(Joyful music) (knife chopping) (air whooshing) (paper ripping) (audience applauding) - Welcome to Yan Can Cook.

Maybe I should say hola, or ciao, or simply say foonying, which is how we say welcome in Chinese.

We say foonying, it means welcome.

Today we're gonna see how Chinese cooking can join hands with some of the most popular international dishes.

The first thing I wanna show you is very, very simple, is very easy, and yet is one of my favorite.

It's called Frittata with barbecue pork.

I use the Chinese barbecue pork or Cantonese barbecue pork, or (speaks in Chinese) pork, whatever you call it.

Or you can barbecue it, you can roast it, you can boil it.

You can do anything you want.

Here you need four eggs, I have four eggs here, and I am gonna first beat up the egg.

Since I have so much time, I am gonna do it myself.

(eggshell cracking) See, when you do it like this, you can actually do two eggs simultaneously.

(eggshell cracking) You see, every time I do things I have to, this is Chinese egg beater, (audience laughing) Cordless.

(egg whipping on a beat) (audience laughing) (audience applauding) I didn't know this can be exciting.

I guess you think a cordless eggbeater can excite people.

(audience laughing) This one, I wanna do it more.

(egg whipping on a beat) (audience laughing) This is all done.

This omelet is wonderful, because omelet is perhaps one of the most popular international dishes that I can think of.

Everywhere you go, there's always omelet, different variation.

This particular omelet is basically my worship.

I guess it doesn't matter where you go, as long as you find chicken, you will find omelet.

(audience laughing) I'll cut this up into chunks like this.

In the mean time I'm gonna heat up my frying pan, like this is a little baby frying pan.

I'm gonna heat this up, okay.

Then I'm gonna cut this barbecue pork into chunks.

First I slice it into thin slices like this, then I cut it up, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, this I'm gonna save it for my sandwich, okay?

(audience laughing) And then cut it up one more time, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Look at what you're doing please.

(audience laughing) When I look at it I get so nervous.

(audience laughing) (knife slicing) How you doing, everybody?

How are you doing at home?

(audience laughing) Are you having fun so far?

(knife tapping) I'm counting how many slice I'm using.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and then, oh done, okay.

And then set it aside, this is barbecue pork, the great thing about this is if you don't have this you can use ham, but otherwise if you use ham, it won't be too Chinese anymore.

Another thing is, how can we give this Frittata?

An extra special Chinese touch?

All you have to do is find someone Chinese, and touch it.

(audience laughing) A Chinese touch.

(Knife tapping) No, seriously, what I do is, I use bamboo shoot, barbecue pork, and also, some Chinese seasoning to make it Chinese.

You just cut it up, this is bell pepper.

If you want, you can also use some green bell pepper.

Set it aside, put 'em all set it aside.

Now, when this is done, we are gonna heat this up with a tiny bit of oil.

And then we're gonna saute some bell pepper.

(oil sizzling) Green onion, and then also we're go.. this is wonderful, this is how I use my knife to transfer the food.

You see this is barbecue pork, and then I hold on to this, you should never touch hot plate like this.

(audience laughing) Learning how to make a living.

Always remember, (oil sizzling) make sure don't lose anything.

Now you set it aside.

And you do some bamboo shoot.

Once again, you see that I cut it up into slices like this.

You see this?

Slices, slices, slices.

And then put them all back together, then I am going to go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

No problem, this is so easy.

You think this take too long?

No way, put them all together, chop them all up, it depends on how much time you have.

If I were you, I would do all of this way ahead of time, okay?

Put them all here, okay.

And then we'll season this.

Oh don't loose anything.

We'll season this with a tiny, tiny bit of broth.

Wow, almost.

And also, a tiny bit of ginger if you want.

Now this is what makes it more Chinese too.

(knife tapping) (audience laughing) (audience applauding) And then some salt and pepper, okay?

Then I will remove these.

And then toss these, and put the egg right here.

Look at this, why are you doing this?

Basically, what you're doing is to make sure you cook this over medium heat, and kind of cook it a little bit.

And then when it's almost done, you move 'em around, make sure the egg to the bottom, okay?

Get to the bottom.

And not only that, you should not burn your pot holder.

