How To Create A Chinese New Year Plate With A Dog Face

Photo from Facebook.

Problem
How do I create a Chinese New Year lo hei ('prosperity') goodwill wish, without spending a fortune, and in the shape of a dog, as lunar year 2018-9 is the year of the dog.

Answer
If you live in Singapore as a Resident, or expat, or are visiting, you can attend a New Year dinner at a restaurant or town or country club, or Toastmasters Club or hotel. If you suggest making a shape of a dog, they will probably be very interested and want to help you.

Why is it make at the last minute? Because the ingredients are shredded vegetables and raw or smoked fish or shredded chicken which will go off quickly in Singapore heat, or any time anywhere. If you buy the packet from a supermarket, it comes in lots of small packets of vegetables so it's quicker if everybody helps and its more fun and makes for more teamwork and gets everybody involved.

Many Chinese New year lo hei meals are created on the table in front of you. Therefore you need some advance practice in making the dog face.

The idea behind the meal is to have lots of colours of food.

For example, shredded carrot, mandarin orange slices in small semicircles upright to create a border around the edge of the plate.

Photo from Facebook.

You could draw the outline of the dog's face on edible rice paper with food colouring pencils or icing squeezed out of a tube. Then build up the face with the different colours.

If you think it might not look right, or the underlying picture will disappear, have another picture propped up vertically behind the plate against the wall.

You will also need to provide:

Paper plates
Wooden Chopsticks
Paper napkins
Paper cups and tap water

Useful Websites
visit singapore
http://www.visitsingapore.com/en/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please share links to your favourite posts.