(Joyful music ) (applause) - Welcome to Yan Can Cook!

Thank you so much for coming today.

I know that everybody's busy, busy, busy.

I'm so busy myself, that I never have the time to buy a watch!

See?

When I tell you I don't have the t..

Honest.

(audience laughing) Now, for all those busy people, we don't have time to cook, these are the dishes I think is very, very ea..

The first thing I wanna show you, is the five-spice broiled pork chop.

Of course you can roast it, you can barbecue it, or you can broil it, because I have a broiler here so we're gonna broil it.

You can also pan fry it, or you can grill it.

It doesn't make any difference whatsoever.

Now, here, I have four piece of pork chop.

This is approximately two pounds.

Here I am going to tenderize it a little bit.

See?

(clanging in a musical rhythm) (audience laughing) This is the world's oldest tenderizer.

(pounding in a musical rhythm) (applause) This is actually how my mother been tenderizing.

See, you can actually tenderize it, with this Chinese chef knife, you see this?

You can do it, two of these, 'kay?

(pounding in a musical rhythm) (audience laughing) Can you see how boring this is?

(audience laughter) You can fall asleep.

(musically chopping) Also get rid of a lot of your anxiety, too.

That's wonderful, very healthy.

After this, you got to marinate this.

Now very, very easy.

All you have to do is marinate this, in the following ingredient.

You use about one teaspoon of salt, see?

And approximately half a teaspoon of pepper.

You can use black pepper or white pepper.

Also use about quarter of a teaspoon of five-spice powder.

When you don't have time to cook, it's wonderful to have things already mixed for you.

For instance, this five-spice powder, like this, which is a mixture of star anise, fennel, clove, and Chinese dry tangerine peel powder, and sometime they also put a tiny bit of five-spice, tiny bit of, let me see... (mumbling) Actually it's more than five!

Actually you put a tiny bit of ginger powder, and also white pepper, and also a tiny bit Sichuan peppercorn powder, you see?

After this is done, we are going to brush these a tiny bit, with sesame seed oil, okay?

This way, it give a nice, wonderful glaze, and then we're gonna grill this.

Okay, very simple, brush it, and we're gonna put it over here and let it grill.

Can you see that?

Can you hear the sizzling sound?

You should always do this ahead of time, all you have to do.

Can you, you already can smell it over there?

(audience laughing) Isn't amazing?

Can you at home smell it too?

(audience laughing) Okay, look at this, this is beautiful.

Okay, occasionally brush it a little bit more, this way you don't have to worry about it.

Let me remove these, and then when you are ready, all you have to do is chop this up.

And then, garnish this.

(chopping) See this?

We're gonna sprinkle this right on top of the po.. and serve with Worcestershire sauce.

Okay, very, very traditional, Chinese-style, my mother never heard of such thing.

(audience laughing) But anyway, while we're doing this, occasionally turn them around.

Look at this, turn them around, make sure they are not burned.

In the mean time, I'm gonna show you how to do a dish, is also a five-minute gourmet dish.

I call this onion beef, okay?

To save time, you gonna turn this up, get the wok ready.

Now, I will do this in five minutes.

Just to prove without the shadow of doubt, we will use one of these, look at this.

And I can actually time the darn thing.

When I'm ready, I'm gonna time it.

Are you ready?

- [Some Audience Members] Yes.

- Put it over here.

First, I will cut up the onion.

(chopping) (audience cheering) (rapid pace chopping) Now...

I'm running out of time, I gotta put this knife into overdrive.

(chopping) (audience laughing) Look at what you do!

(chopping) (audience clapping) Oh, I am so glad, I still have some time!

And then you marinate the beef, you marinate the beef, in approximately two tablespoon of soy sauce, one tablespoon of dry sherry, and about two teaspoon of sesame seed oil, and also a tiny bit of cornstarch.

Then, you get ready to cook.

Here, I'm gonna add approximately one to two teaspoon of oil, and then, also, you need a tiny bit of garlic and ginger.

(chopping in a musical rhythm) (audience cheering) Thanks a lot!

See, all of this excitement kinda distract me.

And also, if you have time, five minutes.

(chopping) Ginger.

Put it over here.

And then you cook this separately, yo.. just like you, just like a date.

(sizzling) You give this, you cook the beef and the onion separately.

Give them more time to anticipate, okay?

(audience laughing) (sizzling) Oh, look at this.

All it takes is about one and a half minute, over medium-high heat to high heat.

And then, when the beef is done, you put it over here, and you put it over here, and then, you cook the onion.

