(whimsical music) (Joyful music) (audience applauding) - I brought this duck home with me today because I am going to tell you some duck tales.

(blows a duck caller) (audience laughs) Duck is a very, very special Chinese ingredient, particularly in special occasions, special celebration.

So today let us celebrate with five spice crispy duck.

Here I have a duck right here.

Normally they're called Long Island Duck if you buy here, but this is originally from Peking, Peking duck.

They farm-raise this.

So when you bought it in a Chinese store, you can buy ducks that can still walk.

(audience laughs) And also they come with the head and everything.

But anyway, this particular duck, normally when you buy the duck in the supermarket, this is already removed because you go to Chinese dim sum restaurant, they have braised duck web, braised chicken feet because in China, as I said, the golden rule of Chinese cooking, never waste anything.

Nowadays, everybody is into healthy low-fat cooking.

So we're gonna use steam power for this particular dish.

We wanna steam this duck.

When you steam this duck you take the fat off, get rid of all the fat so it's nice and healthy.

If you don't want to steam it, you can actually do it by microwav.. for about 10 to 12 minutes, until you get to a stage like this.

Let me see, show you.

This is the duck.

This has been microwaved for about 10 to 12 minutes, and you can see all the fat is all down here.

All the fat, can you see the fat?

You don't want this fat.

And then you put this over here, get rid of these.

A lot of people don't know a lot of the time when you see the duck, a lot of the time the duck is heavy, the fat is normally sit around here.

You can find the fat around the bottom right here.

You see this.

When a duck gains weight, they always g.. (audience laughs) But actually, they don't sit except.. (audience laughs) They're always running around.

But anyway, we're gonna marinate this.

You've got to marinate this with five spice powder.

Look at this, five spice powder.

We're gonna marinate this over here.

We're gonna add five spice powder, about one to one and a half teaspoon, you're gonna have orange zest.

It's gonna be a beautiful tasty duck.

And you also have some garlic and ginger.

Let's once again, mince some garlic and ginger.

Garlic and ginger.

A lot of them, okay.

Mince it.

(hits blade on surface) Mince this.

(hits blade on surface) Simple job.

Mince this and also a little star anise.

And also you use salt and sugar.

One teaspoon of salt, some sugar, okay?

Marinate this.

And also of course, never forget s..

Mix them all up.

You can rub this into the duck inside out.

This way you can bake them.

Okay?

So I want to bake them about 375 degree.

Turn on the oven for approximately 30 minutes.

Put the all this inside here.

(audience laughs) Be very cautious and then rub this around.

Look at this, look at how beautiful.

Rub this around, rub this.

When you rub this, be careful, very, very smoothly.

(audience laughs) Give the right mood, get into the right mood.

Tenderize the back.

(audience laughs) I am having fun.

(audience laughs) Now you're gonna add five spice powder and you're gonna bake them so you're gonna have a nice crispy duck.

Okay.

Without the five spice powder you're not gonna have a five spice crispy duck.

You're gonna have a crispy duck with no spice.

I'm gonna clean up my hand right here.

(water running) Okay.

And then I'm gonna take it to the oven and bake it.

375 for half an hour, and then turn it upside down.

You cook it about 325 for another hour or so.

So you're cooking for total of one and a half hour.

We take this over here in the meantime.

Let's see.

Wow, look at all of these For so many people in the audience I'm doing two ducks.

(audience laughs) Hot.

Let's put it over here.

And then look at this.

This is wonderful.

Why do you call five spice crispy duck?

Because the skin is crispy.

Look at this.

And there's five spice here.

On the inside the meat is juicy and succulent.

If the inside is crispy and outside is moist and soft, you are reading my recipe upside down.

(audience laughs) Now we're gonna serve these.

Look at this, very, very hot, watch out.

I'll show you, we're gonna serve these with some glazed walnuts.

I'm nuts about walnuts.

When this is nice and done (breathes heavy).

(audience laughs) And then you serve some walnut right over here, right over here.

So this way a guest can have a con.. as well as texture.

When it's done, you can hold on to this and you can slice a couple piece.

Look at this.

This is beautiful, look at this.

And then you can... Look how beautiful this is, huh?

One piece.

This is scrumptious.

You can see how beautiful this is.

Look at this.

(audience applauds) Beautiful duck.

Now we're gonna do another wonderful dish with duck.

Braised eight precious duck.

And why do you call braised eight precious?

Because we have eight different ingredients in this particular dish.

That's why we call (speaks in foreign language).

That means braised eight different treasure or precious duck.

