Yu sheng (Yee sang) – Singaporean New Year salad

My husband and I now have a new favourite salad to which all other salads will henceforth be compared – and inevitably, they will fail to measure up, because yu sheng has got to be the king of all salads. It’s the perfect marriage of fresh, crunchy, tart and sweet, and it features smoked salmon, which is one of my favourite things in the world. And yet I’d never even heard of it until a few days ago, when I started researching lunar New Year dishes of Singapore and Malaysia.

Laap with sticky rice

I love to travel and, with very few exceptions, I would love to visit every country in the world. However, I feel my failure to visit Laos is one of the saddest of my missed opportunities. When I was travelling in Asia, pre-kids, I managed to get to Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia – why didn’t I go to Laos? (Or Vietnam, for that matter?) I hope I will indeed get there one day.

My failure to visit Laos means I don’t know a lot about Lao food. However, since I don’t believe there’s a Lao restaurant in town, never mind one that can cater for gluten-free and low-FODMAP, I figure the only way to learn is to try. So I picked what the interwebs said was one of the defining dishes of Laos and decided to try to make it.

Greek-style lamb burger, low-lactose tzatziki, lemony fries and halloumi salad

OK, it has been ages since I’ve updated my blog. Packing, moving house and unpacking has consumed my life over the last couple of months, insofar as I have any life at all beyond the constants of work and two small children. However, we had our housewarming last week, our new place is starting to resemble a home, and I am determined to get back to the international food weeks project. In honour of Canada Day and nostalgia for home, I’m going to do Canada as of this weekend.

But first! I have some older recipes to write up and post. This one is from our Greek week.