MUZIChinese Matrix
Cantonese Cuisine · FFET10257
Lettuce is blanched or stir-fried over high heat for about 20 seconds and dressed with a sauce of oyster sauce and garlic.
A round white porcelain plate holds green romaine lettuce coated with a glossy brown oyster sauce and scattered with pale minced garlic, with a pair of wooden chopsticks resting beside the plate on the table.
The regional cooking of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau, prized for live, fresh ingredients and light flavours.
Haoyou shengcai is a Cantonese dish of lettuce leaves quickly blanched or stir-fried over high heat and dressed with oyster sauce, usually with garlic. It is popular in Chinese restaurants. Shengcai sounds like the words for making money, so the dish is eaten at Chinese New Year for luck. Oyster sauce is linked to Nanshui in Zhuhai, Guangdong. Two accounts date the seasoning: a 2025 report links it to a company's founding in 1888, while another places oyster sauce production in China no later than the mid-1870s. These dates concern the seasoning, not the dish; no dated record of the dish itself was found.
Haoyou shengcai is lettuce leaves quickly blanched or stir-fried over high heat and dressed with oyster sauce, usually with garlic. It is simple and quick to make.1,2
No dated record of haoyou shengcai itself was found. Two accounts date the seasoning: a 2025 report links it to a company's founding in 1888; another cites an 1876 article placing oyster sauce production in China no later than the mid-1870s. These dates concern the seasoning, not the dish.4,5
Haoyou shengcai is a Cantonese dish. Oyster sauce is linked to Nanshui in Zhuhai, Guangdong; the 2025 report concerns the seasoning, and no record of the lettuce dish's specific birthplace was found.2,3,4
Two methods are used: stir-fry the lettuce leaves in a hot wok over high heat for about 20 seconds, or blanch them in water for about 20 seconds and pour over a hot oyster sauce and garlic sauce. Both use oyster sauce, a little soy sauce, and garlic.1,2
Shengcai sounds like the words for making money, and the dish is eaten at Chinese New Year for good luck. Lettuce in ancient China had to be cooked before eating; the account of this practice mentions neither this dish nor the wordplay.1,2,6
Haoyou shengcai is popular in Chinese restaurants and is a good-luck dish for Chinese New Year.1,2
A popular saying holds that shengcai sounds like the words for making money, so lettuce is eaten at Chinese New Year in the hope of wealth and a prosperous year.
Told in: A popular saying found in the notes of two signed recipes by different authors from the same source. The Chinese Wikipedia entry on lettuce does not mention it, and no earlier text recording the custom was found.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is my home version of lettuce in oyster sauce. The method and amounts follow one signed recipe: the leaves are blanched for about 20 seconds and a hot garlic and oyster sauce is poured over them, using about 280 g of romaine lettuce, 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce, 4 cloves of garlic and 3 tablespoons of oil. I converted the weight of the lettuce from ounces. A second recipe stir-fries iceberg lettuce in a wok over high heat, also for about 20 seconds, and I did not follow it. The two recipes have different authors and the same source. The salt and oil in the blanching water and the way I fry the garlic are my own home choices.
Allergens: shellfish, soy, wheat