Here we have the duck right here.

We're gonna marinate this with the following ingredient.

We have some soy sauce, soy sauce.

Okay.

And we have garlic, one teaspoon of garlic and salt and sugar.

Marinade this.

Make sure you rub them inside out.

(Yan rubbing duck) Do that a couple days.

You can do this the night before, at least two hours to four hours to six hours.

Depends on how much time you have.

Make sure they are- (duck flopping about) (audience laughs) The reason why I did that because make sure the whole cavity is nicely coated and then turn upside down.

Once again.

Now as a courtesy I do not turn this side.

(audience laughs) When you go to have dinner, they always, when they serve chicken or serve fish, they always point the head towards the honor guest.

If you sit where this is pointing you, it is time to leave.

(audience laughs) Without being told to get lost.

Now make sure once this is done, we are going to braise it in this wok, okay?

Turn this up.

We have all this ingredient.

Look at the ingredient we have.

When I'm braising I want to go through all the eight ingredients.

Slightly braise it up because you want to get some of the fat out first, okay?

And then you'll put in, the breast side down because a lot of the fat is right under here.

So we'll do this first.

(duck sizzles) Wow.

Make a lot of noise.

This duck is making noise.

You make noise.

(blows duck caller) I make noise.

Now here, look at all this ingredient.

We have mushroom, okay.

You can cut it up.

For the small one you don't have to .. For the big one, you might want to cut it up in half or three pieces.

(blade chopping mushrooms) All done, put it right over here.

And then we have some bamboo shoot.

Look at this, cut this in half.

And now cut into bite-size pieces.

Bamboo shoot, the whole big piece set aside.

So there's two different ingredients.

(blade chopping food) (audience laughs) And we also, while we're braising this, we also can braise it with some shallot, whole big chunk of shallot, okay.

Lot of garlic and ginger.

Lot of garlic and ginger get the flavor out.

And also we'll use a tiny, tiny bit of salt, tiny bit of extra salt and sugar right here.

And then we will braise the whole thing upside down.

Look at this, Let's turn this upside down.

Wow, look at how beautiful it looks, huh?

Look at this (duck sizzles) It is looking good.

And then the next thing you do is moving them around.

Now the seasoning.

I'm gonna put in is water chestnut, this other eight precious.

Water chestnut, bamboo shoot and Chinese shiitake mushroom, or called (speaks in foreign language).

And then you use this, this is very important.

Anybody know what this is?

This is the fermented red bean curd made from soybean.

This will give a nice Chinese flavor to it, okay?

And they normally bought it in a little jar like this.

Look at this little jar like this.

And then also you can also cut up some leek, big chunks of leek, lay them around, let it braise, okay?

Some green onion, let it braise.

Green onion, let it braise.

And then the last minute put a tiny bit of extra soy sauce.

And then some broth, put it right in here.

Braise it for approximately one and a half hours.

This gonna be delicious.

And of course, towards the end you can also put a tiny bit of potato.

Braise it for about an hour or so then in last half an hour put some chopped either potato or taro root.

Look at this, this is taro.

Have you ever seen this before?

Very popular in Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisine.

You peel it, it work like a potato.

You can bake them, you can deep fry them.

Once this is done, we're gonna remove this lid from here to here because we have been cooking ducks.

We love ducks .

Cover up here.

We have a beautiful duck have been braised for about one and a half hour.

When it's done, we're gonna show you quickly how easy it is.

Look at this, let's put it over here.

Wow, this is hot, let's shut it off.

Put it over here.

Everybody can see, we are going to transfer this whole thing.

Look at this, whole duck right over here.

Look at how beautiful.

And then put all the ingredients.

Put it right over here.

And this is so beautiful, I cannot believe it myself.

(audience laughs) This is really nice because you can serve the whole party with just one duck.

Braise eight precious duck.

(audience applauds) Now, we're gonna show you something just as exciting.

We're gonna show how to make a simple roast duck salad.

When you go to Chinese Chinatown, you'll walk around the Chinese deli, you see this roast duck hanging all over the place.

This is the roast duck.

If you have time, you can always make your own, okay.

First of all, I'm gonna get some duck breasts out.

Get this duck breast out, we're gonna put in the duck salad, okay.

And the rest of the duck, I'm gonna do stir fried duck.

To save time, we have been roasting some walnut in our oven.

You know, do your walnut roasting not in your toaster, but in your oven.

So we will roast it.

Look at this.

I love my nuts without wall to walnu.. Let's get this out because I've been roasting this.

This is beautiful.

After you finished roasting this, you put it over here and then you make a dressing.

