MING: This week on Simply Ming: buddy Billy Dec is in the house.

He's from Nashville and Chicago.

He's an Emmy Award-winning actor, producer, and restaurateur.

He's going to be making a classic Filipino dish pork adobo in a bao.

The adobo is pretty much one of the core items that most Filipinos know how to make.

It really involves vinegar to begin with and soy.

MING: I'm going to be taking that same bao but putting a pressed tofu inside of it.

Tofu needs help for both texture and flavor.

So by searing it in cornstarch we're adding some texture.

He's got a fried egg on top, I've got some apple slaw.

Oh yeah, I'm in.

Oh, it's gonna crack.

Oh... (laughs) MING: Mm... Oh, my God.

That's why you eat it now.

We're cooking here at home right now on Simply Ming.

♪ ♪ MING: Billy Dec, brother, what's happening?

Thank you for having me.

MING: Great to have you here.

I visit you a lot of times in Chicago, I can't wait to come see you in Nashville-- you liking it?

Yes, we brought Sunda from Chicago to Nashville.

MING: Great music though, right?

Everything-- food, music, nature, you name it.

MING: Awesome.

A city that's exploding, amazing culinary scene, so you would fit in perfectly.

MING: I can't wait.

I'm gonna make you a strawberry cosmo because we're so cosmopolitan?

(laughing): I have no idea.

Hey, it's a great summer, bright... MING: Exactly, with Thai basil and strawberries.

A couple strawberries we're gonna muddle the basil.

Do me a favor, ice me to about here, and then dump those glasses.

So a little Thai basil, a little strawberry just to get the essence of the strawberry, we're going to use a little orange liqueur, and of course a really good, good vodka.

Sounds delicious.

MING: You gotta chill your glasses, we're gonna make a good martini.

There you go.

MING: Good, now we're gonna add just a delicious vodka, right?

You gotta make sure you use a high quality vodka.

So we have three ounces of this.

So I'm gonna do a little bit of vodka here.

One of my favorites.

I don't think we've ever had vodka before together.

MING (laughing): No, probably not.

Orange liqueur.

Right, a little orange liqueur.

A couple ounces of that.

(liquid glugging from bottle) Love that sound.

Then a little acid.

Some fresh...

Lemon or lime?

MING: Fresh lime juice, just a half an ounce.

This is like a health drink, so many fruits, so many different types of fruit and herbs.

MING: This is like, yeah, it's like we're juicing.

Thank you, we're juicing, pretty much.

MING: It just doesn't have any watercress or kale, which is okay.

All right, do me a favor, drop a couple strawberry slices in that.

Just to make it look extra fancy so we can charge a little bit more.

(Billy laughs) There you go.

MING: Very nice.

Who knew you could bartend so great?

MING: Here we go.

Beautiful.

MING: So the most fun thing about Nashville for you right now is what?

Music.

The music scene is unbelievable.

MING: Unbelievable, right?

The people on the street are better than anything I've ever heard.

I mean it's... it's... it blows my mind.

MING: To you.

Thank you.

MING: Cheers.

And to you.

MING: Cheers to you.

Wow, that's refreshing and a good kick.

MING: There's a kick.

Come on, it's a vodka cocktail.

It's our cosmo.

I like it.

MING: Some pork adobo, Billy?

Yeah.

MING: My favorite.

This would go great with that, it would cut right through that fat.

And... there's plenty of fat on this particular dish.

MING: I saw!

Let's go.

Let's do some pork belly, come on.

Pork belly, talk to me.

One of my favorite comfort foods of all time, especially when you adobo marinate it.

My mom's from the islands of the Philippines, which you know, this is like our every Sunday core entree that's always on the table.

And when you mix and match it and put it in a bao bun with a fried egg, the combination is just explosive, literally.

MING: Can I help you?

What can I do?

Yes, take the pork belly, and if you want, you can score that first before we sear it off and get it golden brown in the pot.

I'm gonna start on the marinade.

The adobo is pretty much one of the core items that most Filipinos know how to make.

It really involves vinegar to begin with and soy.

(sizzling) MING: There's a good amount of vinegar and soy there.

Yeah, there's three cups right here, four cups of soy.

