(light music) (Joyful music) (audience applauds) - Today, we are going to a hunt for buried treasures.

We're gonna dig deep for the richest ingredients in Chinese cooking.

Let us unearth the flavors of underground cuisine.

The first thing I want to show you is a very, very interesting dish, very popular dish, when I was growing up, is fragrant beef with vegetable stew.

And all the vegetables we use are underground delicacies.

All I'm gonna do is I have some beef shank.

This is a beef shank.

This part of the leg, because today I have to do some leg work, (audience laughs).

And I'm going to put this right over here and I will remove the bone but we're not gonna throw the bone away because bone is gonna give us flavor, okay?

Remove the bone, remove the bone.

Set the bone up over here, see?

And then cut it into bite-sized pieces.

One, two.

Put them all together, stack them all up, one, two, three.

When you cut, make sure you pay absolute attention and look at what you do.

Don't go one, two, three, (audience laughs).

And then after that, you transfer this from here to here.

Look at this.

How do you transfer?

You transfer like this, three, two, bang, ah!

(audience laughs and applauds) And then, you're gonna marinate the shank with about a tiny bit of soy sauce, one tablespoon of soy sauce and a tiny bit of sesame seed oil and also a tiny bit of salt or sugar.

Tiny, tiny bit.

If you want, you can even put a ti..

Okay?

Make sure you marinate it well, anywhere from half an hour to two hours up to overnight.

Okay?

I have never marinated anything over two ye.. (audience laughs) When this is nice and done.

You use this long cooking chopstick.

Okay?

Now I've been telling everybody, one time, a few weeks ago, I think a couple months ago on a show.

And I said, use this chopstick when you go to Chinese restaurant instead of this chopstick.

This chopstick got me starve to death because you cannot reach anything around.

With this chopstick, you can grab foods all over the table, or the other table.

(audience laughs) You'll never go starving again.

Now, first of all, we're gonna heat up this big pot.

This is a, like a stock pot.

We are going to brown this, but before you brown this, you got to flavor this first.

So we're gonna brown this with a tiny bit of garlic and ginger.

Look at this.

Minced garlic and ginger, ah!

Done.

Garlic, ginger, ah, done!

Ginger, more ginger.

Okay?

And I like ginger, ah, more ginger,.. Garlic, I like garlic, ah, garlic.

More garlic!

I am totally awake!

(audience laughs) And then put this right over here.

Look at the sizzling sound.

And then you brown this.

Listening, Wow!

This is what you call the excitement of cooking.

Make sure you turn off your smoke alarm when you're doing this, (audience laughs).

Otherwise you'll be running around and jump up and try to get the (mumbles).

(audience laughs) I did that many times.

And also that's good because that's a great exercise.

You'll do this, and the smoke alarm sounds off, you go, huh, (audience laughs).

This is a kitchen exercise.

Jennifer, you at home, you should do this.

While you're doing this, you should go (hands clapping).

(audience laughs) Do this, marvelous brown.

And then the next thing is you put all the seasoning in.

Look at this.

This is beef broth, about two to t.. Whoa, beef broth.

And also some dry Sherry.

Ah, two to three tablespoon up to quarter of a cup of dry Sherry or rice wine, a tiny, tiny bit of sugar and a tiny bit of bean sauce or hoisin sauce.

Make sure to get it all inside there.

Use a piece of meat to move them around.

And then if you want, more garlic.

More garlic, more garlic, more garlic, (audience laughs), more ginger, more everything!

And then put it right in here.

And then when it being to boil, cover this up and let it simmer.

In the meantime, we're gonna get some spice bag.

Otherwise you're not gonna have fragrant beef with vegetable stew.

You got to have some nice spices.

Get a little cheesecloth, okay?

Cheesecloth right here.

I have several things here.

I have star anise.

Look at this cute star anise.

Ah, star!

(audience laughs) And also clove and cinnamon stick, and also this is dried tangerine peel.

Okay?

Put them all together, right here.

Okay?

Tie them all up, tie them all up, tie them all up, tie them all and like a little, tie them all up with a little string right here.

It require patience, and you dip it in like a little teabag.

This is my cup of tea, (audience laughs), except this doesn't go with crumpet, (audience laughs).