(audience laughing) If you burn the pot holder, you have to buy new ones.

Fortunately, I have 14 of them.

(audience laughing) Okay, after this you take it to th.. You cook it like the way it is, otherwise you can't call it frittata anymore.

Now, let's put it over there.

Hot, hot.

(oven door creaking open) And since the time flies so fast, we already have this one, basically done, now I want to (dramatically exclaiming) (audience laughing) I want to quickly garnish this a little bit.

Now, when I say frittata, you gotta pronounce it right.

When I say frittata, is frittata, not fruit-tata.

You use fruit-tata, you have to use fruit to make fruit-tata.

(audience laughing) sprinkle a tiny bit over here, and .. Scrumptious.

(audience applauding) The frittata taste so good, I ate the whole thing by myself.

Now, the next one I'm gonna show you is a very interesting version of the Chinese cioppino, I call this a fisherman's stew.

This is very interesting, what you have is what you get.

(audience laughing) The idea is to use the catch of the day.

Lemme see what I caught, at the fish market.

(audience laughing) I have crab, one whole crab.

I have six to eight clam, you can use any clam.

And I have some live, swimming, squid, and also prawn.

This has been here for 34 seconds so it's wonderful.

Very fresh, smell like ocean breeze.

(audience laughing) Now, first I'm gonna heat up my pan.

You can use a wok to do it or you can use a frying pan, or you can use a pot to do it.

All I have to do first, I wanna cut up some onion.

Let's put this aside.

Onion.

(knife tapping) Cut up some onion.

(knife tapping) Always make sure you check after you finish.

Because you go so fast you can never tell.

(knife tapping) I love this, because when I do this I can actually take a nap.

(audience laughing) I am okay, if you are okay.

Are you okay?

(audience laughing) (audience applauding) And then, bell pepper.

Because we're gonna use one whole bell pepper.

(knife tapping) Set it aside, put it here.

(knife tapping) I love to cut things.

Now when this is done, we are gonna saute this.

First, onion, bell pepper, (oil sizzling) wow, look at this, this gonna be w.. Chinese version of the fisherman's stew, cioppino.

Everything, I get it from the fish market.

Stir this, and then also tomato, chopped tomato.

(oil sizzling) Wow, it sounds wonderful.

Can you hear the excitement of the sizzling sound?

(audience laughing) Can you smell it over there?

(audience laughing) Unbelievable.

There's only about a three and half.. they can smell this, unbelievable.

(audience laughing) And then, also put some chopped ci.. and we're gonna let it cook for a little while.

Saute it for a little while, little tiny bit, let it cook for a little while, okay?

In the mean time, we also put clam and crab meat over here.

Because you wanna cook it for a little while.

After you cook this, for about 15, 20 minutes.

Very low heat, okay?

And then, the next thing I wanna show you is, how easy it is to make Chinese cioppino, or once again, the fisherman's stew.

But we need some squid.

And I wanna show you how easy it is to clean the squid, okay?

Here, I have this ocean breeze squid.

(audience laughing) First, very interesting, you pull t..

Step number one, pull this whole thing out.

You see this?

Don't look.

(audience laughing) And then, next step you pull out the back bone, this is the back bone.

You see this whole big piece of back bone?

And then next step, you cut this up in half.

Open up in half, okay?

And then you are able to clean up over here, the back bone.

And not only that, you're able to squeeze.

If you don't like the black thing like this, all you have to do is move it around and you can actually peel the whole thing out like this.

Can you see?

Can everybody see?

- [Audience] Yes.

- Good.

(audience laughing) It's amazing, if people can see it from three and a half miles away.

You should be able to see it at home.

Because the television set is only about five feet from you.

This is amazing, this audience is all mighty audience.

Have an eyesight of 40-40.

(audience laughing) Okay, take it out, look at this, clean it up.

Now, it's very, very important not to destroy the ink bag.

The ink bag is right around here.

If you destroy this, you are not gonna have to go to the store and buy ink.

(audience laughing) This is the tentacle, and then this h.. Look at this, one, two, three, four, five.

But while you're doing this, you should come back over here, and stir it a little bit more.

So they won't end up having burned cioppino.

(audience laughing) Otherwise, it would not be very exciting.

It is looking good.

Come back and do it one more.

