(joyful music) (cleaver chopping) (cleaver whooshing and chopping) (audience applauding and cheering) - [Announcer] And now, Martin Yan, The Chinese Chef.

(speaking in foreign language) - That means how are you in Cantonese.

You know the words dim sum mean touch the heart.

They are delicious Chinese finger foods, and we're gonna touch your heart today by showing you how to make four-color shumai, har gow, and taro dumplings.

For these particular four-color shumai, all we really need is some skin, wonton dough or shumai dough, or you can get potsticker dough.

It doesn't make any difference as long as it's round.

And then we'll also come over here.

You see Chinese sausage.

'Kay, this is something that very exotic.

And then we have some ground meat where you can use ground pork or ground beef or shrimp.

And I also have some cilantro.

I'm going to cut all of these up, and then we're gonna marinate this a little bit with dry sherry, one to two tablespoon, some corn starch, and some salt, and some sesame seed oil.

Very simple, very easy dish to do.

I'm gonna smash these (cleaver thudding) like this.

Now since dim sum is a labor-intensive type of work, everything has to be done by hand, pleated, it takes a long time.

So we are gonna have a little help from our friends from the Yank Sing restaurant in San Francisco.

Let's welcome the Chinese (audience applauding) Maguire sisters from Yank Sing restaurant.

We're gonna make the four-color shumai.

(speaking in foreign language) I said let's get going.

Put on a assembly line and we're going to crank up 5,000 of these four-color shumai so everybody here in the studio and also you can come to the studio and we're gonna try some four-color shumai.

First, I'm gonna use one of these.

Put about one heaping tablespoon if you are very hungry.

If you're mildly hungry, you use one heaping teaspoon.

If you are on a diet, you use 1/5 of a teaspoon.

(audience laughing) Put it right in the middle, see?

I am on a diet, so I use a little bit less.

Then after that, you pleat this right in the middle here.

And then you also hold onto this and you pleat this in and you pleat this in.

So you form four pouches here.

One, two, three, four, like this in each of the pouch, you see?

One, two, three, four.

Each one, we'll put some egg on one, one of these.

And another one, we will put ham, you see, ham.

And then another one, we'll put a couple of green pea.

It looks wonderful.

You can put three or four or five or six, as many as you can stuff it in.

(audience laughing) And of course, I want to make these nice and exotic by using a tiny bit of mushroom.

This is black mushroom.

Soak it for half an hour, 'kay?

And you go, you can do it like this, or you can do.

(cleaver loudly chopping) (audience applauding) Even my friend, the Maguire sisters are surprised.

Now when this is all done, we're gonna put it over here, and then you have four-color shumai.

Let's see how you're doing here.

Is there any more skin, any more skin?

Oh, we finished all the skin.

Look at how efficient.

Let's put them all over here.

Let's put them all over here.

(speaking in foreign language) Look at this.

I want to show you how efficient it is.

I finished one and they finished four.

That's the difference between professional and amateur.

The one thing I like to remind, I'll ask them.

(speaking in foreign language) See, the problem is some of these ladies, they work so hard, and I try ask them in Chinese why they called shumai, because shu means burn, mai means by.

That means when you go out to buy it, you get confused because why they called shumai?

But I guarantee when you go to a Chinese restaurant, when you order this, you'll never get burned.

It looks so gorgeous, so just like the international flag.

We should send this to the United Nations.

You get one, you take one.

We're gonna send this to the United Nations.

Now these are the Chinese Maguire sisters from the Yank Sing restaurant.

They're going on a tour now, but Laverne says she gonna stay because she lost her voice.

(audience applauding) Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now I love the idea, people applause.

See, we have half hour, people applaud for 25 minutes, so I only have to do five minutes (audience laughing) The easiest way to make a living.

The next one, Laverne and I are gonna show you how to do har gow.

Har means shrimp, gow means a dumpling.

All we really need is this, wheat starch, 'kay?

Approximately one pound.

You can make less, use a 1/2 a pound.

And you have a quarter cup of oil, polyunsaturated oil, and also, a tiny bit of sesame seed oil, quarter of a cup of small can of bamboo shoot, and about a quarter pound of prawn, and also have an egg white, and also have some corn starch.

