will line the tray.
Start with sensible quantities of spiralized carrot, daikon/ mooli and shredded unripe mango. This will form the backbone of the dish. Sometimes we add finely shredded red cabbage.
For a burst of flavour add small quantities of peeled pomelo, pomegranate seeds, fresh coriander leaves and shredded spring onion.
For additional sweet-sour flavours add pickled sushi ginger and thinly sliced pickled silverskin onions.
For nuttiness add chopped roasted unsalted peanuts and toasted sesame seeds.
For real crunchiness slice some dumpling skin and deep-fry to make the crackers. I have found that gyoza dumpling skins are better for this than wantan dumpling skins as they are thicker and puff up attractively.
Add sliced chillies (one red and one green) for a shot of heat.
Finally for the je ne sais quoi moment, add the secret ingredient of finely shredded lime leaves. You need to take the centre stem off the leaf then place them in a stack and using your sharpest knife, slice them as thinly as you can.
For the Dressing (for a 6 person salad, so please double or triple as necessary)
200g plum jam (I use Bonne Maman’s Mirabelle Plum Jam)
2 tablespoons lime juice
Lime zest
1½ teaspoons rice vinegar
Yee Sang in Advance:
To avoid a meltdown on the day, prepare as much of the ingredients as possible beforehand. Everything can be washed, dried, peeled, spiralized, shredded, toasted, fried, chopped and sliced one or two days before the event. Store in the fridge, or in London at the moment (cold, grey, wet) a cool box in the patio will more than suffice.
Find the largest round plate or tray you an have in order to serve the yee sang
Long chopsticks for mixing the salad, and regular chopsticks for eating it