You see, you should do two, three things at the same time.

Look at this, I do it at an angle.

Once again, I do it one, two, three, four, I'm scarring the surface, okay?

And then it got, one, two, three, four pieces.

Put it all over here, and then I'm gonna put it over here.

Now, what I have left is squid, shrimp, and also some green onion, and garlic and ginger.

Let's chop some garlic.

(knife tapping) I don't know why, I'm in a mood of taking a nap today.

(audience laughing) (knife tapping) (audience applauding) This is how I relax at home, when I cook I nap.

But anybody under the age of 14, don't do it.

(knife tapping) How you doing in the studio?

They are all having fun, they are all smiling at my cioppino.

(knife tapping) Okay, this is wonderful flavor, to add more Chinese flavor to it, stir.

(spoon stirring) Now, we're gonna cover the, look at this, my clam is opening up for business.

(audience laughing) Look at this, if the clam is not open up for busin.. they are unhappy clams, don't do business with them.

Because when the clam is cooking doesn't open up, they're not good.

That's very important.

So, we'll put the broth, seafood broth.

Look how beautiful.

And then, sprinkle a tiny bit more cilantro.

As I always tell people, I love hot and spicy food, so I am going to add this marvelous hot chili oil.

This is enough for my lip, this is enough very hard lip.

This won't have any lips left.

(audience laughing) You see my hair is sticking up.

It's hot, hot stuff.

And then to make it even more exciting, we add a tiny bit of soy sauce, and also Chinese fermented brown bean sauce.

(speaks in Chinese) Wow, this is wonderful.

This makes it very unique, it goes well.

When you steam fish you can also use this too.

We'll cover this up, and cook it for another, maybe 15 to 20 minutes.

Simmer, okay?

And then when it's all ready, you put the squid and the shrimp in, okay.

Please come out.

(audience laughing) I got you.

And then when you are ready, you mixed them all up.

And for those who love a little touch of alcoholic flavor, put some Shaoxing wine.

For beginner, use one tablespoon.

Experienced people, use two tablespoon.

(audience laughing) For me, I use the whole thing.

(audience laughing) I am having so much fun, I cannot believe it myself.

I enjoy cooking this cioppino, the fisherman-- a tiny bit of soy sauce.

And then we are going to serve these.

And it's gonna be very, very substantial.

It's wonderful, everybody can do it.

Now, I have a ladle here.

When it's done you're going to ladle it out.

Look at how gorgeous this is, beautiful.

(audience humming) - [Woman] Yum yum.

- When you serve this, you can serve this with rice.

I happen to have a big bowl of rice.

Look at how marvelous cioppino.

(audience applauding) This is cioppino, it's so good.

I am gonna save it for myself.

Nobody's gonna touch this, nobody, I said nobody.

Dumplings are international phenomenon.

Every country has some variation on the dumpling theme.

Let's take a look at a few of them.

Here, let me first introduce the Chinese dumpling.

Here is a chiu chow dumpling.

Inside there's a lot of goodie, peanut, ground pork, wild chestnut, bamboo shoot, green onion, and also the dough is wheat starch.

This is everybody's favorite, the pot sticker, look at this.

Pot sticker, see?

This damn thing stick to the pot, (audience laughing) all the time, it's called pot sticker.

And this is the shark's fin dumpling.

See that?

This is wonderful.

And you serve any of these with soy sauce, or hot mustard, or chili oil.

Oh I forget, I want to show you the flower dumpling.

Have you ever seen this flower dumpling?

This is new, I have never seen this before.

This is so good.

(audience laughing) I am gonna put it over here for myself.

Flower dumpling.

Here we have some international variations.

This one is empanada, pan in Spanish means bread.

Inside there's meat and vegetables, it's wonderful.

This one is knish, it's Jewish.

Inside is potato, mushroom, and spinach.

I love it.

And this one is pelmeni, this is very like a wanton, but it's Russian dumpling.

And this one is our favorite Italian ravioli.

And all of these are my favorite.

And I have these at least once a week.

(audience laughing) Now, after all these wonderful dump.. let's get back to another international favorite.

The fajita, I call this ching dow fajita, because I use wuchapi to marinate my meat.

Here I have approximately, one pound of beef.