Now let me show you how you make this dough.

Laverne, (speaking in foreign language).

This is her English name.

This is wheat starch.

I start putting this boiling water, put it right in here, and I make a little dough.

'Kay, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly.

And also, why I'm doing this?

(speaking in foreign language) Oil and boiling water.

(speaking in foreign language) Boiling water, make it into a nice dough, nice, smooth dough, very important.

Very important that you use boiling water.

Otherwise, it takes forever to do anything and it never would come out.

Okay, put it here, put it here, put it here, and then you knead the though.

Knead it into a nice dough.

The most important thing you gotta watch out is because this is very hot.

This is approximately 675 degree centigrade, so you don't get (shrieks in foreign language).

(audience laughing) That means absolutely terrible in Chinese expre.. (audience laughing) (speaking in foreign language) That's terrible, okay?

Now, I'm going to put my hand over here and make it.

Now Laverne has originally prepared some of these before she come.

So Laverne, why don't you, (speaking in foreign language).

I would like to ask Laverne to show you how to make Chinese style by hand, the old-fashioned way to make dough.

You cut a little chunk out of it, and then you use your cleaver.

One.

(audience applauding) Oh, look at this.

Look at this.

Another one, another one.

Now you gotta learn how to do this really fast because if you're doing 50 of them in half an hour, you got to learn how to do this.

Do it, you slightly grease this a little bit this is a piece of towel with a tiny bit of oil.

Let's do another one so everybody know how to do it.

One on this side, another one on this side.

Absolutely.

I want you to approach and see how nice and perfect this is.

(audience applauding) (speaking in foreign language) Now the next thing I wanna show you is, let's (speaking in foreign language) it here.

The next thing I wanna show you is you put the prawn and the bamboo shoot together and you just fold.

This is har gow.

You see how fast she can do?

Let me do one, this is so wonderful.

One, this one you do it (speaking in foreign language).

Slowly, slowly.

One, two, three.

You just pleat it very slowly.

Oh, look at this, look at this.

(audience applauding) Let's do another one.

(speaking in foreign language) In the meantime, I am going to learn how to do one because I just observed, I know how to do it.

In fact, there is an old expression called pigs in a blanket.

This a little shrimp in a purse.

(audience laughing) Sue over there have a question for us.

- Where did dim sum originate?

- Dim sum originated from, I think, from the imperial court because the kings and the queens and their royal family get so tired of daily fares, so the chef decided to create different morsels of food.

And then later on, they pass onto the restaurants, and then they become a little more popular.

Another explanation can be dim sum make out of leftover morsels of foods.

You have leftover piece of meat, you have a leftover piece of this, you have a leftover piece of dough.

You don't know what to do with it, so you put them all together.

You steam some, you deep fry some, you braise some, and then you'll have dim sum.

(audience laughing and applauding) Now after this is done, I'm gonna put this here and steam it.

Stack them up, this is a bamboo steamer.

You can put another stack, another stack.

You can stack them all up, up to 15 floor, as high as Empire Building.

It's the most fuel-efficient way to cook because you see the steam coming out along this column, so you can steam something, you can reheat something.

It's wonderful.

Laverne is gonna show us how to do a very interesting goldfish.

(speaking in foreign language) This is everybody watch.

Everybody watch very closely.

(speaking in foreign language) I said Laverne, be very careful to show everybody.

Look at how you fold it, okay?

Step number one, okay?

And then you fold it like this, step number two.

This is the tail, this is the head, and then you fold it back in, and then you put a tiny bit of food color.

Yeah.

(speaking in foreign language) Yeah, put, do it right here, do it right here.

(speaking in foreign language) Yeah, put it right here.

Then you put a little eye in there.

It's wonderful.

So in Chinese cooking, you can use the same dough to do all kind of thing.

You can make triangle dumpling, you can make fish dumpling, you can make a rabbit dumpling, and this is fish dumpling.

Let's put an eye.

(speaking in foreign language) After, let's (speaking in foreign language).

Now look at this.

(speaking in foreign language) Look at how wonderful this is.

(speaking in foreign language) (audience laughing) When this is done, I wanna show everybody here in the studio.