Reason being is in our family we always make extra because you never know later on in the week you can go right back into the fridge and grab that extra marinade, and just cut up a chicken... MING: And use it again.

Yeah, use it again.

So this a rice wine vinegar that we're going to add at about a half a cup.

We also have a cup of brown sugar.

We've got a lot of sweet and salt, acid... MING: Season up?

...and garlic.

Yup, salt and pepper on that.

MING: Okay, both sides?

Both sides.

MING: Okay.

And then a little garlic and most adobos also-- a lot of people cook them different ways, different families, different islands, there's over 7,000 islands in the Philippines.

MING: Yeah, right, you know what?

People don't realize, people think the Philippines is Manila.

No.

MING: It's so far from the truth.

You have so many beautiful islands.

I've been going since a kid... since I've been a kid, and they have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

MING: So seared here?

Yeah.

MING: You don't need any fat obviously, right?

Straight in.

Straight in.

(sizzles) On the marinade I'm going to also add some bay leaves and some pepper.

About two tablespoons of pepper and a couple bay leaves.

I'm just gonna stir that up, we've got it on about a medium heat.

And really that's just to mix.

That's just so everything sort of gets in there.

MING: So the sugar dissolves, right?

Yeah, we really don't have to boil it, or cook it off, or even reduce it.

Because it's gonna usually, it's gonna sit in the pot in the oven for either three hours at 325 or we can go to a pressure cooker and knock it out in 30 minutes, which we're gonna do.

MING: That's why pressure cookers are awesome.

But I do miss the oven smell for three hours in the home.

Like my grandparents used to make red roast pork and duck, and that smell of sweetness and soy is like mesmerizing.

That's something we would come home to every day after school growing up in a Filipino family.

MING: All right, so this is probably gonna take, what, five or six minutes each?

Four minutes, five minutes depending on the heat.

MING: Then we'll flip it over?

Flip it over, golden brown, just get that texture and that sort of taste profile.

MING: And combine the two and boom.

That's it, that's what's so simple.

You just leave it in there and you don't have to do much.

MING: No wonder he has an Emmy.

And same with chicken by the way, chicken, vegetables, seafood, same process.

Just throw it all in there and it'll cook itself... MING: Love it.

...all together.

MING: Love it, love it.

All right, back in six minutes.

Billy, how's that looking for you?

Maganda!

That's Tagalog for "beautiful."

MING: Beautiful.

Unbelievable.

MING: Let's do this, okay.

So here's the insert of the pressure cooker, you just dump that in, right?

Yeah, just by itself.

MING: There we go.

All right.

MING: Just check this out though, look at all the pork fat that we're not gonna eat.

This is the other reason why you want to sear, right, and render.

Because that you don't need to eat, but guess what, that will make the best fried rice.

Save that fat.

And fried eggs.

MING: And fried eggs for that matter.

All right, and what about this though, what do you do?

Okay, and then all we're doing here is we've heated it up to the point that everything's mixed very well.

And I'm just gonna pour about two and a half cups in to cover... the pork belly.

But it's two and a half of the marinade that we have here.

MING: Right.

And two and a half of the chicken stock that you'll see right over there by your cutting board.

MING: So you do 50/50?

50/50.

And just enough to cover it so it's immersed perfectly and evenly.

MING: Got it, you just want it covered.

And that's it, look at that, the perfect amount.

MING: I'm just gonna try it.

That's so good because how this braising liquid tastes is how the pork belly's gonna taste, right?

And it's gonna... especially since you sort of... oh look at that.

MING: That looks so good.

All right, so 30 minutes you think?

Thirty minutes with a pressure cooker.

And if you wanna go slow and low old school style we can go with the stove at 325 for three hours.

MING: Yeah, and you can also do stovetop probably about, you know like you said, two hours or something.

Slow and low, two hours is fine.

MING: Okay, 30 minutes, and then of course the last ten minutes we'll put these baos in, right?

Yes, that is a recent discovery, we did not grow up with bao buns, but at Sunda we have so many bao dishes that we began to mix and mingle, and a crispy adobo... MING: And you know, and I made these fresh, it's a pain in the butt to make them fresh, really, because you can buy them frozen and you can steam them.

