Jellyfish salad 涼拌海蜇

If you've never heard of edible jellyfish or or eaten it before, you probably say eurgh...... For those like me who had it many times in Chinese restaurants you will love this salad. Jellyfish is tasteless. We love it for its crunchy texture. It will absorb any flavour you add to it.

If there is a good Chinese supermarket near you, you can buy the jellyfish and make the salad at home. Traditional jellyfish is preserved in salt or brine, it takes time to soak and de-salt it then it needs to be lightly blanched and shredded. If you are lazy like me, buy the shredded and ready to eat type like this picture below. All you need is rinse and mix with a dressing, I don't use the sachet of flavouring come with the packet. There is also ready to eat jellyfish which has already been flavoured I am not too keen on this.


I like to add chicken to jellyfish salad, bulk it up and add flavour to the tasteless jellyfish.

Jellyfish salad 涼拌海蜇 (liang bun hai je)

Ingredients:

1 packet of ready to eat shredded jellyfish, not readily flavoured (about 170g)
1 cooked chicken breast (leftover from roast chicken), shredded
about 1 cup of finely shredded cucumber. without the soft core
about 1 tsp grated ginger
about 1 tsp finely chopped chilli
about 1 stalk spring onion (scallion), chopped
2 tbsp pan roasted sesame seeds

1.5 - 2 tbsp light soy
a little over 1 tbsp Chinkiang black rice vinegar
2 - 3 tsp sesame oil
1 - 2 tsp chilli oil
0.5 tsp chicken buillion powder (optional)
1 tsp sugar


Method:

1. Rinse the jellyfish as instructed on the packet, squeeze dry with hands. I throw away the sachet of flavouring.
   
2. Make the dressing. Add ginger, chilli, 3/4 of spring onion, chilli and sesame seeds. Mix this all together then add the jellyfish. Leave this to marinate for about 10 minutes.
3. Then mix with shredded chicken and cucumber.
   
4. Sprinkle on remaining spring onion, chilli and sesame seeds.