(chopping) (joyful music) (audience clapping) - [Narrator] And now Martin Yan, the Chinese chef.

- (in foreign language), that's "How are you?"

in Mandarin, the official Chinese dialect.

Today, I am (in foreign language), that means I'm doubly happy.

I'm happy to see you here and happy to be able to prepare a delectable Peking menu.

Sesame biscuits, jelly-spiced beef and Mandarin glazed apples.

The first thing I wanna show you is sesame biscuit.

This is a wonderful snack.

Can be served anytime of the day.

Here I have two cup of flour, one cup of cake flour and also two teaspoon on sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, and I will use 1/3 of a cup of hot boiling water and I'll make it into a dough.

Here I have approximately two teaspoon of toasted white sesame seed, the regular white sesame seed, and I also have two teaspoon of black sesame seed.

They're both toasted.

The first I wanna show you is how to make this dough.

It's very easy to do the dough.

Here I have some boiling water, okay.

And first of all, you pre-mix the flour and the cake flour and the sugar and the salt, everything together.

And then you use this to stir in very slowly.

Make sure you do it carefully because it can get into trouble because it's very hot.

And also please put a little towel underneath so the bowl is not moving.

(audience laughing) Darn thing is driving me crazy.

(laughs) (audience laughing) Stop, what the heck?

And then you go onto this.

Now you notice that, you probably notice that I use a long cooking chopstick.

This a cooking chopstick.

Not those short chopstick.

And I tell the reason why you use this because when so long you are doing deep-frying, you can be approximately 3000 miles away, so you don't end up having pimples, instant pimples.

Besides, if you go to Chinese banquet when they serve dishes, 12 dishes, one, two, three, four, five, in large gigantic table, you have short chopstick.

You'll never get anything other than the dish right in front of you.

With this, you can get the dish in front of you.

You can get the dish away from you.

You can get the dish in another table.

(audience laughing) Wonderful, that's the reason why I wanna show you and introduce you to this gigantic.

Now once this is done, we will need knead them.

Now I want to tell you this is a wonderful experience.

It's a little bit messy, but it's good exercise and it's wonderful.

You do it like this instead of, you knead that into a nice smooth dough, okay?

Nice smooth dough.

And then you let it rise for a couple hours, okay?

Nice and hot, let it rise.

Here, I have one of these here that are pre-made to save time.

So this way, we do not have to drive ourself crazy.

Now this particular dish, of course everybody know cooking is fun.

It is also very therapeutic.

In this case particularly, it's a healthy experience.

When showing this particular case, why I call it healthy experience?

Because when you do this, you get rid of your tension.

(grunting) (thudding) (audience laughing) You get rid of your anxiety.

(grunting) (thudding) (audience laughing) You get rid of.. (grunting) (thudding) (audience laughing) You get rid of your anger.

(grunting) (thudding) Now I'm so relaxed.

(audience laughing) (audience clapping) See, the problem is, when people have problem, under tremendous tension, they have to go to a psychiatrist.

Charge them $100 an hour.

Today I'm giving this to you absolutely free of charge.

(audience laughing) Isn't that wonderful?

Now, this particular dish, I roll this up.

Put a tiny bit of flour here.

I roll this up, and then I cut it into little chunks like this, okay.

And then I'm gonna roll it up with a tiny bit of flour here.

This sesame seed biscuit is just like bread they serve all the time.

Roll it up, roll it up.

Now it doesn't have to be exactly 4 x 6 or 2 x 8, as long as it's big enough and it's thin enough.

In the meantime, you put some sesame seed right here.

Some sesame seed right here.

Roll it, roll it in.

Roll it inside to the dough, okay?

In the meantime, also, if you notice that, I already heat up a pot of oil.

Frying pan, I'm gonna shallow fry this, okay.

Roll it up, roll it up.

This is great exercise.

I'm not quite sure how many of you know.

How many sesame seed are in one pound of sesame seed?

How many body know?

Anybody know?

(audience laughing) If you start counting it today, you will know by 1996.

(audience laughing) If you know, please send it to me and I'll put it in my 43rd cookbook.

(audience laughing) You just keep on putting sesame seed and you roll it, and after you roll it, do put it here and brown it.

After you brown it, see?

I turn it to the other side and brown it.

This is how you do it.

You brown this and you brown this.

This is called shallow browning because you're not deep-frying it.

Just have enough oil.

Brown this until they're nice and golden brown like this.

Look at this.

Use medium to medium-low heat to brown.