Did you really?

MING: Oh my grandfather showed me, Yeyé, he actually showed me how.

It's great, it's actually it's not that hard, it's just it's a sweet dough but you steam them, which I love.

Okay, you're going to have to show me how to do that.

MING: All right, all right, stick around, pork belly baos, right now.

Bao time.

Nice.

All right, I love that banana leaf.

MING: Always banana leaf.

Love bao, it's what, four minutes max maybe to get those cooking?

Yeah, maybe even sooner.

And then how are you doing on that pork?

MING: Oh, I'm gonna do it right now, let's see what it looks like.

I can smell it, it smells amazing.

MING: Oh yeah... Oh boy.

MING: Oh yeah... That looks pretty good.

It's just bathing in that marinade.

MING: Oh yeah, ooh, this is soft.

Bring me that plate there, Billy.

There you go.

MING: Thank you.

Ah...

It's already even falling apart from those tongs.

MING: That looks awesome.

So you're gonna cut that up?

MING: Yup.

Okay, while you're doing that, I'm gonna fry up some eggs.

MING: How about those cucumbers, just a little slaw or something?

Yeah, you can do some slaw with this, cut up the cucumber, the chili.

MING: A little Thai bird, a little lemon juice?

A little lemon.

MING: Perfect.

Simple, simple crisp to cut against that fat.

MING: Yup, good.

And then we're gonna reuse-- see this, we're recycling-- we're gonna use the pork fat just like my lola did back in the day with my... lola means grandma.

MING: "Lolo"?

Lola.

MING: Lola.

Lolo is grandpa.

My lola was an amazing cook and she helped raise me, and so she was cooking things like this pork adobo almost every day.

(sizzles) So we're gonna fry off these two eggs... (sputtering) ...in the pork fat.

And she used to... just make sure that the fat got on the top of the egg a little bit to cook it.

MING: I love that.

That's a true fried egg.

Now... Usually I do it... over easy, but we're going old school style today.

And you want it to be really runny because you want this thing to break in that bao, wanna just let the yolk ooze, it's one of the best parts.

MING: I understand.

And it's great using the fat, I mean you just get all that savory just flavor.

MING: So chef, all I did was a little Thai bird to not kill us, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

That's it?

Easy.

MING: Bright, acidic, crunchy, okay.

See how this... take this off here.

Oh yeah... Look at that, we're done.

MING: Good, good.

I'm gonna take it off fairly soon here because again... MING: Ooh that's hot.

That's hot.

Oh yeah dude, this is so good.

Oh yeah.

I love fried eggs in animal fat.

It's just so much different.

How's that look?

MING: Look at that, you tell me.

It's just breaking apart.

MING: That looks unbelievable.

And the fat content is a little bit, you know, the ratio to meat to fat is better now.

When we first had it, it was a little intimidating with the amount of fat that was on there.

MING: All right, let's grab some baos, I think they should be ready.

There you go, perfect.

MING: Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Oh, they're perfect.

MING: Grab two of those.

Okay.

MING: All right, here, put this aside.

You want to put bao down first, pork down first?

Pork down first.

MING: Okay.

Oh my god, this looks so good, dude.

Perfect size as well.

MING: Beautiful.

Awesome.

Egg?

I'm gonna go egg.

MING: Looks awesome.

I'm so psyched.

I mean, this is like kind of breakfast for dinner.

Any time of the day.

MING: This looks unbelievable.

Oh, my God.

We gotta eat these now, don't we?

I know, I can't even wait.

MING: I think we're gonna eat 'em now.

Are we gonna go right in?

MING: Yeah, come on, this...

I see the table's set, but-but... MING: We eat another one over there, but come on, with this egg, with this runniness, with this hot, oh yeah, I'm in.

Oh, it's gonna crack.

Oh... (laughs) MING: Mm-- oh, my God.

That's why you eat it now.

Mm... MING: Dude, seriously.

You just won another Emmy, dude.

Congratulations, I'm glad you took me along for the ride.

Guys, this is unbelievable.

You got egg, the crispiness, the cucumber, but the pork, half an hour.

Yeah, that's... MING: Unbelievable.