And we're gonna to let it sit there.

You know why do I do this?

Because this way, this would not go.

The spices would not mess up and go all over the place.

You got the flavor out but you don't have to pick up all the pieces.

And we're gonna cover this up after I put this in.

I am going to put some wonderful daikon, they're also called turnip and Chinese call Luoba, the Japanese called daikon, the Chinese call Luoba, is white turnip, or you can call this white radish.

Okay, cut this up.

Cut this up, cut this up.

This is how fast you can do it.

Instead of doing one by one, you do it all together.

One, two.

You set them all up like this, look at this, you go one, two, three, four, five.

You cook all of these for about an hour.

And then after an hour, you put all of these in, okay?

Put all of these in, all of these.

We're gonna put them all here.

Instead of, (audience laughs), because, uh, this is no laughing matter, (audience laughs) this is serious thing.

Because I haven't even cooked it for 10 minutes, that's why I refuse to put it in.

And then also I have some carrot.

Roll cutting technique, carrot, this is how you do it.

This is (mumbles) roots.

Okay?

Now put all together, everybody, I even grow my carrot at home.

This daikon is so big, but it's very crispy, very crispy, very, very juicy and flavor, just like a giant carrot.

I hate to see the size of this rabbit eat this daikon.

(audience laughs) When this is two hours, then you put it in, time, just fries, (audience laughs).

Then you cover this up and then you have one that's already done, for two hours and you take it out.

And I want to show you how beautiful this is.

This is beautiful.

You put this over noodle.

Traditionally, you can serve this over rice or no.. or spaghetti or linguine.

Nobody really cares.

First, you remove this ding dong bag, (audience laughs).

Then you forget about the bones.

Who cares about the bones?

Remove the bone.

No bones about bones.

(audience laughs) And then I put all of these right ..

This is how beautiful this is.

If you want, you can even thicken this up a little bit, but the sauce is so beautiful, and it's so colorful.

Right before you serve, you put a tiny bit of green onion right on top to give some color contrast, and you have beautiful fragrant beef with vegetable stew.

(audience applauds) I have no bones about keeping bones.

In fact, I use them for soup all the time.

When you're not feeling good or when you're not feeling well, sometimes a hot bowl of soup can make you feel really good, feel better.

So let me show you a Chinese cure-all.

Long ago, our ancestor knew that herbs not only enhance the flavor of our food but can also add medicinal value to it.

So in China, if you're not feeling too well, the first thing you do is probably go to see a herbalist before you go to see a medical doctor.

So instead of popping a couple of vitamin pills after meals, we put it in our meals.

For instance, we have herbs like this in my background, hundreds and thousands of herbs.

Most of them are dried ingredients, either they are bulbs or roots or (mumbles) or blossoms.

So for instance, this is some of the most popular ones.

The red thing is called mespilus germanica, and then we have radix dioscorea and then we have radix codonopsis.

It's tough to pronounce and here we have something else.

Here, we have the pearl barley, then we have lotus seed, then we have fox nuts, dried lily bulb, dioscorea, polygonum and dried dragon's eye.

All of these, you cook with lean chicken or lean pork, make wonderful tonic.

So remember Chinese food doesn't only fill you up, it may be good for what ails you.

(audience applauds) I call this next dish a feel-good dish because every time I eat this, I feel good afterwards.

The next dish I'm gonna show you is what I call the ginger flavor yam.

Here, we have two roots.

This is the yam, it's a root and ginger is a root.

The square roots of these roots is still a root!

(audience laughs) Ginger and yam.

We're gonna cut this up and we're gonna microwave it in my microwave oven.

We'll cut this up right in half and we'll cut it up right in half, we'll cut it up right in half.

And we'll put it over here.

And we are going to microwave it for about six to eight minutes over high heat.

Now this is a yam and this is a sitting-duck yam.

(audience laughs) Have you ever seen duck yam?

Dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong.

(audience laughs) It fries!

And then we cover this up and we are going to put it in the microwave oven.

We are going to turn this on, microwave oven, and then pick this up, this is hot.

It will be hot.

That's why you have to do this.

Always remember to use a pot holder.

And this is so hot.

It, ah!