Make sure they're nice and cooked because sesame seed, when it's done, they will look like this.

Looks how gorgeous?

You can serve these with any alcoholic beverages or non-alcoholic beverages, it's wonderful.

Look at how beautiful this looks.

(audience clapping) I'm gonna show you how to do a wonderful dish from Peking area called jelly spice beef.

Very easy to do.

You need one pound of chuck roast.

You need two stalk of green onion, two whole green onion.

A couple of piece of cinnamon stick.

This a traditional Chinese style.

Couple of clove of garlic.

Three or four slices of ginger.

Now this is exotic, I wanna make sure everybody know.

This is Chinese-style five spice powder.

Sichuan peppercorn, star anis, and this is the regular cinnamon stick that you can always find in supermarket.

And here I have two cup of water.

This is a braising sauce.

Two cup of water.

One 1/4 of a cup of sherry.

One 1/4 cup of all purpose soy sauce, and also I have two teaspoon of oil, and two teaspoon of sesame oil.

And put them all together, use this as a braising sauce.

Now you start with this, okay?

You start with this.

If you want, you can slightly score this a little bit, okay?

This way, the seasoning can get into the meat a little bit easier.

And then, we're gonna get some garlic, get some ginger ready.

Take it out.

(chopping) (audience clapping) Nothing to it.

(audience laughing) Cut it up, cut it up.

Set it aside, stack them all up.

You can put the whole piece here, or you can julienne it or you can mince it.

(chopping) Already finished.

(audience laughing) And you heat up one of these big pot.

And then, you put about one to two teaspoon of oil, or up to a tablespoon, then put all this in here.

Make sure you heat it up nice and hot.

And then you use one of these short little thing.

Now if I were you, I would get a long little thing.

This is short.

(audience laughing) I use this when I was a little baby.

And then, you actually brown this.

Actually brown this whole thing here.

Wow, look at how hot this is.

Brown this thing.

Now, make sure you remember, the name of this dish is jelly beef, not jelly beans.

Okay?

Now, after this, we are going to put this braising sauce because you want to brown this.

Brown this, turn this aside, can you see?

Everybody, can you see?

It's already brown.

Everybody can see?

Brown, see that?

Now you see, now you don't.

(audience laughing) Brown it, brown it on both side for about two to three minutes, and then you put this braising sauce, all the seasoning, star anis, Sichuan peppercorn, put it right here.

Let it braise for approximately one and a half to one hour and 15 minutes, anywhere about 1:15 to 1:45 would be okay.

Now, let's use the traditional Chinese-style- (cracking) (audience laughing) Oh, forget this, we use these American style cinna..

This thing doesn't work.

(audience laughing) And then, three little piece of star anis and also a couple piece of ginger.

Extra piece of ginger.

I'm gonna let it braise over medium heat.

Now to save time, oh, I also can use a whole piece of these.

Green onion to give that kick so this is very tasty.

Now to save time, I have already done this ahead of time.

I cook it for approximately one hour and 45 minutes.

And after I do this, I am going to cut this into chunks like this.

See, sometimes this also called red cooked beef with spice and gelatin.

I never understand why they have names like red cooked, because this has nothing to do with politics.

(audience laughing) This technique is invented way before politics entered into any picture.

Now, let's cut this into pieces like this, okay?

Cut into piece like this and put it aside.

Put it aside.

And then, you put approximately one little package of unflavored gelatin, okay?

Unflavored gelatin, and then you skim through this braising sauce through a fine strainer like this, okay?

And then you use the same sauce to bring this little gelatin to a boil.

(pouring) Then you fill it in, put it here.

(clinging) Okay.

Put the gelatin here and mix them really well.

Mix them really well.

And then bring to a slow boil if you want, but this is hot enough so we can dissolve the whole thing.

And then you put this whole thing in here, okay?

And after that, you take it to the fridge and you cool it, chill it.

And to save time by magic, (audience laughing) I never fixed anything so fast in my whole life.

And then, I want to show you how easy it is.

You hold onto one of these and you put it here.

You go whack, and it should come out.

Come, come, please come.

(audience laughing) Oh, wonderful.

(audience clapping) And then you garnish this with a couple of these, and you garnish this with a nice tomato.

And when you serve, all you have to do is cut a little piece here and cut a little piece here, and then you can serve it like this.

Isn't that beautiful?

Jelly beef.

(audience clapping) I understand Maryland over there have questions for us.

- Yes, Martin, how do you season a wok?

- Well, this is a question that people ask me every day.

This is the 6000 time that I answer.