I mean it's tender, it's absorbed all that marinade.

It's-it's really interesting how Filipinos cook with vinegar, it's really unique.

MING: I mean it was a 50-50 ratio of vinegar to soy.

Dude... this is absolutely spectacular.

And I like the crispy cucumber to offset it.

So is this breakfast, lunch, or dinner?

MING: Dude, it's every day, every meal, period.

(Billy laughs) It is so good.

In half an hour that pork totally broke down, you taste the vinegar and the soy.

Sometimes pork belly is all soy, which I don't like.

Yeah.

MING: Like your sugar covered the soy, but it's the vinegar.

Like you use palm vinegar all the time in the Philippines, right?

I love that.

Totally unique to Filipino cooking.

That's actually what adobo means, it doesn't refer to a recipe, it refers to their style of cooking, and primarily with vinegar.

MING: Dude, you got it nailed.

All right, well, we're gonna keep eating, and we're gonna make another bao.

(mouth full): Oh yeah?

MING: It's not gonna have any pork though, so don't be disappointed, but it's pressed tofu and an apple side.

It's pretty good, we'll see.

Stick around.

Dude!

Seriously, so good.

That was so good.

I feel like you're gonna one-up me.

MING: I'm not gonna-- I got tofu, man, it's hard to one-up with tofu.

This already looks amazing.

MING: But we're gonna try, but all we're gonna do, this is tofu, firm tofu that I've already pressed.

Because tofu has a lot of water, right?

So all we do is put a paper towel, and I put a bowl on it just to weigh it down.

Because I want to get as much moisture out of it because now I want to bring in flavored moisture into it, all right?

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take-- and do me a favor, just rough-chop some walnuts.

It's gonna be a walnut apple salad, it's gonna go on top of the tofu.

But to make the tofu I have some tamari, all right.

I have some apple cider, right?

This is the alcoholic cider, right, which I love.

A little bit of that.

We're gonna add just a little bit of ginger; couple slices.

Three, four, five slices, there's really no... no exact, but the more ginger, at least for me, the better.

So that goes in.

Super simple.

I'm gonna bring this to a simmer.

(pilot clicking) Okay.

And then we take this pressed tofu and we lay it in.

So simple right?

So that comes to a simmer, all right.

And while we're waiting for that to come to a simmer, I'm gonna go ahead and cut up an apple, just a washed apple.

When I break down an apple I don't mind the skin, right.

You can zest me some lemon if you don't mind, sir.

I know you don't want to be standing around.

I love it.

MING: So I take off the four sides cause that's the majority of the skin.

Okay.

MING: Then I take two slices on each side of the core.

So again, you can see there's a little bit of skin but not a ton.

I don't mind the skin, I think the skin has a great texture, it has a unique flavor, and it's so much better for you.

Then here I go as fine as I can because this is gonna be this walnut apple salad on top just like you have the cucumber, I think a little bit of crunch, a little bit of acid is great with any type.

God, the aroma here is awesome.

MING: Right?

What I don't have is the pork fat.

It's good.

MING (laughing): I don't know if it's good.

It's a healthy counterbalance.

MING: It is a healthy counterbalance.

Pardon the reach.

So we have the apples here.

Okay, got your walnuts.

MING: Perfect.

Yeah, walnuts... And your lemon zest.

MING: Lemon zest...

Awesome.

God, that looks beautiful already.

MING: Sambal because we want a little bit of kick, all right.

One of my favorites.

MING: Good kick there.

Then I'm gonna take two sides of the lemon because these two sides don't have seeds, right?

There's actually four sides that don't have seeds.

Boom.

Like that.

A little pinch of salt.

I don't need black pepper because of all that sambal.

All right, mix that up.

All right, so this... Continue mixing that up for me, my friend.

Yeah, absolutely.

MING: This is simmering now, so I take my pressed tofu.

This is what I want to see, I've never done this before.

MING: So I lay this in like that.

And if you happen to have another pot, you can take it, you can just lay it on top and press it.

Oh wow.

That is great.

MING: And now, since it came to a simmer, now I turn it off.

So what I want to do is just sit there.

But what you can do then is actually just weigh it down.