(audience laughs) I'm a brave guy.

Then remove.

Microwave oven is good because you can easily remove the skin, like this.

You see this, very easy to remove the skin.

That's why you microwave it.

And of course if you don't have enough time, you could peel this.

You know, that's enough.

And then, we will put them all together and we will do this particular dish later because I'm going to let it sit because it's still too hot.

I want to put it in and I cook some more yam.

In the meantime, we're going to cook a dish, we want to call spicy stir-fried jicama with leek.

Okay.

This is jicama.

We want to slice the jicama.

Jicama is very, very big.

To save time, we are going to turn it on, my burner, okay, heat it up.

And then we're going to stir-fry the jicama, jicama is good because it doesn't matter what you do, it's always very, very tasty, juicy, got a nice texture.

(kitchen knife knocks on the cutting board) Done.

It doesn't take too long.

Now, if you are having a good time at home, you can always smile, just like the people in the studio audience.

(audience laughs) They're smiling.

(kitchen knife knocks on the cutting board) Carrot.

(audience applauds) Okay.

Put it right over here, okay?

And then we also have some leek.

This leek is wonderful.

It's very, very spicy and it's wonderful, and you wash it, this leek is in a leek of its own.

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

Everything is all cut up.

You see, also, as I said, also, get a tiny, tiny bit of ginger.

Done.

I want to show you how fast you can do th..

This is a hot wok.

This is all the heat, all the oil you need.

Put a tiny bit of ginger, stir fry.

If you like hot and spicy food, make sure you use this chili pepper.

One is hot, two is hotter, three to four is very hot!

This is dangerous!

(audience laughs) We put them all over and then put the leek in there, and then you put carrot and jicama in there and this dish is so easy to do.

I cannot believe it!

Look at this.

Stir, put a tiny bit of chicken broth.

(sizzling) Whoa!

Wow, this is marvelous.

And also a tiny bit of white pepper, a tiny bit of dry Sherry and a tiny bit of a sesame seed oil, a few drops of soy sauce.

And here you'll have a very delicious, all you have to do is thickening it up with about one portion of corn starch, about two portion of water.

Okay?

Put a tiny bit of (mumbles) in, mo.. Then you have beautiful dish.

This is very, very good to do.

Look at this.

Isn't that beautiful?

When it's done, you're going to get a serving platter and then you're going to put it right in here.

And I wanna show you this particular dish is beautiful and it's very easy to do.

When it's done, wow, look at this.

Magnificent!

(audience applauds) See that?

The next dish I want to show you, to finish it up, is of course the root of the square, the square root is still a root.

And I'm going to put this over here and we're going to do this ginger yam.

Here is very, very easy to do.

I put this, already steamed.

That's why I'm so glad that I did not put this in earlier because it's so hot.

It burns me up, still very hot.

It is so hot.

I hold on to it for about three seconds, I couldn't take it anymore.

And put it over here.

This is yam, about two pounds of yam.

Okay.

And also we have some ginger.

We cut the ginger into smaller pieces.

We're gonna chop this up and put it right over here.

We'll go, hey, hey, done, put it over here.

And then, also, I'm gonna put a tiny bit.. okay, approximately quarter of a cup or less, a tiny bit of salt to give a taste balance.

Okay.

And then also a tiny bit of orange juice.

Orange juice is not only for breakfast anymore!

Okay, look.

(blender buzzing) And then put more, just right in here.

(blender buzzing) Move!

Move!

(audience laughs) Move!

(audience laughs) It'll drive me nuts, it's not moving.

(blender buzzing) Move these around.

This is getting very exciting.

It's not listening.

Put them all together.

This is a very exciting dish because it's very interesting.

When this is done, we're gonna chop up some crystallized ginger.

(blender buzzing) (audience laughs) Ah, you can read a book!

(audience laughs) (blender buzzing) I am having fun.

Finally, we got it.

When you garnish, you should garnish it with mint le.. has been out for three days.

(audience laughs) So it looks so wonderful that you cannot believe it yourself.

Oh, look at this.

This is really good.

It looks so good.

I am telling you, I am impressed.

(audience laughs) It is truly delicious.

