(Joyful music) (audience clapping) - In Chinese, dim sum literally means point to your heart.

Dim is point, sum is your heart.

Because when you order dim sum in a Chinese dim sum restaurant, all you have to do is point to the dishes you want.

It's like your heart's delight.

If you don't know what it is, don't point.

You might end up having braised chicken feet that you might not like.

There is no menu, just a little cart.

The ladies or the men will push the cart around.

Just come around the whole restaurant filled with all the little dishes, whether it's a little bamboo steamer, whether it's in bamboo or stainless steel, you just pick whatever you want.

Now, that is what I call ordering a la cart.

A dim sum restaurant is often also called a tea house.

Here is a classic dish that you can find in some of the dim sum restaurant and many of the tea houses and you can make it home very easily, steamed pearl ball.

Here, this is the pearl.

I have some sweet rice, or glutenous rice, or short-grain rice.

You can use either one because when they steam, they're stickier.

This is the raw one.

And then you soak them in water for approximately overnight or even just two or three hours until they are more or less rehydrated.

So they're nice and have soaked enough water, when you steam, then it doesn't take too long to do.

And then, you set it aside, and then you are gonna get the filling.

I have some ground meat here, look at that.

You can use beef, chicken, turkey, beef, pork, any ground meat will do.

Then I have some Szechuan pickle, water chestnut, chop, green onion, chopped ginger, some white pepper and also salt, and a little egg, okay?

And I want to show you how easy it is to do this.

First of all, we're gonna put this over here and marinate the meat.

I said meat.

That means you can use any meat.

What kind of meat?

I don't care.

(audience laughs) And then Szechuan pickle, okay?

Water chestnut, give texture and flavor.

Green onion, some chopped ginger, and then, white pepper or black pepper, tiny bit of salt.

Very little don't use too much.

Some sesame seed oil.

And of course, a tiny bit of soy sauce.

And very important to put a tiny bit of egg to give that binding property.

(chopsticks tapping) Beat it up with your chopstick, okay?

Then, of course, a tiny bit of cornstarch too to bind it, to give a nice, smooth paste.

And then I'm gonna show you how to shape this, and it's very easy to do.

While I'm doing this, I'm heating up a wok with water, boiling water so use it for steaming.

Now, a lot of people know that when you steam, make sure do not use a well-seasoned wok to steam too much because they can get rusty because it kind of damage.

Prolonged steaming in a seasoned, carbon steel wok, tend to destroy the seasoning, so it get rusty.

Make sure to stir.

If I were you, I would use five chopstick and do it okay.

Much faster.

We set this aside, and then we're gonna shape some meatball and coat it with this.

And we will then put it over here.

Shape the meatball.

You can use any motion.

You're gonna go like that or you can go like that, you can go like that.

It doesn't make any difference.

Depends on your mood.

And then after you finish, you can wash it, your hand, so easier to shape the ball.

See that?

And then you rolled it one over here.

Show you another one.

(feet tapping) (audience laughing) When you do this, as I said, I always have been telling people, "You should not rush."

Even people want to rush you, you said, "Ah, take it easy."

Once again, two.

And I love to take my time because good food takes time to prepare.

(feet tapping) Once again, two.

Now, if you are hungry, you shape big balls.

If you're not as hungry, smaller balls, okay?

Depends on your diet requirement.

And then you'll roll the whole thing up like this.

Look at this, it actually shaped.

This is another way to do it.

Put some over here and you put it on both end.

You just shape it like this.

This way it's perfectly coated.

Like this.

Look at that.

And then you put it right here.

Yo..

I have some smaller ball for you and a big ball for me.

(audience laughs) Okay.

Very easy.

I shaped this whole thing and we are going to cover this up in this bamboo steamer.

Now, in this case, you know why Chinese chef like to use bamboo steamer?

Because bamboo steamer allow the excess amount of steam to escape so there's very little moisture condensed back to your steamer.

When this is ready, you steam it for about 16 to 18 minutes until they're nice and done.

You wanna make sure the rice is also cooked.

It takes about 16 to 18 minutes to cook because it's already soaked.

When it's done, you take it out like that, and don't pick it up with your hand.