Now, look at this, we put the onion in there.

(sizzling) Wow, look at this.

(audience oohing) And then, stir.

In the mean time, you come back here, and make sure this is perfectly done.

Perfect, look at this, beautiful.

(audience oohing) My pork chop is going very well!

(applause) Wow, this is hot!

Look at this!

Five-minute gourmet, doing two dishes, simultaneously.

And then put the beef back, look at all this sizzle.

Just like match in a gourmet heaven.

Look at this.

And then you want to have some nic.. One, two, three, four.

Wow, I still have time!

(audience laughing) Unbelievable!

Don't worry!

And then put the sauce in, which is about one, two tablespoon of soy sauce, and about quarter of a cup to half a cup of broth.

And then put a tiny bit more soy sauce, and then you gonna thicken this up with cornstarch solution.

One teaspoon to two teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with water, okay?

Put it right in the middle, where the boiling liquid is, and then you can remove all these, okay?

(clattering) Look at all this, this is nice and .. Can you see all this?

Beautiful dish.

(audience oohing) And then, I will also make sure to check this.

This is also ready, wow, this is beautiful.

I'm gonna serve this right over here, serve these right over here.

And then, we are going to serve the beef, right over our rice!

(clanging) Look at this.

(clang) Put it all over, like this.

(audience oohing) (applause) That's five minutes!

(applause) I have this, the five-minutes gourmet have done it again!

Now, one golden rule, about people are too busy, don't have time to cook, is when you are in a hurry, you visit a deli.

Let's rush down to Chinatown, and see what we can get from a Chinese deli.

(traditional Chinese music) The ducks are hung and dry before they are roasted.

Afterwards, you see them in store windows, a common sign of every Chinatown.

The Chinese serve the duck whole, with the head and everything.

This symbolize prosperity and wholeness.

Besides, you don't wanna waste anything!

You can ask them to cut it up for you.

This is perfect if you have no time to cook!

(audience applause) Look at this one!

I love duck so much, I'll get one of these every week.

And I am going to cut this most delicate portion, set it aside.

I know that our stage manager, Steve, love duck.

Besides, he love to get a head.

Here, Steve.

(audience laughs) This is for you.

He said, "Thank you!"

You're welcome!

(audience applause) I only give the head to my most honored guest.

Now, I want to show you quickly how easy it is to cut up the whole duck and put him all back together.

Use a knife.

First of all, you cut this up here.

You see this?

Cut this up.

This is the... drum stick.

Cut it, another one.

Another drum stick.

And then, you hold onto the wing part.

Look at this.

Okay?

Cut it up, put it over here.

Cut another one, put it over here.

And, you have four pieces.

The two wing part.

And then, you cut this open.

Of course, you don't want to waste this.

So you save this, too.

This is also for Steve.

(audience laughs) Love duck, love duck.

Okay, cut this up.

Cut it up.

And then, you notice that there's .. of back bone here.

So you cut this up.

Cut this up because you don't want the back bone, this is the back bone right here.

So you cut here at the back bone.

Okay, set this aside and put it over here.

And then, you can cut this up.

Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six.

(loud chop) Seven.

And then, you can put the whole thing back like this, let me show you.

Put the whole thing back, okay.

Put the whole thing back right here.

And then, okay, (chopping) one, two, three, four, five, six.

Now, of course, when you do it, you should make sure you have a gigantic apron like mine.

(audience laughs) See, you put this right over here.

And put the whole piece of duck back like this.

Look at this.

The drumstick at the back, and these front.

And then, because Steve took my head, so what I'm gonna do is, I'll put this over here.

Look how beautiful.

Then you have a wonderful duck dish looks like this.

I'm gonna put over here so everybo..

In the meantime, (applause) we are going to serve this away.

We're gonna get rid of these.

Clean this up.

It's very important when you do anything, always make sure you clean up everything.

Otherwise, it just look messy.

That's why, not only I am the busiest cook, I am also a clean cook.

In this particular dish, we're gonna make a sauce and saute some vegetable.

And then use our duck that we bought, from a deli to put them all together.

Heat up the wok, and put a tiny, tiny bit of oil.

Right over here, oil, see?

(Audience laughs) For exercise, you should put this two and half miles away.

You can jog to get your oil.

That's wonderful.

(audience laughs) (metal stirring) And then, we saute some vegetable ..

Some little baby bok choy, some carrot, okay?

Saute this, why?

I am gonna show you how easy it is to cook the duck dish together.

Look at this, you can use any pasta.