I have some rice vinegar.

Okay, about half a cup.

Some honey, look at this, get some honey.

And also Chinese hot mustard.

When I don't feel good, when I have a cold, I always use a lot of Chinese hot mustard.

It clear up my sinus.

(audience laughs) And if you really are adventurous, you use this Japanese style horseradish, wasabi.

Not only it will clear up your sinus instantly, it blow your mind.

(audience laughs) And then also some roasted walnut, okay.

'Cause we're gonna make a dressing out of these, okay.

Okay, let's make a dressing.

(food processor whirs) Now, also I'm gonna use about half a cup of oil.

This is I use Walnut oil because I love this strong and nutty and flavorful because a lot sometimes chef use about half and half, but since I love strong stuff, so I love.

(food processor whirs) This is gonna be wonderful dressing.

Now a lot of people don't know walnut oil is very, very light.

Wow, this is still very hot.

Let's remove these and let it cool down.

Walnut oil is very light, very delicate, it blends really well with a lot of dressing ingredients.

And also it is very, very nutty and flavorful.

So that's why when I make salad dressing always use it.

Cut this up until matchstick sizes.

And also here I have some, a variety of miniature, nice lettuce.

I have radicchio, I have spinach, I have arugula, all of these, put them all over here.

We're gonna make create a nice salad.

We have some duck to spread on top.

Look at this, huh?

And then we also have some extra roast walnut, right on top.

Nuts about walnut.

And then also we're gonna put some julienne matchstick julienne.

(speaks in foreign language) When I say (speaks in foreign language) I always think of a glass of water.

(audience laughs) And also do a tiny, tiny bit of julienne matchstick size celery.

(blade chopping celery) See match matchstick size.

And also if you want for color contrast, a tiny bit of- (blade chopping) Red pepper.

See, this is what you call match in heaven.

(audience laughs) Look at this, this is so beautiful.

When this is done, you remove this and put the salad dressing in and I am telling you, this is absolutely delicious.

Look at this, beautiful.

Absolutely wonderful duck walnut salad.

(audience applauds) When you watch the "Yan Can Cook" show you should always follow my recipe step by step.

(blows duck caller) (audience laughs) This is what you call step by step.

Now the next dish I want to show you is very exciting.

And for this particular dish, we are fortunate to have with us an innovative master chef, author of this beautiful book, "Chef Chu's Distinctive Cuisine of China," Larry Chu.

(audience applauds) (men speak in foreign language) Now we are talking about duck tales.

So we're gonna do more duck.

And here we have another duck.

We're gonna do your specialty.

This is the smoke flavor duck.

- Sure.

You have green honey.

- You got to marinate this.

- Marinate it, sure.

Your green honey.

Also dry sherry.

- Dry sherry.

Let's put some dry sherry.

- Ginger.

- Some ginger.

- All we tuck that in.

- [Yan] Primarily this first so it tastes good.

- [Larry] Let's turn this around, it's not ver.. so you said.

Hoisin sauce.

This is recipe actually is what I normally do in my home.

In a restaurant we do it slightly different.

White salt, white pepper, five spice powder, all together marinating inside.

Oh, somebody left something inside.

- See, I do it exactly the same way of chef Chu does it.

- I've been watching your show for so much.

So I sometimes will get a- - Look at this good fun.

- Look at this, will you massage for a little while?

- No, of course.

- The truth of the matter is right now, what we're doing is try to get a flavor into the duck.

And then later on we're gonna steam that the flavor develop among the spice and the duck together.

- We're gonna steam this about 45 minutes to .. Once it's steamed, let's lose this a little bit, then we can show everybody we have one already have steamed.

We take it out.

We will show everybody this is the duck we have already steamed.

- What's important, the duck now have a flavor with all the spices, so hoisin sauce, ginger, green honey.

Get all the flavors in and also it lost lot of the fat Very healthy.

Especially today when in California, everything talk about health consciousness.

- That's true.

- Right?

- This is not very responsible.

This quacks me up.

(audience laughs) - But as we can look the duck the color wasn't that appealing.

So what we needed was a little bit of smoke.

We can not only the delicate flavor and also give a nice flavor to it.

- Here is your smoking.

- All right.

- Smoking is very, very popular in China.

This is very different, there's some basic difference between Western style cooking and the Asian style cooking.

- This way we can actually, by steaming, we can not only can develop flavor, also keep the moisture in the duck.

That's the difference.

Now you had a brown sugar, you line.. At home we can actually put aluminum pants, aluminum foil- - Five spice powder.

