(joyful music) (applause) - [Narrator] And now Martin Yan, the Chinese chef.

- (speaks in foreign language) That's a greeting from the East.

And how are you?

Is a greeting from the West.

Today we're having an East meets West menu.

(speaks in foreign language) Big clams.

Pineapple lemon chicken.

And potato pork pancakes.

The first dish I'm gonna show you is a wonderful appetizer for cocktail parties.

It's a wonderful dinner entree if you cook them a lot and you prepare them ahead of time.

You can serve them any time you wish.

You start with approximately 10 to 12 live clams.

Three stalks, three whole green onion.

One Chinese sausage.

About three to four black mushroom.

They call shiitake in Japanese cooking.

And also four or five to six water chestnut.

And of course I have quarter pound prawn or shrimp and also one clove of garlic.

And a tiny bit of ginger.

Very simple dish.

If you want to make it more exotic you can also add some chopped cilantro.

It's very easy to do.

The first thing you do is steam the clam.

Or you can boil the clam.

To make sure they open.

If the clam is not open don't break in the house because they don't want to play games.

That means it's not fresh.

Fresh clam, live clam, when you bake it they open right?

If it's not open it's not good okay?

Now.

I try to save time so I have steamed some .. ahead of time.

And then we are going to get a bowl, put it right here, and get this ready.

Take this off.

Don't throw this away because I'm gonna use this to stuff.

And then you use some shrimp.

Let me show you one more time.

How to take this out.

Shell.

Take this out.

And then how to mash these (bangs knife) so simple.

Just simply smash these.

The stronger you are the better job you can do.

All done.

(applause) Look at how easy it is.

Chop up some of these put it all here.

And also have some garlic.

Put it over here.

Take the skin off.

And then press it and go (knife chopping sounds) Hiy!

Wow!

(applause) And also some ginger.

Now, cooking should be fun.

We should never do things like this.

With straight face because this is ridiculous.

(audience laughter) It should be as soon as you start you go (laughter) Go like this because this way you are relaxed, you are having a good time, and we're gonna mince this.

Wow.

And then I go.

Put it right here.

Now to save time we also have a tiny bit of this mince ahead of time.

We're gonna put this in.

Put this in.

Put some of these.

Chop mushroom.

Water chestnut.

Oh!

I wanna show you this is fresh wat.. How many of you here in the audience have ever tried fresh water chestnut?

They're wonderful!

Anybody?

There quite a few people.

They are sweet.

They're crispy.

They're wonderful.

Now also put some green onion and also some (foreign language) that means Chinese sausage.

(foreign language) Mix them all up.

Marinate it with a tiny bit of salt.

A tiny bit of salt and a tiny bit of dry sherry.

You can use Chinese rice wine.

Stir more up.

Stir them all up.

Stir them all up.

And then you are gonna use a knife to show you how to do it.

One of these.

Put them over here.

Fill it up like this.

This is wonderful for appetizer.

Fill it up okay?

Everybody can tell.

After you do that you pack this with a tiny bit of Japanese style, Oriental style breadcrumb called panko.

You can use the regular breadcrumb.

You just sprinkle it here.

Sprinkle in.

Pack them up like this.

And then you are going to put it in a plate of rock salt.

Because you don't want this fall down.

So let's pack this up.

Pack this up.

Pack this up.

Press really hard.

Press this up.

And then.

Press this up.

And then you bake it at 400 degree for approximately six to eight minutes okay?

Let's go over there.

And put this in.

Hot.

Then in the meantime, I want to save time so I bake some of these ahead of time, aiyaa!

Wa!

Look at how gorgeous this is.

This is what I call the Big Clam Chinese style.

(applause) We're gonna do pineapple lemon chicken.

This particular dish we have two whole chicken breasts.

We have one egg.

We have one tablespoon of sesame seed.

Roasted.

We also have some brown sugar.

Butter or margarine, one tablespoon.

Two pineapple ring.

And also some lemon and lemon peel.

And a tiny bit of ginger.

And of course we start it out by de-boning the chicken but before I do that I would like to tell you there are things in life that need teamwork.

And cooking should not be a lonely experience.

Today I'm proud to have, as my guest, the food editor of Bon Appetit magazine Jan Weimer.

(applause) How are you Jan?

- Fine, thank you.

This looks wonderful!

- Oh I think it's wonderful because today we have wonderful guest like you and also we have wonderful audience like these people.

We're gonna have a wonderful show.

- And wonderful chef.

- I'm not quite sure about that.

(applause) Now.

To save space we're gonna put this over here.