You can use chuck steak, you can use flank steak.

Most of the time, they use flank steak.

You marinate this overnight in a wonderful combination of marinate, I'll tell you what it is.

And then while I am gonna go to do other things, I'm gonna show you how easy to cook it.

I'm gonna cook it over here in this very interesting portable gas burner.

Because this way you can take it to your picnic, put in your garage, you cook it in the middle of nowhere.

You see?

I am gonna heat this up, and then first thing, marinated flank steak.

I'm gonna put it over here, first very closely to think how hot this is.

Now of course, you should slightly oil this a little bit so they would not get stuck.

Otherwise not only you have pot sticker, you have fajita sticker.

(audience laughing) Tiny, tiny bit.

This is all I use, if this is not enough, no big deal, a tiny bit more.

See?

Very flexible.

And then you cook the damn thing, (oil sizzling) Wow, I am lucky to remove my hand fast enough.

Now, how do you marinate this?

This is the marinate.

You use approximately a quarter cup of soy sauce, ok.. And you also use about two tablespoon of Chinese spirit.

Or if you don't wanna you can use a international spirit, you can use vodka, or you can use tequila, I use (speaks in Chinese), wonderful.

110 proof, knock my boots off.

And not only that, I am gonna kind of let it cook over hight heat for approximately two minutes, on each side.

Now, just like you cook steak, you should put some weight on it so they won't curly up a little bit.

So if I were you, I would put some weight.

(audience laughing) This would not run away anymore.

Now, in the meantime, I am gonna show you how easy it is to make the salsa.

Now, of course this is absolutely sterilized.

I use this in my kitchen everyday, exercising.

(audience laughing) Now, here I'm gonna show you how easy it is to make the salsa.

Here is a bowl, I am gonna make with this tomato.

I have about two large tomato.

Chop it up, get rid of the seed, okay?

And then, also, I have some chopped jalapeno chili pepper.

Wow, this is wonderful.

Cilantro, approximately, two tablespoon of cilantro.

Also, use about half a teaspoon of salt.

Please come out, the damn thing is not coming out.

(audience laughing) I don't know why.

And then also, let us cut up a tiny, tiny bit of onion.

You see?

Cut it up.

And then, put 'em all together, and I chop it up.

(oil sizzling) Now make sure, you occasionally go back to what you're doing.

Let us check.

(oil sizzling) Marvelous, look at how beautiful it looks.

Isn't it wonderful?

(audience humming) Mhm, I agree.

(audience laughing) This is so wonderful.

(oil sizzling) It smells so good.

Now, when you marinate this overnight, you actually, tenderize the meat too.

And not only that, you use hight heat, do not cook it for too long.

This way you'll help to seal in the juice and make it juicy, nice, delicious, and succulent.

If you go overcook the damn thing, will be dry, will be tough, and you'll chew your jaws off.

(audience laughing) Okay, chop, mince, onion, and then look at..

I am also using a tiny bit of rice vinegar, okay?

Two tablespoon.

And also use about two teaspoon of chili pepper.

You can use a little more if you want.

Basically, the idea of using this is to give a little kick to it.

Now let me also mix this up.

Make sure, you do not too much.

If you use too much, you'll be doing more than just salsa.

You're gonna be cha-cha, or mamba.

(audience laughing) Mix them all up, this is what you're gonna serve with.

I'm gonna show you how we're gonna do this, you see?

This is the tortilla.

(oil sizzling) And this is, all these things we're gon.. And this is basically done.

Wow, look at this, beautiful.

When it's done, we're gonna serve it very nicely.

Here I even serve it on this hot plate.

This is beef so we use a cow hot plate.

And we'll chop up some onion.

(knife tapping) And then, I put it over here.

And then, green onion, put it over here to give it more Chinese touch.

And then I go, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, put it over here.

And then you serve this with all of these sour cream mix, which has sour cream, soy sauce, sesame seed oil, everything.

The fun of cooking is in inventing new recipe, or improving old ones with new and different ingredients.

We certainly had a lot of fun today, with you in the studio.

Today, we all have some wonderful delicious international dishes.

So join me again next week.

If Yan can cook, so can you.

“Goodbye!” (##!)

(audience applauding) (Joyful music)