- Rice, oh yeah!

- Some tea.

- Black tea.

- Fully fermented black tea.

- Any flavor tea you want.

- Some green onion or star anise.

- Star anise.

Crush them- - Put them all together.

(audience laughs) - Put this rack right here.

We are a couple of chefs in the kitchen.

Fortunately, we're not cooking for- - Let's do it this way, because otherwise we may not be abl.. our little dinky home kitchen.

When this is done, we'll put it over here and cover up in a tin, okay?

- What happens is when temperature reaches a certain degree, the brown sugar started melting, the rice, also the tea leaves starting smoking.

This give a nice depth of flavor to the duck.

It's important to keep this thing nice and tight seal.

- Tight seal.

I understand in China, there's a cold smoking and the Sichuan style hot smoking.

Maybe we can elaborate so everybody know what's going on.

In the meantime, while you talking, I'm gonna take this over there and let it bake.

Instead of deep fry we'll bake this.

- Okay, when we talk about cold smoking, it's in Hunan province.

When cold smoking, when you try to after harvest, you're starting to pickle the meat, the birds.

You're also curing.

After curing, you smoke them.

This is what prolong the life of the birds.

Now, while we have it here in the restaurant, we're not only can smoke the duck, as well can smoke the quail and the chicken as well.

What we're having here is quail.

We have nice quail right here.

After we marinate it, after we, you know, smoke this steam, it's like this.

Now we're gonna deep fry them so give a nice texture to it.

Keep the fire a little bit.

The temperature right now.

- Turn it on.

- Yep.

- See in restaurant, in Larry's restaurant, not only (indistinct), last week, I went over to the restaurant, I tried this smoke.

This is really nice.

Delicious.

I'm doing a ducktail, but you ask why we're doing this little quail?

This thing, even though it doesn't look like a duck, but it doesn't move like a duck.

It doesn't make noise like a duck.

It doesn't talk like a duck, but it cooks like a duck.

That's why we also do this in a duck tale dish.

- The quail has a delicate flavor too, as well.

And it take a lot more less time than duck and less fat as well.

So in a restaurant we serve as a one as two.

At home it you can serve for (speaks in foreign language) rice, (speaks in foreign language) piece, or be meal by itself.

So I highly recommend it.

It take a totally time maybe half an hour.

- Get everything ready.

- As you can see right now, the oil gas temperature 350 degree, Oh, how do I know 350 degree?

(speaks in foreign language) Put your finger right into it.

- Push the finger.

- When it hurts it says 350.

- If you are courageous.

- If it burns it's 400 degree.

Here so you can see right now.

- If you don't feel anything, you better see a doctor.

(audience laughs) - Okay, smoke it indeed give the f.. Give a color as well.

So why did I go with the colors of earth?

- When this is done, we'll serve this right over here.

In the meantime, we'll serve this beautiful tea smoked duck.

Look at this.

- Well, that's the beauty of a Chinese cooking that it will emphasis on not only on just presentation, we're looking for flavor and textures as well.

Now the duck at the deep fry have nice color.

It have nice flavor having marinated it.

If deep fry it give a nice texture as well.

Have a nice crispy texture outside, as you can see right here.

- Very aromatic, very nice and colorful and you serve this beautiful steam bun.

The wonderful thing about this is not only you can smoke duck, you can smoke chicken, you can smoke game ham.

Anything you like, you can smoke it.

Of course you can smoke fish.

This is a very classic example of a typical Chinese dish that go through several cooking process.

You marinate them, you steam them and then you either.. or deep fry them before you serve it.

So this goes through several...

This is what makes Chinese cooking so complex, so exciting and flavor because when you go through all this process, each process contributes something to the final product.

Let's put them all- - You were right!

Little earlier on managing Sichuan coast bowl, now it's cross bowl.

Cross bowl take less time, quicker.

But give you only verb delicate flavor to the meat.

This is all set.

Set it right here.

- Make sure to drain the oil.

You're ready to eat, ready to serve.

And this is a wonderful main course.

Or you can also serve this as an appetizer.

Let's line them all up.

Line them all up.

This is very easy to do, very easy to do.

Everybody can do this at home.

- Very juicy too.

- As I said you can use chicken or quail or any.. - Let's see how juicy that is.

- Larry, I want to thank you today for joining me and all our people in the studio audience for this duck tales.

- Well- - Everybody is quacking up around here.

Until next time it's "Yan Can Cook."

- Chu can cook.

- So can you.

(audience applauds) (blows duck caller) “Goodbye!” (##!)