So I can take something heavy like a Japanese teapot... to weigh it down.

So let that sit and that can go for up to two hours.

And what's happening now is by being pressed, the tofu is absorbing that soy, apple cider, ginger flavor.

Got it.

MING: Got it?

All right, so we're gonna let this sit.

What happens?

Two hours later... it looks like that.

Beautiful.

MING: Right, it's actually even a little bit flatter.

But... and of course it's not going to be dark all the way through, but that great soy flavor got in, right?

Love it.

MING: This looks spicy.

Oh yeah.

Oh, that's good.

That's really good.

(laughing) Oh wow, that's a combo.

Did you mean that much sambal?

MING: Yes, I did.

Whoo!

MING: I'm the sambal king.

I love it.

MING: Now what we're gonna do is take this tofu and we're gonna lay it in this plate of cornstarch.

Right, because I want to pan sear it.

So for a piece about like that, right.

Like that.

Go ahead and flip that around in the cornstarch.

Both sides?

MING: Sure.

All right, do four slices like that.

There we go.

Perfect.

So now we got a pan right here.

Just a little bit of canola oil.

And obviously tofu is fully cooked.

I'm just doing this to add a little more flavor and color.

Black pepper.

Like that.

Little bit of salt.

All right.

And be generous with the oil here, right?

Because we really want to get a crispiness on this tofu.

All right.

So like that.

And then we take our tofu.

Got that on the high heat?

MING: It is on the high heat.

Nice.

MING: So here, put it in like this.

It's just gonna get a little crispy, it's not gonna get super crispy.

But I would say it's gonna take about three minutes a side.

So we're gonna let that go and get golden brown and delicious.

We come back we can make our bao.

Love it.

MING: That's spicy!

Whoo!

Yeah.

MING: All right, Billy, look at that.

G, B, and D. Seven, about seven minutes.

Get this nice color.

Again, tofu needs... tofu needs help for both texture and flavor.

So by searing it in cornstarch, we're adding some texture.

Oh yeah.

MING: Hand me those plates, please, Billy.

Absolutely.

MING: Take a couple of these.

Ow, ow, ow...

There we go.

Perfect.

MING: All right, here, open one up.

Like this.

Oh yeah...

Boy, these are hot.

MING: Take a nice piece of tofu like that.

All right, baby.

Now the walnuts, which was my fat.

So you had pork fat.

This is gonna be a nice spicy kick.

Oh man.

MING: Look at that.

I'm already drooling.

MING: Cheers.

Cheers, brother.

Thank you so much, this has been amazing.

All right.

MING: All right, let's see how we did here.

It's not gonna explode.

Ming's healthier version.

MING: Not gonna explode like your egg, but hopefully it will explode with flavor.

I can already tell.

Oh... MING: What do you think?

Great.

Well, there's the kick.

(laughs) It's like a surprise... MING: The sambal kick.

Mm-hmm.

MING: You know what I love?

I love that the tofu actually has flavor.

I love the nuts, because that's the fat.

The texture.

The texture differences are amazing.

MING: Oh man, oh, it got to my nose, there's the kick.

You're right.

Oh, my God, I like this.

I'm not gonna lie, though... Oh yeah.

MING: As my last meal on this planet, it's gonna be pork belly.

It's not gonna be tofu.

You know what?

If it was me, I would put it all into one single bao bun.

(Ming laughs) Go put right between two bao buns, open like a big sandwich.

MING: And a big fried egg.

That's it, the whole deal.

That's coming together.

MING: Dude, I think we can do it.

Who knows, we may do a restaurant together one day.

Wouldn't that be fun?

(bottles clink) Whoa, you heard it here first.

MING: Maybe.

Dude, thank you.

I'm coming to see you in Nashville.

You should.

MING: I love music, I love food, I love the outdoors.

Careful, you might not leave.

MING: Oh, that sounds like a... that sounds like an idle, delicious threat.

(laughter) Thank you, man.

Once again, this was great.

MING: Billy Dec, you're the best.

All right.

MING: Thank you all as well for watching.

Make some bao, you can put anything inside a bao steamed bun.

And, as always, peace and good eating.

Cheers.

Cheers.