♪ >> For the past decade, the population of Chengdu grew an average of 2.5% per year, making it one of the fastest-growing cities in China.

Newcomers infused their adopted city with a wide variety of tastes and food preferences.

And one of them is down-home farmers's cooking.

Can you take the country out of the boy?

Next on "Yan Can Cook."

♪ ♪ ♪ >> "Yan Can Cook: Spice Kingdom" is brought to you by... >> ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ >> Circulon cookware.

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♪ Building Malaysia's tomorrow.

♪ >> First-time visitors to Chengdu are often surprised by the amount of greenery that they can find right here.

For a major metropolitan area, there is an astonishing number of parks and green landscaping all over the city.

Obviously, trees take years to grow, and much of this landscaping is very recent.

So where do these trees come from?

♪ Tree farms and landscapers near Chengdu have been doing great business, with all the demands from the quickly expanding city.

The area outside of Chengdu used to be strictly farmland.

That has changed a bit.

♪ All these beautiful, tall trees will eventually be dug up, put in a big truck, transported to various parts of the city of Chengdu, and beautify Chengdu.

[ Dog barks ] ♪ Traditional homes are well-preserved.

Some of these old houses are really living-history museums.

♪ Rapid economic growth has given this whole area a face-lift.

Many once-small farmhouses are turning into quaint bed-and-breakfast places, all with a farmhouse look and feel.

Going back to one's roots turn out to be an attractive theme.

[ Indistinct conversation ] ♪ ♪ >> [ Speaking Chinese ] >> Wow.

This is the original wood-fire kitchen -- still functioning today.

Wow.

Look at these beautiful farm-fresh vegetables.

It turns out that you don't have to go too far to pick all of these.

♪ ♪ While some of the old farmhouses around here are converted to bed-and-breakfasts, many farming families formed cooperatives to be more productive and efficient.

Many of the farms I visited are embracing modern technology, improving the yield and the quality.

And they grow organic produce in a wide variety.

Farming in today's China is a thriving enterprise.

This is a variety of eggplant.

This is graffiti eggplant.

This is pale green.

This is white eggplant.

And these are little baby Indian eggplant.

Very crunchy.

This one is used by mainly Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

They are soft.

So, what I'm going to do is -- I'm going to show you how to do two dishes with the eggplant.

First, I trim this.

Okay?

I trim this.

And I cut this up about this big.

This...and this.

And then I cut it up in about this and this.

Cut it up and I put it like this.

I cut this up and put it like this.

Then I put this on this plate.

I going to steam it.

When you steam the eggplant, they shrink.

And I put it over here and let it steam over high heat, okay?

And then, if you worry about this, you get one of these in an Asian store.

Like this.

And you can lift this up like this.

You can put it in.

But if you are as professional as me, you go put it in like that.

[ Laughter ] No big deal.

Or you can deep-fry them.

Now we'll make two sauces.

One is -- I use Anaheim chili pepper.

You grill them and then you chop them all up, okay?

You can chop them all up.

I slice it in half and I slice it like this.

So I...

I go...

Okay?

And then, when this is done, I put it right over here.

I mix this with garlic, okay?

Chopped garlic.

Ginger.

And a tiny bit of vinegar, okay?

And I also, if you want to make it interesting, put a tiny, tiny bit of olive oil, okay?

Tiny bit of olive oil to flavor it.

So, you have a very, very flavorful, very natural taste.

Nothing to it, okay?

In the meantime, I can actually cook this.

Infuse the flavor even better.

Let it cook a little bit, infuse it.

And then I'm gonna do another special sauce.

This is Sichuan style.

And I use fermented chili paste.

[ Sniffs ] Mmm!

This is what makes Sichuan cuisine -- chili paste.

That's what Sichuan cuisine is all about.

It's flavorful.

You walk in a Sichuan restaurant, you're perfectly normal.

You get out, you have a perm.

[ Laughter ] Yeah.

And then garlic.

Ginger.

Sesame-seed oil.

In Sichuan, they use a lot of sesame-seed oil.

I use 2 teaspoons of sesame-seed oil.

And I stir.

And then, finally, I put a tiny bit of sugar... and a tiny bit of soy sauce.

And then extra vinegar.

This is what makes it, okay?

And this sauce is gonna be so different than this sauce.

So, this sauce... is very, very North American, okay?

Very flavorful.

And this sauce is different.

Sichuan.

Very, very Sichuan.

And I want to show you, quickly, while you're steaming this, you cook another dish.

You see the eggplant I have?

Tiny bit of oil.

And then always use garlic and ginger.

Garlic... ginger.

The sauce already has enough of everything.

And then this is the eggplant.

You put it right here.

Okay.

It's beautiful.

And then, when it's done, you can add meat.

You can add ground chicken, ground beef.

You can add all kinds of meat.

And then, when this is done, you put the sauce right here.

Ha!

Look at that.

This is the famous Sichuan-style eggplant with chili-garlic sauce.

