Tossing High With A Roar

TO greet the Year Of The Tiger, Jenny Fong and Ng Chee Kian have designed prosperity menus for a festive celebration, writes TAN BEE HONG. CHINESE New Year is not complete without a feast. Make that many feasts as not only the Chinese, but all the other races too join in the month of plenty. From tomorrow to Feb 21, chefs Jenny Fong and Ng Chee Kian of the Hotel Grand Continental Kuala Lumpur will be dishing up prosperity dishes for year-end dinners to reward employees for their hard work the previous year, to toast business associates for a co-operative year, back-to-work lunches to welcome a profitable year with the Tiger or even dinners to celebrate joy and a close working relationship. Then there are dinners to meet with relatives or simply because you like yee sang. Just like the colour red, fireworks and hong bao, yee sang is a must-have dish that no Chinese New Year meal is complete without. And there are five varieties (from RM28) to choose from, in two sizes to accommodate different appetites. For vegetarians, there's a fruity yee sang to sweeten up the year. Those who like raw fish will love the salmon yee sang and the combination of salmon and Japanese baby octopus. Jellyfish and Arctic surf clam yee sang offers a nice crunch from the jellyfish combined with the sweetness of the surf clams. For something more indulgent, get Chilean Abalone yee sang. There is a certain feeling of togetherness when you toss the yee sang high with shouts of "lou hei" and urging the deities to bestow greater profits, health and happiness. It's a great start to any meal. This refreshing salad with shredded carrots, radish, pomelo, pickles, nuts, sesame seeds, coriander leaves and crispy pastry chips, is dressed with a sweet, tangy plum sauce, five-spice powder, pepper and a dash of oil. The raw fish, clams or abalone are sliced into slivers and added just before tossing. Part of the fun (and a test of how lucky you are) is to see how many slices of fish you can get. Yee sang is part of three sets of Auspicious menus to ring in the Year Of The Tiger. At a sampling preview, the media has a taste of dishes from the various menus. Naturally, we start with salmon yee sang. The fresh vegetables are absolutely crisp and crunchy. The piquant plum sauce whet our appetites. We have braised shark's fin soup with crabmeat and fish maw, adding a dash of black vinegar to bring out its flavours better. There's plenty of crabmeat and shark's fin. The fish maw is shredded finely and you may not notice it until you take a bite and feel its crunchy contrast with the slippery strands of shark's fin. Boneless sesame chicken with Thai sauce is a spicy, zesty treat and best of all, you don't have to worry about the bones. The deboned chicken is battered and deepfried to a golden brown. The tangy Thai sauce is absolutely appetising and brings out well the taste of the juicy chicken. Customers love this dish and they find the Thai sauce very appetising, says Ng. Fong is a firm believer in pomfret being the choice fish for the festivities. At Grand Continental, the pomfret is thick and fleshy. It's so sweet that you don't need much seasoning. So all that's needed is some superior soya sauce with ginger, scallions and parsley. With the second menu, you get prawns in two styles on the same platter. There's steamed prawns dressed with cream sauce and fruity salad and prawns wokfried with honey and soya sauce. Mee sua (fine, white wheat noodles) braised with fish fillet, prawns, sliced shitake mushroom, carrots, cabbage and cuttlefish, is an unusual dish as most chefs would use fresh wantan noodles. Ng agrees. That's why we're offering it, to give customers something different. Mee sua is also associated with longevity and has an auspicious advantage over wantan noodles. Dessert is two types of pastry and double-boiled sea coconut with lotus seeds and ginseng root or sweetened pumpkin cream with sago.