I'm gonna put this over here.

We're gonna put this over here.

And with one egg.

So we can get rid of this.

Now.

I'm not quite sure.

I'm quite sure everybody know how t..

But I just thought that I want to show people how to do it by hand.

You put your thumb right here in this hole here.

You push it out.

You push it down.

The whole thing comes out.

Push it.

I'll push it down.

The whole thing comes out like this.

And then you hold on to the very top you push it down like this.

Push it down.

And the whole thing comes out.

Then the only thing left is this little piece of tender on.

You hold on to the ligament.

You grab hold of this and you push it down.

Jan.

I know that you're expert.

You can do this for me while I'm gonna get everything else ready.

Let's save these for homemade soup stock.

Now I'll give you an idea.

You push this here.

Push it out.

Push it down.

Push it out.

- I got# long thumbs.

- See?

Perfect, perfect.

Perfect.

Take it out.

Take it out.

Aiyaa!

Let's give Jan a big hand!

Got all over here.

Let's save this.

Save this.

Hold on to this and then take it out.

Perfect.

Wow.

This is the way to go.

- That will make a real rich stock.

- Because you don't-- - Lots of chicken left on.

- You do not want to waste the bone.

The Chinese never throw anything away except the cluck.

Now I want to show everybody also how to take this away.

This is a very very easy way to do.

You push it right here.

Push it.

And you just push this whole thing and the whole thing comes out like this.

Isn't that fascinating.

Now.

Jan you can do it with that one.

This is a French chef knife.

This way we can get this ready.

Now here in the meantime I want to show you.

Wow look at this.

She did a much better job than I can do.

The next thing I want to show everybody is how to cut this by slant cutting.

To make it twice as big by slant cutting or parallel cutting technique.

One.

Two.

So you cut this and make it into t.. And each piece about this thin.

Look at this.

- Chicken to read through.

- Right.

This way you can feed everybody and still we have 600 people here.

Now.

- With just that piece.

- Yeah.

We don't have to.

All we have to do is we can pound .. Let's pound this little bit and then the wonderful thing about Chinese knife is that you can use this for pounding, for slicing too.

Let's go.

Pound this.

You can use that knife to pound this.

- Pound mine?

- Yeah, you can pound this.

Wow.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

Jan I know that you told me you have be.. in a food business for many years and food is your life.

And Jan promised me, after we're finished, she is going to wash dishes for us because that's part of cooking.

- No, I thought I promised you I was gonna eat everything afterwards.

- No because by the time the audience finish we won't have anything left.

Now.

Let's put this together.

And then we gonna beat up an egg.

Let's beat this up with a chopstick.

Let's beat this, this is how the Chinese beat up.

This is a Chinese egg beater.

Put them all together.

There are two ways to do this particular dish.

One, is you coat it with this beaten egg and then coat it right here with this panko.

Okay?

Mix some panko with some sesame seed together and then we can coat this.

And then the other way of doing it is we make a batter so we can do it.

I'm gonna do it this way.

You can do it this way.

Dip it into egg batter.

Dip it in here.

Then we can both deep fry that and..

Okay?

- Sounds terrific.

- Okay let's put it here.

Sprinkle it.

I'm gonna do it this way.

You can do it this way.

Then we can deep fry it over there because we have a tiny bit of oil ready.

Approximately two and half to three cups of oil ready.

Nice thick batter like this okay?

This is the one I will do.

Ill do another one because people are quite hungry because they have been here since four o'clock this morning.

(laughter) Pound this.

Pound this and put it in here.

We will both deep fry this.

- I have learned the secret that you can only use one hand.

Because if I use two hands then you get stuck in the batter.

And then the batter gets stuck to you and the chicken gets stuck to you.

- I think that makes - So - A lot of sense.

- Only one hand.

I learn something new today.

Yeah, that's true because when you do that you can use another hand to do something else.

- What to get you out of this hand?

- Right.

Let's do it this way.

After you do that put it over there.

And I'm gonna put this in a panko.

Good.

Let's do.

- Want some more panko?

- This one.

Yeah please.

Let's put this over here.

Let's put this over here.

Jan I don't know whether you know that I have been a subscriber of your wonderful magazine since 1975.

- Well, I'm thrilled to know that.

- But I ..

I never get any discount though.

(laughter) Maybe my life change.

Now this part because I'm gonna deep fry that here.

Jan give me a hand and put the other piece here.

So we can deep fry it.

In the meantime while we are deep frying I think I'm gonna ask Jan because I said this is a teamwork thing.

You can't do it by yourself.