Very famous dish.

When this is done, I want to show you how easy it is to serve this.

You serve right here.

Look how beautiful.

This is one dish.

Look at that.

And then... [ Applause ] ...you sprinkle a tiny bit of this in.

Dish number one.

Now, dish number two is coming up.

This is farm-fresh.

Pumpkin.

Squash.

And all you have to do is garnish it in such a way that I want to show you.

This is all cool.

One.

Cooking is about imagination.

It's about creativity.

And then I have a little one like this.

I put it right here, okay?

And then -- And I put the eggplant like this.

Line them all up.

Right in the middle, the big one.

And then I put the sauce right on top.

Look at that.

You just sprinkle the sauce.

So, this is cool, like a salad.

And then, if you want, a little touch of this.

Right in the middle.

And this one -- little cilantro.

Here, we have eggplant, two styles -- hot and cool, yin and yang.

And they're all absolutely delicious.

You know, a lot of people don't realize Chinese food also goes really well with not only baijiu, which is the liquor, it also goes really well with wine.

It goes well with Chardonnay, which is a white wine.

And it also goes really well with a Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot.

Now I'm gonna ask you to taste, okay?

Thank you.

This is so good.

And I think this is gonna be hot, but not -- But it's actually delicious.

Try it.

And then I will give you a small piece of the steamed one later.

So, in fact, steamed eggplant is really a humble dish, but everybody can do it.

So, you can steam, you can deep-fry, and they all look beautiful and they all have different tastes.

And you can add -- Particularly this one, you can literally add meat, any meat.

So, everything you do at home can be healthy and delicious.

Jonathan and Lisa, my dear friend.

>> Thank you, Martin.

>> We are shipmates on a cruise.

And we spend a lot of time with a lot our neighbors and friends and traveling all over and we eat.

And here is to good health and good taste.

>> Thank you.

>> Cheers.

>> You know what?

These days, we have electric steamers, not the bamboo steamers, with perfect temperature control.

In those days, you don't.

But back in my mom's old country kitchen, we had a wood-burning stove.

And trust me -- it did not come with a temperature gauge.

And that's how they have it down at the farms all over Chengdu.

Nice and simple, easy and healthy.

Just like my mom's kitchen -- wood stove burner.

Here is to nature.

Here is to good health.

And here is to simple and healthy, easy and tasty.

♪ ♪ To visit someone's home in China, especially for the first time, it is customary to bring a gift.

One shouldn't arrive empty-handed.

Back in the farming co-op, I met Mr. Tang.

What a nice guy.

A five-minute chat, and I'm his family's dinner guest tonight.

[ Conversing in Chinese ] ♪ Three months.

Wow.

♪ >> ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do ♪ ♪ Ahh.

It smells so good.

Farm-fresh -- everything is picked fresh.

You know, this whole scenario really brought me back to my childhood.

When I was growing up in China, we lived very close to the farm, in the village, so on weekends, I would go over there.

I would -- My few buddies and my neighbors's kids -- go down, pick up some shrimp and little fish in the stream, in the river, and then pick out some guava, some chili, some tomato, and I would bring it back home and then cook with my mother.

So it's this wonderful, warm memory.

And this, a simple kitchen, but it brings back so much rich, memorable memory and it's just, you know, mind-boggling.

Sometimes, simple things in life brings back great memories.

And this is what reminds me of it.

And I want to thank Mr. Tang and Mrs. Tang for inviting me to their humble kitchen.

This is the humble farm kitchen, just like my mother's.

♪ [ Conversing in Chinese ] Ahh.

I'm so happy here.

The four generations of Tang's family -- the grandmother, father, children, and grandchildren.

You know, a fresh and healthy farmer's dinner right here.

100% natural and 100% authentic.

Real farm family, and real farm-fresh vegetables, cooked in a real farming kitchen.

Mmm.

Imagine -- so many city dwellers, like me and many others, pay good money to experience this.

[ Conversing in Chinese ] ♪ I'm getting back to my roots, my hometown.

Hey, Chinese New Year is the biggest travel season in China.

Government offices and private-sector employers offer workers multiple-week holidays so that the family can travel long distance to spend time with their relatives.

Jobs and opportunity in the big city may have attracted millions of families, but the desire to get back to their roots has never diminished.

>> You can visit our website to learn more about Martin and his travels, get information about upcoming events, find and print selected recipes, provide e-mail feedback, and more.

It's all at yancancook.com.

"Yan Can Cook: Spice Kingdom" is brought to you by... >> ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ >> Circulon cookware.

Circles for life.

>> Monogram.

A full line of professional appliances designed for food and entertaining enthusiasts.

♪ By Melissa's.

The freshest ideas in produce.

By Lutian.

Tasting the essence of lotus.

By Granite Expo.

Offering a wide selection of cabinet and countertop solutions.

And by B&G Group of Malaysia.

♪ Building Malaysia's tomorrow.

♪