You put a little eye on the, wow.

See, put an eye, put an eye.

Wow, look at this.

(audience gasping and applauding) Isn't that wonderful?

We are gonna steam it over here and cover up.

And I wanna show you, you can steam all of these har gow and shumai and you can serve to your guests like this.

Look at that.

Laverne and myself make all these .. All of these, you can do in no time.

Lorrie, you have a question for us.

- Yes, Martin, how many kinds of dim sum are there?

- 987 different kinds (audience laughing) And I have tried 900 of them.

Actually, there are approximately, average about 60 to 70 different type of dim sum available in the restaurant all over the world, in Chinese restaurant.

Normally, big restaurant, they normally serve dim sum.

Smaller restaurant, they don't have the facility, they don't have the space to make dim sum because, as I mentioned earlier, when you make dim sum, you need a lot of working counter because you got 5,000 people pleating this, doing that.

A lot of these dim sum that you see right here, some of them are steamed, some of them are baked, some of them are braised, some of them are deep fried, some of them have no definition of cooking technique.

(audience laughing) I'd like to show you the different type of dim sum that you can normally find.

These are more popular, more traditional ones.

Here, I have a steamed bun with lotus or sweet bean paste inside.

Can I open up one?

No problem, let's open up one.

See?

Oh, see?

I didn't lie to you.

Lotus bean paste.

This is absolutely yummy, yummy.

And then we also have barbecue pork bun.

You can put barbecue pork or you can put chicken.

In Chinese, called (speaking in foreign language).

And then you can also come over here.

You have steamed spare rib with black bean sauce, and this is beef meatball over spinach.

Sometimes, some Chinese restaurant use watercress.

And then you come over here, have this little rabbit dumpling.

And also here, we have the har gow, and here, we have the fish.

And then we have the shumai, and then, of course, we have the four-color shumai.

And here, let's look at this, this is baked.

This is baked barbecue pork bun.

This is taro root, the dumpling that we'll be showing you how to make it in a few seconds.

And then also, the regular spring roll.

Sometimes, they called egg roll.

The proper name should be spring roll.

Potsticker, you cook this, darn thing stick to the pot.

That's why they called potsticker.

(audience laughing) And also, stuffed crab claw, and also, glutinous rice dumpling, sesame seed ball dumpling, and also, handful of, this is a duck web.

I wanna show you it look.

Look at this, this is how it looks.

And also, this is chicken feet.

Somewhere along the line, one of the chicken cannot walk.

(audience laughing) See, the Chinese or many people in the world, they don't waste anything.

They serve everything, they don't throw anything.. And the only thing they really throw away is the clock.

(audience laughing) Let us have another question.

Oh, somebody over there also have a question, so we will ask a question, and then we'll be right back and join Laverne, my good friend, to do this taro root dumpling.

This is a very, very simple, wonderful dish everybody can do at home.

First of all, we will start with the taro root, 'kay?

Just like you make potato, mashed potato, you steam them, you take the skin off and you mash into a paste.

And then we have ground meat, or you can just chop it up into meat.

Then we also have a tiny bit of bamboo shoot and shrimp, and all you have to do is cut them all up, see?

(speaking in foreign language) Laverne is going to continue to do.. while I'm gonna cut this up.

(cleaver clanking and chopping) Cut them up, set it up here.

It's very easy.

You'll notice that all she's doing is you make a little pouch.

Let's do it here so everybody can see.

And then you put one teaspoon to two teaspoon of filling inside and you close it up, and it looks like this and you shape the edge.

Let's show you, you shape this like this, okay?

And then you do another one.

(speaking in foreign language) Let's put it out.

There's another one, you can do it like this, see?

You make it into, you flatten this out, and you put about two teaspoon or one flat tablespoon of this filling, and then you go squeeze it in and close it up like this.

Go pleat it and close it up like this.

Look at this.

And you do another one.

(speaking in foreign language) Very easy to do.

Now I'm not quite sure if anybody know that taro root is very, very popular in Hawaii.

They use it for everything.

They make poi.

In fact, poi is the Hawaiian epoxy because they use that to glue the tables, (audience laughing) for wallpapers, for practically everything.