I'm going to.

I do it because I have no choice.

And then your put over here, and I wanna show you, this is actually beautiful because I touch my hand with pork so I don't want to do it.

So I gonna put it like this.

And I use this finger on this side, put it like this.

And I only put three.

You know why?

Three has a significant meaning in Chinese culture.

Three is sam, and sam means life.

You normally don't use four pieces.

Four pieces.

Four means debt.

So three.

(audience laughs) (audience claps) Now, of course, dim sum can also take the form of baked pastry.

Now, of course, a lot of people don't realize, baking is actually a very new entry into Chinese cuisine.

In the old days, there's no baking, there's no pastry in China.

They always do the dim sum by either steaming or deep frying or braising or wok stir-fry or casserole to make a variety of dim sum.

And only in the past couple hundred years that baking and oven baking is introduced to China.

But even nowadays, very few Chinese household has a ov.. And then, this particular one I call dim sum curry beef in a moon-shaped pastry.

Very easy to do.

Everybody can do it.

Everybody know that you can do your pastry or you can buy the pastry dough, okay?

Put some flour around here.

In China, when they go out, they normally would go out to restaurants to order this kind of dim sum or pastry.

Make sure to move this, okay?

Shape this, and then you can do about three or four.

Make sure they are just thin enough, but not too thin, okay?

This is the pastry dough.

We rolled it out.

After rolled it out, I wanna show you what I have for filling, ..

Here I have some ground lean beef.

I have some chopped onion, cilantro, ginger, curry powder, and a tiny bit of Szechuan peppercorn, and water chestnut, and all the seasoning that I need to marinate it, okay?

I have some soy sauce, I have some tiny bit of oil, and I have some oyster sauce, and some rice wine, okay?

And then I am going to cut this up, okay?

One.

And I cut this up, one.

And I cut this up, and I cut another one up, and the rest I am gonna save it and keep it for myself for tomorrow.

(audience laughs) Save it.

Chinese never throw anything away.

I'm gonna keep it and send it to my mother.

(audience laughs) Now, talking about recycle.

We're gonna to recycle this for the next six months.

And then this is what is interesting.

After you do it, mix them all together and you have to marinate and stir-fried it.

After you stir-fried it, you let it keep at room temperature or in the fridge until they cool down.

And this is done.

And then you fill this approximately one teaspoonful, okay?

Another teaspoonful, okay?

Another teaspoonful.

And since we're talking about three, we don't need this either.

(audience laughs) And then we put a tiny bit of water.

Look at this.

This is very easy to do.

Everybody know how to do it.

Look at that.

We'll put this here.

We'll put this here.

Put a tiny bit of a water, half-moo.. Do it with gentle care, with patience.

As I said, you wanna fold it and look nice.

When it's done, you fold it over, okay?

Beautiful.

Nice and folded over like this.

Look at that.

One.

And then fold it over.

Two.

Make sure, snap it off, snap a little bit, so it looks nice.

Fold it.

If you have too much, you got a problem.

So don't get too carried away.

Just put enough.

And then you use a egg wash, okay?

You just brush it a little bit and brush a little bit to give some nice color, and then you put it all back here.

So we are ready to go to our oven.

One, two.

And this is all for me.

And this is for you Always learn to take the time to clean up and don't make a mess.

And we're gonna go to the oven.

First, we'll bake this.

And then when you finish baking it, you take it out.

This is instantly.

It's very fast.

(audience laughs) Then you put it right here.

It's beautiful.

And when it's done, you serve it right here.

And all I have is some beautiful pastry, which I would like to invite you to come to my kitchen and enjoy it.

Now, you can put it and garnish it any way you want.

Three.

And that's a beautiful curry beef pastry.

(audience claps) Speaking of dim sum restaurant, let me show you what actually goes on behind the scene in one of Hong Kong's most popular dim sum houses, Harbor Village.

(traditional music) Making dim sum is art in motion.

It takes the eye of an artist and the patience of a saint.

Here at Harbor Village Restaurant in Hong Kong, dim sum making is an around-the-clock effort.

First, the chef pours a thin rice noodle paste onto this specially designed steamer over cheesecloth so that it won't stick.