The easiest way to season a wok is use some salt and use some pepper.

How simple, now seriously, seriously, the best way to season a wok.

When you buy a new wok, the most important thing is clean it up with hot soapy water inside and out.

How do you clean up?

Immediately dry it up on top of stove,.. And after you've dried it up, immediately put approximately one teaspoon of oil right here.

And then you use paper towel.

Hang onto it, use paper towel and move the oil around and around.

It doesn't take too long to season a wok.

Until they turn nicely brown, use the highest heat possible.

Okay, very important.

Otherwise it takes about six years to season a wok, right?

Look, look at this.

It's already brown.

Everybody can see, this already br.. Now the most important thing is move your wok around.

Don't just let is sit there and go nothing, but move the wok around.

Use your paper towel.

Swirl it and swirl.

Everybody can see already it's already getting brown.

Move them around, move them around.

And you do it a couple of times.

After you do this, only rinse it with hot water.

Don't use hot soapy water or any detergents.

Make sure when you are doing this, turn on your ventilation.

Shut off your smoke alarm, otherwise the whole fire department is gonna come and say hello.

Now, once it's seasoned like this.

Look at this, it's already nice and brown.

It only takes a couple of minutes.

When it's well-seasoned, the wok should look like this.

Carla, I understand you have a question for us.

- Yes, Martin, I'd like to find out, after I've cooked with my wok, I'd like to find out why it turns out rusty.

- Well, there are a couple of problem.

One, you did not properly season the wok.

Secondly, after you use your wok, you probably have something else to scrub off the seasoning.

See, when a wok is properly seasoned, it should be dark and nicely seasoned.

You should not get rid of all the seasoning.

If you get rid of it, it looks like this.

This is a wok that one of viewers sent to me, and I said, "What am I gonna do with this?"

Actually, don't throw them away.

There are two things good for about this wok.

One is this good for those people have a severe case for iron deficiency.

(audience laughing) And also, this wonderful if you love chicken with rusty brown sauce.

(audience laughing) But the fact is, you can scrape them all out and re-season it again.

Don't throw them away.

Okay, now today we are gonna show you also part of the menu of the Peking dishes, our Mandarin glazed apple.

This is the ingredient.

I start with two apples cut into wedges.

And also I have some sesame seed, regular sesame seed and dark sesame seed.

And also I have approximately 3/4 cup of water, 3/4 cup of sugar, and 1/3 of a cup of water.

And also a tiny bit of oil, gonna make the syrup.

We're gonna make the syrup in this pot.

To save time, I already have bring this to a boil, so this way we don't have to waste time, okay?

And also, we need to make a little batter.

In this batter, we have 2/3 cup of flour, 1/4 cup of corn starch and also 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder.

If you want, the baking powder.

And also, I have about 3/4 cup of water.

Mix them all together, make it into a batter.

Here I already have it done.

Now this particular dish is very easy to do, but you want to make sure you share with somebody because it's fun to cook and it's also fun to taste and also fun to share.

And today, I'm gonna share this kitchen with a renown cookbook author, Chinese cooking instructor, and a dynamite lady, Rhoda Yee.

(audience clapping) - Hi, Martin.

What are we making today, Martin?

- Well, it's something you taught me last week.

- Ham and egg?

(audience laughing) - Ham and egg.

No, we're gonna show somebody how to do this wonderful Mandarin glazed apple, and Chinese call (in foreign language).

- It's my favorite.

- That's my favorite, too.

- Yeah.

- How many of you have ever tried it before?

Practically two out of six million.

Oh, wonderful, this is great.

We first we heat up the oil here.

- That's heated up.

- We also have the syrup boil up he.. And then why don't we do it all together?

- Okay, let's do it.

- Well some apple here.

- Okay, you mix the batter already?

- I already mixed the batter.

- Okay, good.

- So why I'm stirring the syrup?

- You want me to put the apple in here?

- Why don't you put the apple in?

- Okay.

- And then we can start to deep-fr.. - [Rhoda] Alrighty.

- Let me give you a hand the deep-fry here.

- [Rhoda] Give me a hand.

How's the oil coming?

- The oil is coming along really well.

- Oh, good, all right.

When I make it at home, I get my kids involved too.

This is a wonderful family recipe.

Get your husband or wife or your kids and make it an assembly line.

It's great, we do this a lot of times.

However, if you have a dinner party, the best way to do it maybe is involve your guests.

I mean, after all, it's more fun if everybody cooked together.

Everybody have more fun together.