It's more fun to do it together.

We are going to deep fry this.

While we're making a sauce.

So you know what I have here?

I have one can of pineapple.

- I will do that.

- One can of pineapple.

One to two teaspoons of soy sauce and brown sugar one tablespoon to one and a half tablespoon and a tiny bit of butter.

And of course I also have some lemon rind.

And bring to boil to make it into a sauce.

Now.

When this is done.

We will.

Can you also do me a favor let us move this a little bi.

And then I have a plate underneath there.

So we can put them together.

Deep fry this.

The most important thing of deep fry .. make sure the oil is nice and hot.

We call this, you know why we call this pineapple lemon chicken?

- Because its got pineapple, and lemon, and chicken.

- No that's not really true because the pineapple was not lemony enough.

And the lemon it was not pineappley enough.

Fortunately.

- And the chicken.

- The chicken is chicken-y enough.

- Thank goodness!

- Now we put them all together.

Deep fry.

You see?

It's nice and golden brown, can you s.. Nice and golden brown.

- Nice and golden brown.

- When it's golden brown we take it.. We are going to, let's remove these thing.

Let's remove this.

Let's remove this.

So we can chop it up and put it on this.. And garnish it with pineapple ring.

Oh.

See this is the way you do.

Tempura rack.

After it's done.

Let it put it here.

And let the oil drain back so you don't waste any oil.

In the meantime I have a piece over there.

Let's chop it up.

I'm show everybody I chop a one piece you chop a one piece.

All done.

Put it over here.

Look at this.

When this is done we pour the sauce right on top.

Wonderful.

And then of course we will cut a tiny piece of pineapple.

Put it right here as a garnish.

Put it right here as a garnish.

And then we pour the sauce right on top.

Look at how gorgeous this dish.

This is the most delicious dish you can.

Sprinkle a tiny bit of extra.

Look at how beautiful this is.

(applause) This is wonderful.

Delicious.

- Fabulous.

- Over there have a question for us.

- Yes.

I'm having a lot of trouble with to.. How do you dry it out without ruining the shape of it?

- Okay, the thing is when you buy it make sure you let it sit there on a rack.

Or in a strainer for about five to 10 minutes to reduce, to make sure some of the water is pressed out.

Okay?

- You can put a brick on it.

- Right.

You can put a book - Some sort of weight on it.

A wrapped.

- Plate.

Whatever.

To press the water out.

Then when you cut it they won't fal.. Betty, has a question for us.

- Yeah, so I was wondering how dried bean curd is made?

- Jan, maybe you should answer the question.

- Well I saw tofu being made in Japan and actually it's like washing clothes.

The foam comes to the top and basically it's the oil from the soybean and it's sort of scooped off with a big mesh spoon and then put on racks to dry just as you would do with your clothes.

And only a Chinese person or a Japanese person would never do that at home.

They would just go to the store and buy it already hung and dried.

And you can buy it right here certainly in San Francisco and Los Angeles and in Chinatown and Oriental markets throughout the states.

- This are the one that you just brought in with you.

This are dehydrated bean curd sheets.

They are bean curd sticks.

Now.

Let's get the show going on the ro..

Otherwise we never get our (knife banging).

Now the next thing I want to show everybody is potato pork pancake.

But Jan is gonna work with us because this is also needs teamwork.

Now first we have potato here.

We need about one to two potato.

Two eggs.

Two to three to four black mushroom.

Some chopped green onion.

One clove chopped garlic.

One to two slice chopped ginger.

And also four to five chopped water chestnut.

And of course I have quarter of a pound of ground pork or you can use ground meat.

Or you can use shrimp.

You can use chicken.

It doesn't make any difference.

- Or you can use sausage.

- What a great idea!

Let's use sausage.

It happen we have some cooked sausage here.

Let's put this in here to save time.

Let's chop, I chop some green onion.

You chop some green onion.

Let us do it like this.

Let us do this like this.

(knife chopping sounds) Wonderful!

- Oh!

- Put it all over here.

And then let us put it here.

And also grate the potato.

Let's put the potato.

- Martin you know the French have lots of wonderful recipes for potato pancakes but I don't remember you know having it in a Chinese restaurant or seen potatoes used very much in a Chinese book.

- Well, potatoes quite popular in my househ.. My mom always fix me potato pancake.

- For breakfast?

- For breakfast, for lunch, for dinner.

Stir this a little bit.

Let's put the rest of the these in.

Mushroom.

Garlic.

Ginger.

And water chestnut.

- Do you think that they're ever gonna have fresh water chestnuts available throughout the United States the fresh ones are so much better than the ones that are canned.