You can use regular pasta, linguini, spaghetti, Chinese noodle, dry noodle, fresh noodle, wheat flour noodle, rice flour noodle, any noodle!

That you can find.

(audience laughs) And then you put the duck right over h.. Look at how beautiful, one piece.

Two pieces.

And then, also have this, put it right over here, okay?

And then, also, I want to stir fry this.

And then, also use a tiny bit of sesame seed oil, about half a teaspoon of sesame seed oil.

And also one teaspoon to two teaspoon Shao Hsing wine.

Wow!

(audience wows) Unbelievable, look at this.

(applause) And then, you can put a tiny, tiny bit of, about half a cup of broth, chicken broth.

And then you can make a little sauce by thicken up with cornstarch solution.

Look at this.

And then put a tiny bit of, final touch, put a tiny bit of soy sauce.

About a teaspoon of salt.

And let it cook for a few second.

And then, you shut it off.

And then, you can remove these, because you don't need any of these.

I want to show you how beautiful.

Once again, I time my thing.

Now people ask, "What happen if you ran out of time?"

It's no big deal.

You need more time?

Turn the darn thing upside-down again.

(audience laughs) Then you, this how you make time!

And then you put them all over here.

Look at this, I wanna show you how beautiful, you can cut this dish, okay?

Get a knife.

Okay.

Get a piece of this vegetable.

Put it right here.

And then you cut it in half.

And then you have one piece like this, another piece like this.

Can you see how beautiful?

And then, you put a tiny bit of carrot, and you put it right over here.

Look at this.

Is this beautiful, or what?

(audience applauds) For the five minute gourmet, you can put the duck, barbecue duck over the noodle, or you could just put it on rice.

It depends if you have rice, you can just use rice.

Okay, but I love rice so I always make sure that I have a big bowl of rice.

Now, in the West, you always have a saying, "In order to make an omelet, first, you have to break some eggs."

In China, we say, "Which eggs?"

Let me show you some of the very fascinating eggs that some of them, you probably have never seen before.

Look at this.

Here, is a regular egg.

This is brown color egg.

And this?

I don't know how many of you know.

This is not the Chinese Easter Bunny egg.

This is the Chinese baby birthday egg.

The end of the first month, after the baby was born.

The Chinese parent would fix a whole bunch of these egg and give it to the relatives and friends.

This symbolize fertility, life, and also longevity.

And here is a ugly-looking thing.

The Chinese salted duck egg.

Basically what it is, is mud and ashes, and all straw ash and also with a whole bunch of salt, mixed them all up into a paste, and coated that egg.

And then, after three months, the salt penetrate through the pores of the shell and they denature the protein in this duck egg.

Also, the yolk become solidify, looks like a little red ping pong ball.

See, that's solid.

You can actually hurt somebody with this darn thing.

(laughter) And then the egg yolk, the egg white become watery, okay?

You have to cook this.

You gotta steam this or you can put i.. You can't just eat it raw.

Here, something very interesting.

The Chinese call "Thousand Year-Old Egg."

This is actually a preserved duck egg.

What it is, is look at all this.

This is straw.

This duck egg, water, salt, calcium oxide mixed with this.

And also tiny bit of straw ashes, this is all straw.

And also sodium carbonate.

And also tea to give the flavor.

When you cut it up, you crack the darn thing up like this.

(knocking) I just wanna show you.

Ugliest thing I ever seen, look at this.

I am making absolutely a mess!

Look at this.

And then you cut it up, it looks l.. Can you see that?

It is very, very interesting.

This is something the Chinese call, "thousand year-old egg pídàn."

Here, everybody knows.

This is quail egg.

Can you see this little baby quail egg?

This is the chicken egg and this is the quail egg.

All you have to do is put in oven, and the darn thing will shrink!

And then you have poo egg.

Dehydrated darn thing.

I have this since I was 12.

It is my nest egg.

Now, the next thing I want to show you, is one of the, very, very good dish for you people.

Too busy to cook, I call this foo young omelet.

Everybody have heard of egg foo young, right?

How many enjoy egg foo young?

(applause) You can have all kind of egg foo young!

You're gonna barbecue crab egg foo young, chicken egg foo young, shrimp egg foo young, egg foo with a lot of bean sprout, but this is very good, this is very unique egg foo young.

I call it foo young omelet.

When you have little time to cook, an omelet is perfect you know why?

Because it's easy and it's nutritious.

And also, how many of you know how to make a Chinese omelet?

First, you need Chinese eggs.

(audience chuckles) And then, you need Chinese ham.