Now, he arrange the roast pork in neat rows like this.

(traditional music) Cover, and steam for just five minutes.

(chef speaking in foreign language) Then he lays it carefully on the counter, lifts off the cheese cloth, fold the flat noodle sheet into neat, thin rows like this.

(traditional music) Making sure that the roast pork is sealed in nice and tight.

(knife clanging) He cuts it up, and serve it into two portions.

(traditional music) Actually, they are both for me.

I love this stuff.

(audience claps) In China, we call call the dish jyu cheung fun, in Cantonese.

I call it Chinese pig in a blanket, and it's actually a steamed meat-filled rice roll.

The roll is made from the dough of long-grain rice flour.

The next one I wanna show you is a fried and steamed dumpling.

I called it the vegetarian pot sticker bun.

You'll love pot sticker.

Everybody loves pot sticker, but this is a very unique one to do it, okay?

First, I wanna show you the filling because you got to do the filling first, okay?

Or you can do the dough first, then you do the filling.

It makes no difference whatsoever to me.

(audience laughs) I don't think you care either.

Here, this is all the basic filling.

Vegetarian, so there's no meat.

I have some button mushroom, carrot, ginger, garlic, green onion, shiitake mushrooms.

(speaking in foreign language) dry mushroom, soak it.

And then also chop up some bamboo shoot, garlic.

Some seasoning.

I have some salt, white pepper, and sugar.

Now, this is interesting.

I wanna show you this.

This is cabbage.

When you go out to eat pot sticker, this is the regular cabbage, or the head cabbage.

When you do that, you should put a tiny bit of salt, and you let it, salt sit there, and you let us sit and kind of pickle it.

But idea is to leach out some of the water.

And I wanna show you that, actually water.

I want you to look at this, okay?

Come around, look at this.

Water coming out.

See that?

You do it for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Look at that, the water.

I hope you can see it, okay?

Do it in the right place.

Don't do it around here, okay?

(audience laughs) Because it is not appropriate.

And then when this is done, we're gonna set this aside, and you stir-fry everything.

And you'll put it in the fridge until they cool down.

This is the filling.

It's already cooked, okay?

In the meantime, I'm gonna make the dough.

You start it out with a wonderful, wonderful, regular all-purpose flour and mix it with some water.

And then you shape into a long cylindrical dough like that.

And then you flatten this out, get some flour here.

And then this is how the Chinese roll the dough.

Look at this.

You flatten this out like debt.

And then you use this Chinese rolling pin.

Chinese rolling pin is a little bit smaller.

And then you'll go onto this and you'll go, one.

You see that?

Two.

You keep on moving it.

You keep on moving it.

(rolling pin clanging) You see this?

Until you have perfect round dough.

Perfect round dough like this.

One.

Two and three.

Okay, and then when you have all of these, you are gonna use a spoon and scoop this right here, okay?

This is a vegetarian dough.

A vegetarian dough.

In the meantime, I'm heating up a frying pan, just like I normally do.

My dough with the... And frying my pot sticker, okay?

And you put it all together, and I'll show you another very interesting technique.

You hold onto this carefully.

This is how you shape it.

I only wanna shape one, so pay attention.

Last and the first.

You put it over here.

You snap it, okay?

One, snap, push.

Snap, push, snap, push, snap, push, snap, push, push, snap, snap, push, push, snap, snap, snap, snap.

And you have a beautiful dough.

Looks like this.

Look at that.

Isn't it cute?

Now, just in case you miss, ah, no big deal.

We'll do another one.

But this one fast.

Fast.

You see this?

Very, very fast.

You just do it like this, just snap it, snap it, and you'll have a perfect dough like that.

Look at that.

And then when it's done, you brown it in this frying pan, just like pot sticker.

You brown it, you brown it, until they're brown.

You cover this up and put some, normally it takes about a minute and a half to brown it.

Put some... (pan sizzling) Wow, heat it up, and you'll cover up and steam it.

After you're done with that, you know what?

Let's, once again, clean up.

This way, we do not have to worry about anything later.

And then, you know what?

You can take it out and you can se..

This is a beautiful dough.

Look at this.

One, two.

Look at that.

Brown on one side.