- Cooking should be a sharing experience.

- Exactly, right.

- Stir.

It's very important to make sure when you're doing this, this doesn't get burned.

When you think it's getting burned, this already has burned.

So make sure, very important.

You think it's not, this is serious business here.

- [Rhoda] Should I go over there and?

- Yeah, go over there and we can st.. - All right.

- Because I wanna make sure this is not burned.

And then-- - Is this ready?

Is this hot?

- Yeah, it is hot.

I think it's hot.

- Okay, well if you say so.

You're the boss.

- Why we work together.

- [Rhoda] It's coming.

- In the meantime, we're gonna get ready this ice water.

A lot of ice water.

And also, we get ready a plate, slightly greased.

And also some sesame seed.

Okay, very important.

How's that look?

Good.

- It's coming along.

- Let me give you a hand, too.

- Give me a hand.

Let's all do this together.

- See, this is so wonderful.

- Oh my God, he's juggling back and forth, look at him.

- [Martin] Move them around.

- [Rhoda] Yup.

- Now the most important thing is, when the oil is hot enough, you should put it in when the oil is piping hot.

If the oil is not hot enough, sometimes it doesn't take, it would take too long too cook and also, the meat or the apple, the batter, tend to absorb.

Particular when you are deep-frying a cellophane noodle.

If the oil is not hot enough, darn thing-- - It won't cook through.

- Would not explode.

- Absolutely n.. - So make sure you do that.

- It might look done, but the interior isn't d.. - Oh, this is look good.

- It's coming along.

Yeah.

- It's coming along.

- How's the syrup?

- This syrup, let me check the syrup.

Stir.

- Maybe you ought to tell the audience how they check the syru.. - Oh, this is how you check the syrup.

When the syrup is done.

Almost forgot, that's why it's important to have teamwork.

The most important instruction.

Now, when this is done, you take one of these and you dribble it into water, just room temperature water.

If it immediately foam, that means the syrup is thick enough, okay?

I think this is thick enough.

- Is this thick enough?

- See?

Perfect, this is thick enough.

- So we use this, this is TV food, you see.

- We have here-- - So time the apple that's been quite done, - Because we so many people.

- because we don't have the time.

- We have so many people.

- Let's .. - Let's put this in.

- Okay.

- Okay, put this in.

- Oh, now we really need two people.

- Oh, you really to, and then you pick this up.

- Okay, quick, huh?

- Let's do it, quick, put it right here, quick.

- All right, all right.

- [Martin] Put it here.

Sprinkle a tiny bit of seed.

Tiny bit of seed.

- Look it.

He's going so fast.

- Put it out.

This is already forming a nice crust.

Put it like this.

- [Rhoda] Whoops, I dropped one.

(softly yells) There you go.

(audience clapping) - There are these.

- As fast as I can do it.

- So easy to do.

- There you go, oh, it's gorgeous.

Oh, it's so good.

- Look at how gorgeous.

Now, if you want-- - Oh, this is really hard too.

- This is really nice.

- Nice, nice.

- [Martin] Look at this.

- [Rhoda] Oh, I'm gonna put some in myself.

- [Martin] In order-- - [Rhoda] I'm no.. let you have all the fun.

- To make it really nice, look at t.. We can show you how to make these.

We're gonna, since we have so many people, Rhoda, why don't we do a couple more?

- Okay, let's do it.

- We'll do a couple more.

- Here we go.

- Because I like to show somebody how to quickly-- - You see how you build assembly line?

- Working together is wonderful.

This everybody should learn how to do.

I wanna show you how to do this at home.

- [Rhoda] What happened to my assembly line?

- Oh.

(audience laughing) I quit.

- [Rhoda] Hop in more.

You quit?

You can't do that to me.

- I think this is important for people to do.

This is called apple bird.

After one cut at an angle, 45 degree, you push it out, you push it out.

After each cut, you push it out.

You continue to do this until you get something wonderful look like this, okay?

The wonderful thing about this is if you make a mistake, you can eat the darn thing.

(audience laughing) Now this is so easy to do that nobody should make mistakes.

Look at this.

(audience clapping) - [Rhoda] That is gorgeous.

- This particular dish is one of the best they served in Peking style menu.

And I would like to say when I begin the show, I was doubly happy, but now I'm triple happy because I got a chance to cook the food, to be with you all, and also to work with Rhoda Yee.

Remember, - [Both] If Yan can cook, - So can Yee, And so can you.

(audience clapping) - “Goodbye!” ( ##! )

(joyful music)