Taro root, so popular.

I'm not quite sure you heard about that, they even have Taro Patch Dolls.

(audience laughing and groaning) You don't believe me?

I wanna introduce you to my friend, Mr. Taro Head.

(audience laughing) Wow, look at this.

(audience laughing and applauding) This is my friend, Earl.

When I get lonely, I talk to, "How are you, Earl?"

Now after you do this, you will deep fry it over intense, high heat, okay?

I'm gonna show you how can deep fry.

Do it like this, very carefully, okay?

Put it right here.

Look at this carefully.

Now finally, we get a chance to get Barbie's question.

- Martin, how many different kinds of teas there, and are there certain ones used with dim sum?

- There are basically three to four different kind of tea: fermented tea, semi-fermented tea, non-fermented tea which is our like green tea.

Why?

I wanna show everybody first and then I'll show you the wonderful type of tea, because when you serve dim sum, you always serve with tea.

Look at how gorgeous this, because of the oil and it flakes out like this.

Can everybody see?

Everybody can see.

If you say you can see, raise your hand.

Everybody, can you see?

Oh, everybody can see this is how it looks.

After this is done, you let it set aside and you put it right here.

It doesn't take too long to cook because everything is cooked (speaking in foreign language) and we do it both together.

This one is for me.

This one is for my good friend, my teacher, Laverne.

(audience laughing) Now when Laverne is doing this, (speaking in foreign language), I'm gonna show you the different kind of tea here.

Very interesting.

Here, I have black tea, which is fermented tea.

Here, I have semi-fermented tea, okay?

This is oolong tea.

This is Tieguanyin tea, 'kay?

This is a Iron Goddess tea, which is semi-fermented.

We also have green tea, which is not fermented, 'kay?

We also have scented tea.

We have flower mixed with black tea.

This is basically what it is.

And also, I want to show another thing which is wonderful.

This is chrysanthemum tea.

How many of you here have tried the chrysanthemum tea?

Wow, five out of 6 1/2 million.

(audience laughing) Now I want to show you when you have tea, when you go to a restaurant, a Chinese dim sum restaurant, this is what you should do.

These are my classic antique teapot and also teacup here.

The most important thing to brew tea is first of all, you use hot water to make this nice and hot, to make sure the whole pot is clean, yet is very, very hot.

Secondly, you put the water, boiling water there while you're brewing approximately two tablespoon of tea.

Like fermented tea is very strong, so you don't want to use too much, okay?

Like for instance, green tea, which is very refreshing and very light, and you can use a little bit more.

And some of the green tea, they even have puffed rice, roasted rice right in there.

And then you can have this kind of tea, which is jasmine tea.

How many of you, when you go to restaurant, try jasmine tea?

Oh see, everybody love jasmine tea.

Now jasmine tea and oolong tea are the most popular Chinese tea.

When you go to have dim sum in Chinese restaurant, you go in the Chinese restaurant, you sit down, you order dim sum, you can order any kind of dim sum.

When the lady push the cart around, you say, "I touch your heart."

That means you want that part of dim sum, because when you point to whatever you like, the lady will give it to you.

When I was a little kid in China, they don't have little stamps put on our little order form.

When you order dim sum, you put on a plate, and then when you finish, they just count how many plates you have, and then they charge you for that.

When I was a little kid, after I finish, I say, "Goodbye!"

(audience laughing) And, "Goodbye!"

(audience laughing) I don't have to pay that much.

I haven't done this for years.

That is not honest.

(audience laughing) But nowadays, you don't have any problem.

So whenever you go to dim sum restaurant, make sure you order the tea of your desire.

You can order oolong tea, you can order Tieguanyin, you can order Dragon Well, and then enjoy the dim sum with a cup of tea.

It's wonderful.

Now let us take a look at this.

(speaking in foreign language) Let us shut this off and put this right here.

Put this right here.

It is so wonderful to have so much help today.

I want to thank the Chinese Maguire sisters and Laverne for their help.

And of course, (audience applauding) Yank Sing restaurant in San Francisco.

If Yan can, so can you!

“Goodbye!” ( ##! )

(joyful music)