Now this is for one person and you garnish it with this mildly dried up mint leaf, (audience laughs and applauds) and put a tiny bit of this crystallized ginger, fill it up with more mint leaf, you have a beautiful gingered yam.

I want to show, a lot of people know that ginger i.. most important ingredient in Chinese cooking.

I want to show you how ginger is grown.

It grows from a root and multiplies underground.

And this crop of ginger is about two months old and only the leaves show at this point.

At the right time, the dirt around the ginger root is clear way to reveal the edible portion of the ginger.

A ginger crop is ready for harvest normally in about 12 months after it is plant.

The ginger root are washed and then dried on the rack about for a week.

And this is the finished product that you normally see in a grocery store.

(audience applauds) Now, next I want to do is chicken with taro in clay pot.

Every time you go to Chinese restaurant, you see a lot of dishes are prepared and served in a clay pot.

We're gonna have some clay pot to .. And this particular dish, all we have to do is I'm gonna use approximately one pound of chi.. You can use chicken breast or chicken thigh, okay?

Cut it up into pieces like this.

One, two, put them all together.

Ah, one, ah, two and, and three, put it right here, okay.

Put them all together, and then you got to marinate this.

Of course it tastes better when something is marinated.

Marinate this particular piece of chicken and then put a tiny bit of corn starch, exactly one teaspoon and put a tiny bit of soy sauce, exactly one and half teaspoon, up to a tablespoon and a tiny bit of dry Sherry, okay.

Basic marinate for most of the dishes.

And if you have time, you should always, always (mumbles), always wash your hands.

See, I have so much time.

I always wash my hand.

See, it clean!

(audience laughs) And then after that, let it sit here and then get a tiny bit of garlic and ginger.

You're gonna heat up my clay pot.

I'm gonna heat up the clay pot.

You're gonna have some (mumbles).

(kitchen knife knocks on the cutting board) Ah, done.

(audience applauds) (mumbles) and garlic.

(kitchen knife knocks on the cutting board) Am I having fun?

Yes.

(audience laughs and applauds) (kitchen knife knocks on the cutti.. Then, put them all together.

And then ginger, put it all together.

And then you say, ah, this is all we need, and this is all together.

Put a tiny bit of oil right here, then we can saute this spicy vegetable, use a chopstick, cooking chopstick.

In the meantime, we're gonna put the chicken in.

All I need is about this much chicken because this is cooking for one.

Me!

(audience laughs) And then you stir this, in the meantime while you are browning this, you want to cut up some Chinese sausage, okay?

This is Chinese sausage and also get a piece of green onion.

This is Chinese sausage.

You can buy lean Chinese sausage, liver, duck liver Chinese sausage, it can even be beef Chinese sausage.

Cut it up into little pieces like that.

And you can throw all of these in while you stir fry because you get the flavor out.

In the meantime, I want to show you quickly, aside from this chicken and taro in a clay pot, here, I want to show you the different taro.

Taro is a root because today we're doing underground delicacies, back to the roots.

These are taro.

This is taro.

They come with different shapes, different size and different color.

This is taro, so is this, and this.

What the heck is this?

This is a ping pong ball.

(audience laughs) Taro comes anywhere from, it's a tuber, they come from, anywhere from four ounces varied to approximately three to four pounds each.

This is four pounds.

You drop it from the top of the house, you can demolish a car.

(audience laughs) okay?

And this is how you jiggle, learn ho..

They also come from different color.

Also, this is purple.

Can you see the purple color?

They also come from yellow or white.

You cut this up, one, two, three, cut into little cubes, looks like a dice.

(audience laughs) And then you put them all together, cut up some mushroom, mushroom, mushroom.

And you put all of this together.

And then a final touch is you put dry Sherry flavor, a tiny bit of pepper.

And then you turn on the heat after you put the chicken broth, then you cover this up, you cover this up and then you are ready to serve.

Because I have done this ahead of time, so this way everybody can see this.

This is chicken and taro in a beautiful clay pot.

(audience applauds) Now, as we have seen so much beauty in the cooking world is lying below the surface of earth.

So don't be afraid to get down to the roots of underground cuisine.

Until next time.

If Yan can cook, so can you.

“Goodbye!” (##!)

(audience applauds)