(audience laugher) I am expert at that subject.

(audience laughter) And then, you chop this up, (chopping) while you're doing that, let's heat up my frying pan, okay?

Please come.

Oh, finally!

Let there be light!

(chopping rhythmically) (audience chuckling) Are you having fun, oh.

(chopping) (audience laughing) Chop it up.

(applause) Very easy to do.

The most important thing is always make sure, your knife is very sharp, and not only that, the handle is very dry, if this is grease, it can be very dangerous.

And you also notice that I never ever get exceptionally excited and to raise my knife higher than my knuckle.

See, this can be very detrimental.

(audience laugher) Okay, and I never have, the courage to do it, and also, we're gonna do some water chestnut.

See, that's how easy it is to smash this.

(chopping) Done!

You see how easy?

Another one, hoy!

(audience laughs) If you do it right, you have 100 percent.

If you don't do it right, you only have 60 percent left.

(audience laughs) Okay?

Another way of doing it is you go like this.

If you don't want that to fly.

You see this, you just mash it like this.

But, without making into a tote, a juice, otherwise you're gonna end up making water chestnut juice.

And also, cut up some bell pepper.

(chopping) See?

Julienne pieces, like this.

And then, the give nice color contrast.

Okay, nice color contrast.

When the oil is hot, all you have to do is remove the darn thing.

Don't just let it sit there otherwise, not only your kitchen is gonna smoke, your hair will smoke, your house will smoke, the whole house will be gone!

So just remove the darn thing, okay?

And you put them all together, and then, if you want, you can also use a tiny bit of mushroom.

(chopping) See this?

(rhythmically chopping) (audience laugher) (applause) Put them all together!

Okay, and then, we're gonna crack a couple eggs.

Crack this, one, two, too busy to cook you use one hand!

So you can do two eggs simultaneously.

And then put all of this ingredient.

In the meantime, I also want to show you, we're gonna also put a tiny bit of, this very unique.

I use a tiny bit of salt, three quarter teaspoon of salt, and a tiny, tiny bit of chili paste, half a teaspoon, and also some white pepper, about quarter of a teaspoon.

Mix them all, this is how the Chinese use this egg beater.

You see that how to do it?

(audience laughter) Very easy to do!

And then, you can make this nice foo young omelet.

You see this?

Very, very easy to do.

I am going to show you, we're gonna make one gigantic foo young omelet.

Look at how big this is.

This is perfect for two people beca.. you can when you're serving just slice it in half, okay?

Let it sit around, in the meantime, I want to show you something very interesting, the Chinese call marbled egg.

It is truly, truly unique.

Here you have hard boiled egg.

You crack the darn thing up after you hard boil it.

And then you dump it into a pot of boiling water, which have tea leaf, tiny bit of soy sauce, starting with whatever seasoning you want to put in.

You crack this, you have a lot of egg to crack.

You can crack them all at the same time, like that.

(audience woahs and laughs) See you can do that at the same time.

And then, after you soak it about half an hour, it looks like this marble, can you see that?

Very, very interesting.

You see?

This is also a marble.

This is also my barber.

Make sure to keep the darn thing in a safe place.

Don't want to lose your marble.

(audience laughs) Oh!

You turn the darn thing upside down.

Now, it's very, very important to make sure, the egg is not over cook.

Okay?

Turn it upside down.

(audience woahs and cheers) Wow, look at this!

I was getting nervous the darn thing might be gone!

It's very, very easy to do.

When it's done, you cook the omelet right over here.

Look at how beautiful this omelet is.

You see this?

And you garnish this with this, and.. You have time this is what you're gonna do, okay?

I want to show you how easy it is to make a little flower out of this.

One, you see this?

Two... you see this?

Three, you see this?

Very easy to do.

Three, four, five, what you have is twist this, and then you have a little flower like this.

Can you see that?

And of course, if you have time, you can even do this like what I just have shown you.

Look at this, very easy.

One, two, three, four, you push it every time you cut, you make sure, you measure this precisely.

And you continue to do this until, you cut the darn thing up into six thousand pieces.

And it looks like this, can you see that?

(audience cheers and claps) Now, if you have never done this before, my recommendation is, go to the store and buy four boxes of this apple, and go home and practice.

(audience laughs) I hope our show today have made you all too busy to cook people, into a five minute gourmet.

Anyone can bake the five minutes berry.

I've been doing this for 50 years.

I'm running out of time, and I gotta run.

If Yan can do it in five minutes, so can you!

(audience claps and cheers) “Goodbye!” (##!)

(Joyful music)