And then you continue to put this, and this is a vegetarian pot sticker bun.

(audience claps) A traditional dim sum lunch sometimes end with a delicate pastry filled with sweet fillings.

We call it lotus manju.

It's basically a glutinous or short-grain rice flour dough, sweet rice flour dough, cook it and fill all kind of bean paste and lotus sweet bean paste inside.

I'm gonna show you how interesting it is.

You open it up.

They look like this.

You can use red bean paste, sweet, or lotus bean paste, okay?

And you have to kind of get used to it because it's got a very interesting texture.

Now, everybody go to Japanese restaurant and they love sushi.

And this is a very interesting way to do it.

Every culture has its version of the dim sum.

This is cooked long-grain rice.

Look it that.

Cooked long-grain, oh, no, sorry.

Medium-grain rice.

If you use long-grain rice, they won't stick.

Then it'll be falling-apart sushi.

And then you'll put some mushroom, chopped mushroom, shiitake, some Chinese long beans to give color, and also some nice chopped carrot, and mix them up.

If you want, you can put a tiny bit of black sesa..

Mix it up.

This is how they make sushi, okay?

You cook the rice, medium-grain rice.

And then you use some rice vinegar mixed with a tiny bit of a sugar.

You just kind of put it in.

While you're doing that, you fan it until the rice is nice a.. And then you mix them all up like this.

Mix it nice and colorful.

And then you can kind of shape it in any way you want.

Just like a rice ball.

They do that in China often time, as I said earlier, Every single culture have different version of dim sum.

Tapas in Spain, antipasto in Italy, and, of course, sushi in Japan.

Let me show you this.

A very interesting inari sushi.

Inari.

What is inari?

Inari is this.

Let me get rid of these so everybody can see.

Inari is this.

You can buy them in a can, and they're actually deep-fried tofu, okay?

You put it in.

There's a little pocket when you open it up.

All you have to do is shape this, okay?

Shape this, and then shape it into a ball.

When you shape this, it's very important to make sure you shape it with a tiny bit of water in your hand.

You shape this like this.

You see th..

It's just a very interesting way to shape this.

And then when it's done, you shape it into a nice mold like that.

And then you gotta wash your hand.

Normally, you should have a bowl of water right next to you so you don't have to run around all over the place, okay?

And then the other thing you can do is you can buy little sushi mold like this.

Any shape, okay?

And you can fill it up, look it that.

You just fill it up, fill it up, fill it up.

You can have all kind of mold.

You just push the whole thing in.

(audience laughs) Okay, it's very easy to do.

And be creative all the time.

Just press it, and the whole thing comes out.

And then when you're ready, all you have to do, wrong direction again.

(laughs) Make sure you put like, this is very interesting.

Okay, push it, push it.

Look at this.

You just push the whole thing out.

Push the whole thing out like that.

Do you see this?

Then you have one shaped like this, another shaped like, another shaped like this.

If you don't have any of this shape, you just buy.

Get one of these little bowl and you just scoop the whole thing, okay?

Then you can make your own.

Just come out like this.

As simple as that.

Now, of course, sushi chef never make a mess like this.

The reason I make a mess is because I drink the water I supposed to wash my hand.

You know, and also, when this is ready, let me show you.

We can actually make this looks beautiful.

Look at that.

And it's a different shape and different color.

And then if you want, you can shape them and put a tiny, tiny bit of black sesame seed.

And you know, you always serve with chopstick.

Now, a lot of people don't realize, Japan is the chopstick capital of the world, particularly for disposable chopstick.

In fact, half of the chopstick, disposable chopstick, is used in Japan.

If you add them all together, snap it off, end by end, they will stretch about 2 1/2 million miles.

So when you eat that, you can use your hand or you can use your chopstick and pick it up like that.

And this is the wonderful inari sushi.

(audience claps) You know, dim sum is a wonderful way to eat because you can try all kind of flavors and texture, and shape and size, and you can make everything in advance and just heat it up right before your guests arrive.

Or even easier, just make a reservation at your nearest tea house.

Till next time, try some dim sum and then some more.

Until next time, "If Yan Can Cook, So Can You!"

“.. (audience claps)