It is like eating an entirely diffe..

They are so crisp.

- I think - So fresh.

- I think there are more and more places in Chinatown, - Oh I hope so.

- There are more places in the U.S. have water chestnut.

Let's put this here and also some corn starch.

And then we can start making these potato pancake okay?

While we're making this potato pancake.

We would like to ask you do me a favor to make some sauce to serve with this.

You don't serve this with corn syrup.

You serve this with a sauce three quarter cup of homemade soup stock.

One green onion chopped and also a tiny bit of ginger and also a tiny bit of corn starch.

Mix it up.

And then we already have some over there.

Let's add a tiny bit more over here.

So we can start cooking.

Let's stir this.

You got a thing here.

Let's stir.

While I am doing a pancake right he.. Now I'm not quite sure how many of you know let's do this like this.

Put it here.

Put then this, or put this right here.

Let us use approximately one tablespoon, I'm gonna make one and you gonna make one for me.

Put it, put it all together.

You can, oh we got to stir this otherwise we gonna get into trouble.

Stir this.

Stir this.

Stir this.

Okay.

Toss this.

Make sure the pancake is nice and ..

If it's not round it's not good because nice round pancake.

Let's put this in.

Let's put this in.

Let us put this in.

I'm gonna put one over here.

And then one for you, one for me.

One for you.

- Big one.

- One for me.

- Big one.

- Big one.

Let's have a big one.

- Thank you.

That's a big one.

That's a big one.

Stir it a little bit.

Make sure you stir it otherwise we're gonna have dehydrated corn syrup sauce.

- It's called a reduction.

- Let me put it.

Make sure because I use a non-stick .. to cook this.

That's why I don't really have to ..

If you use a regular wok you might need to use a little bit more oil.

That's wonderful thing about non-stick cooking surface.

Let's put a tiny bit more oil here.

- Do you ever like to use cast iron for somethin.. - Whoa, I love cast iron.

I have one cast iron wok at home.

In fact my mother also use cast iron one.

I just visit my mother approximately two months ago and I fix her dinner in her cast iron wok.

How many of you have a cast iron cooking utensil at home?

See most people do.

They are very thick.

They conduct heat very evenly.

They are wonderful cooking utensil.

Let's put this here.

- They're also not very expensive.

- No, they are not.

Let me show everybody how easy it is to toss food around.

Okay?

You can do it in a wok.

I wanna show you how to do it.

This way.

I wanna show you how to do it this.. Let's get rid of these first.

I wanna show you how to do it, wow!

Look at this!

Nice and golden brown.

When this is brown you gotta cook this for about one to two minutes.

Otherwise they are not cooked because you wanna make sure the potatoes n.. - And crisp.

- Stir.

And crisp it.

I understand that you love potatoes.

Potato pancakes.

There are all kind of potato pancakes.

- All kinds of potatoes anyway.

Fried, chopped, boiled.

Baked.

- Pur.

Pur.

Pur.

Make one more.

Let's make one more.

- The French do that with preps and if it lands on the floor you're gonna be alone the rest of your life.

- I don't want to be alone.

- It means you become an adult if you learned how .. - I do not want to be alone.

Now.

Let us add a tiny bit more.

And.

Let's do this.

In the meantime let me stir fry this.

Stir this, stir this.

Turn it up.

Turn up a little bit.

- Get it boiling.

- And let it get a boiling.

In the meantime let's see how that's coming along.

Turn it over.

Let's turn it over.

And then I want to make sure.

Everything is done at the same time.

How many of you have a dishwasher at home?

Everybody have a dishwasher at home.

Jan told me she does so much cooking at home she actually need two dishwasher.

One here.

One here.

- And one here.

- The wonderful thing about dishwasher is even though when there's no electricity this still work you know?

Now.

Let this is done.

- You ready for that one?

- Let's .. over here.

Put this over here.

- There's a plate.

- This right here.

Let's put.

I in the beginning have cook a few extra ones too.

Let's put this over here.

- I wanna flip him still, oops.

- Okay.

- There we go.

- Let's put this over here.

And then we serve these with this sauce.

Look at how gorgeous this look.

Look at this.

It's a very easy.

It's a wonderful for snack.

It's wonderful.

- It's also a complete meal.

- Yes.

- I mean you don't need anything e.. - Has Jan Weiemer been a wonderful guest?

(applause) - Remember, - Thank you.

- If Jan and Yan can cook so can you.

Bon Appetit!

(foreign language) “Goodbye!” ( ##! )

(joyful music)