- [Beryl] When you sit down to have a meal with your family, what are you eating?

I wanted to find out.

My name is Beryl and this show explores how our foods can bring our different cultures together.

The theme on "Pan Pals" today is family meals.

- This is so different than anything I've ever done, but the directions are clear.

- I do not zest lemons ever.

Italian, but make it Chinese.

- We're kind of in the Chinese but make it Italian with our big stock pot.

- [Beryl] For this episode, I paired up Randy and Cara to swap their favorite family meal recipes.

Randy and his dad will be cooking Cara's Italian sausage pasta, and Cara will make their Chinese steamed eggs and pork.

And for fun, they'll share their dishes with their families as well.

So let's get started.

(gentle music) - Dear Cara, my name is Randy, and today you'll be making my favorite dish growing up, steamed eggs with minced pork.

I am the son of two Chinese immigrants.

Growing up, I was spoiled by amazing food because my dad's been a chef for 50 years.

- All right.

- [Randy] He would cook all this amazing food for us to eat.

Food has always brought our family together, and there's so much tradition and thousands of years of legacy with Chinese cuisine.

- I've never done a wet marinade on a ground meat before, so I hope I'm doing this correctly.

- Steamed eggs by itself is a canvas that you can decorate with really anything.

There's a bit of nuance here because you have to use a pretty specific water to egg ratio.

Roughly about one and a half to one.

- Right, there we go.

- The type of dish that you use also matters.

- I got this special bowl.

He said it was important to have a wide surface area and be kind of deep.

Hopefully this does the trick.

- Steaming as a cooking technique in general is a big part of Chinese cuisine.

There are a few challenges with this dish.

One of the hardest parts is getting the dish out of the steamer or wok or whatever you're using.

There's a small physical margin of area to lift it out.

Just be careful when you're lifting the plate out.

- Oh my god, I just dropped the whole thing in the thing.

The whole thing is done.

We're gonna have to do a second one.

Okay, take two.

This time, instead of a ramekin, I'm gonna use the steamer tray, which should be more stable, and I'm gonna use saran wrap instead of covering it with a plate and I'm going to use oven mitts or something so I don't burn my hand.

- [Randy] Steamed eggs is a classic and it just reminds me of family and it's just a way to bring our family together.

- So here is the dish.

- Now that I have my own kids, I cook for my family a lot more, and just when you see people eat a bite of your food and the satisfaction that they get from eating it, you just feel a sense of pride.

- You did good, Cara.

- Cara, I hope you love the dish as much as we do and I can't wait to cook yours.

Love, Randy.

- Okay, we made it.

This was quite an experience.

I'm glad to be here at the other end.

I've never ever had eggs this texture before.

It's like pudding.

It's so silky.

It's so delicious.

Really good.

You could definitely use sausage to do this so you don't have to season the meat.

Flavoring ground pork is like sausage making, but I love the way that this one is seasoned.

I don't use oyster sauce very often, but I don't know why, because I really love it when I go out to eat.

I genuinely wasn't sure how like steaming specifically pork would taste, and I'm just so pleasantly surprised by the texture, how silky it is.

I'm definitely gonna use this egg technique going forward absolutely.

I would never have thought to add water to my whisked eggs.

I'm scared.

Usually it's like cream or something like that, and it's incredible what the water did.

I think that this definitely sparked an interest for me in cooking Chinese food myself.

I think I did.

Kind of made me feel a little bit more confident.

I'm excited to see Randy eat my family dish with his family because the way that families cook and eat together is the same all over the world really.

- You made this?

- [Family Member] Whoa.

- Hi Randy.

My name is Cara and today you're going to be making my favorite family meal, which is orecchiette with sausage and broccolini.

I grew up outside of Boston.

I'm half Italian and half Jewish, and the Jewish side of my family had a butcher shop in the north end of Boston.

Even though pork sausage is not a traditionally Jewish food, my family sold and made a lot of it.

(speaking foreign language) At the end of stuffing and linking all of the sausages, there was always a little bit of loose sausage left in the bottom of the stuffer, so we would always collect that and bring it home to make pasta dishes with it like this one.

My experiences growing up led me down my own culinary path, and today I am a fourth generation butcher and I even have my own sausage company.

It's called Seymour Meats and Veggies, and it's named after my grandpa Seymour.

(speaking foreign language) So you're going to quickly blanch your broccolini, which I like using in place of broccoli because it's a little bit more tender.

It has a milder, sweeter flavor, and a more vibrant green color.

Orecchiette means little ear in Italian because they're shaped like little ears.

The indent in the middle of the pasta does a really wonderful job holding all of the rendered pork fat and crispy bits of pork.

(speaking in foreign language) This dish is super simple to make, but I would say the hardest part about making it is not panicking.

If it looks like you have a watery mess once you add your pasta water, it's okay.

- It does look kind of watery.

(speaking in foreign language) He trusts, he knows.

- It will create a beautiful sauce if you just give it some time.

I think eating together is important because it allows everybody to sit down in one central place at the end of the day and connect with each other and talk to each other.

Growing up, we ate dinner together every single night.

We all sat down as a family and everybody ate the same meal.

To me, this dish tastes like being cozy at home with a full belly and all of the people that I love.

- Thank you, Cara.

- I hope you enjoy cooking this dish as much as I loved cooking yours.

Love, Cara.

(gentle music) - At last.

- It's bomb, it tastes like perfect.

It's got like the earthiness of Parmesan, the zest of lemon.

My dad cooked the broccolini like perfectly.

Wanna try some broccolini?

- Perfectly blanched.

- Overall, it's pretty easy.

It's not unlike other pasta recipes I've made.

I don't think my dad's ever made pasta, but I think given his instincts, he was like, yeah, I know how to do this.

(speaking in foreign language) The idea of like cutting the casing off the sausage and like using all that effort that a butcher put into flavoring that meat and using that as you're supposed to ground meat is pretty genius.

Getting to try this recipe that's passed down, it's like it just feels like you're eating a bit of heritage.

I get to share that with my dad who hardly ever eats pasta.

When we try other people's cuisine, you're getting reminded that despite our cultural differences, we're all pretty similar.

Food brings us together.

Food has always united families and loved ones.

It's just great to experience something outside of what we typically eat.

- I hope you've enjoyed this episode of "Pan Pals".

Let me know in the comments what is a dish that you grew up eating with your family.

And if you liked this show, then you should check out the new season of "The Great American Recipe" on PBS.

The show features 10 talented home cooks in a competition that celebrates the diversity and flavors of foods across the US.

You can watch the first episode here on the PBS Food YouTube channel and the rest of the season on the PBS app or your local PBS station.

(upbeat music)