(joyful music) (knife chopping) (whizzing and slicing) (audience claps) (fabric tearing) - [Announcer] And now, Martin Yan, the Chinese chef.

- (claps) N# h#o ma.

That's "how are you" in Mandarin.

Everybody love noodles.

The Chinese word for noodle is "mian."

Do you know that every country in the world has some noodle dishes?

Today, we're gonna have some favorite noodle dishes for you to savor.

Zha Jiang Mian.

Seafood with Pan-Fried Noodle, and Curry Rice Stick Noodles.

This are wonderful noodle dishes that served all over China.

The first one we're gonna show you is called Zha Jiang Mian.

Zha Jiang Mian is a wonderful name because this is very poetic, and it's very descriptive.

The first thing I want to show you is what kind of ingredient that we use, or we need, in this Zha Jiang Mian.

First of all, you need about one pound of cooked n.. You can use skinny noodle, you can use medium skinny noodles, or thick noodles, and then you have approximately one small carrot, and then you also have a tiny bit of a small, or half of a small cucumber.

You can peel it, or you don't have to peel it.

And then we also have approximately one to two tablespoon of Szechuan pickle.

And we, of course, have approximately quarter pound to one third of a pound of this lean pork.

You can buy the ground pork from the supermarket.

We also have some crushed nut, this is peanut.

We also have some dry shrimp, minced them, coarsely chopped.

And of course, you need a sauce to make this jiang, jiang.

This is approximately half a cup of homemade soup stock.

Also, one third a cup of brown bean paste, see?

This is brown bean paste, I wanna show you.

Brown bean paste.

It looks like this.

It looks like this, see?

And I also want to mention it, you also need one tablespoon of Shaoxing wine, and also two teaspoon of chili paste, if you wanna make it really hot and spicy.

Now the first thing I want to show you is, let us cut these up and show you how to minced.

If you don't want to buy ground meat, because ground meat has a little bit more fat.

You cut this into little strips, like this.

Cut into little strips like this.

Three slices, like this, and then you go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Set it aside, and then you stack them all up and you go.

(fast chopping) (audience claps) You do not have to make it too ground because you want to retain some of the texture, so it's very, very important.

Now, I am going to set this aside, and I'm gonna put it right here, okay?

Now the next thing I wanted to show you is we are gonna cut up some of the carrot and cucumber.

Everything is julienned, okay?

This is julienned, okay.

(fast chopping) All done!

Let's, how simple, how easy it is!

And also, do some cucumber.

One, two, three.

Of course, all of these, you can do it way ahead of time.

You don't have to drive yourself crazy in the last minute.

Okay.

(fast chopping) All of this is so easy to do!

(audience claps) I understand Barry, over there, have a question for us.

- Yeah, what does "zha jiang" mean?

- Zha jiang is Zsa Zsa Gabor's favorite noodle dish.

(audience laughs) No, zha, be serious, zha means, let me, uh, turn this on.

Zha means stir-fry, deep fry.

Mian means noodle.

And then, jiang is sauce.

It means a meat sauce noodle, that's how they call zha jiang, see?

That means you can prepare all this zha jiang way ahead of time, so you don't have to do it in the last minute.

You have all this zha jiang, stir-fry, get ready.

When you're ready, when the noodle is ready, you just put it right on top, okay?

Now, the first thing I want to show you how to do is stir-fry some of these, okay?

Stir-fry the meat with the zha jiang, with the jiang, means the sauce, okay?

Heat up the wok.

Use some garlic, if you wish.

You don't have to use garlic, you can use the garlic.

If you use nonsticking frying pan, you only have to use a teeny tiny bit of oil.

You do not have to use too much oil.

That's all.

That's all you really use.

You don't use much more than this, that's all you use.

(audience laughs) Stir-fry, and then, you stir-fry the meat.

Put it right here, see?

I'm gonna save some for later.

And then, stir-fry.

Now, I'm not quite sure how many of you know, China is very famous, there are a lot of the noodle dishes.

Some are stir-fried, some are noodle soup, and everybody also know that noodle is invented in China, and Marco Polo brought it back to Italy.

When Marco Polo got back to Italy, he got so excited, he fixed a noodle dinner for his family, invited all his relatives, friends to come and have dinner, and his father said, "Marco, please pass the mian."

Mian means noodle in Chinese.

And his mother said, "Marco, pass the mian."

Everybody say, "Pass the mian, pass the mian."

And Marco gets up, "Pasta, pasta!"

(audience laughs) That's why we end eating pasta!

(audience claps) Now, you stir-fry this until they are cooked.

Okay, it takes about three minutes, and then you put the sauce, oh, make a nice sauce.

Put the sauce right here and let it simmer, so they're nice and wonderful.

In the meantime, we want to show you how to garnish this.

Put it right here, some carrot, some green onion or cucumber to give color.

Okay?

Carrot, carrot, in the meantime, you are still stir.. (audience laughs) And then, some Szechuan pickle.

Put it right here, Szechuan pickle.

Szechuan pickle, Szechuan pickle.

Now, also, put some nuts around here to make it into a gorgeous dish.

Some chopped dry shrimp.

Okay?

And of course, if you prefer, you can also use a tiny bit of pineapple, because pineapple is my favorite.

(audience chuckles) (fast chopping) Put it right here.

Put it right, give color.

And then when this is done, all you have to do is put this jiang right on top of the noodle.

That's why you have Zha Jiang Mian.

Look at this, how gorgeous it looks.

Wow, look at this.

(audience claps) Wonderful dish!

I understand, I understand that Bobby have a question for us, over there.

- Yes, when I try to pan-fry bean thread noodles, I came out with a wok full of mush.

- Well, there can be two problems.

One, when you bought it, the package say "mushy root noodles."

(audience laughs) Secondly, you stir-fried it with too muc.. See, when you're stir-frying, you stir-fried it, the noodle tend to get stuck because there's too much liquid.

So one of the problem is, one of the solution is, you can use a nonstick frying pan, and as soon as you stir-fry noodle, you, as soon as you boil the noodle, sprinkle with tiny bit of cook oil or sesame seed oil so they won't get stuck, okay?

You heard of Moo Shu Pork, there's also mushy noodle.

(audience laughs) Now, the next dish we're gonna show you is Seafood with Pan-Fried Noodles.

This is a wonderful family-style every-day dish, because you can have anything, just put them all together.

Here, we have quarter pound of prawn.

You can use shrimp or squid, one whole squid.

You can use quarter pound of scallop.

You can also have a tiny bit, small, half a small carrot julienned, half of an onion, couple of mushroom, and a couple of, two whole green onion, and some snow pea, particular when the snow pea is in season, okay?

Now, this is very, very simple.

But with all of these, you cannot make pan-fried noodle without noodle.

(audience laughs) But don't worry, we have the, one of the wonderful noodle-maker.

He's gonna come out here, today in this show, to make fresh handmade noodle, just for all of you.

He's from the San Wang restaurant in San Francisco, let's welcome Mr. San Wang's chef, the noodle man, Mr. Wong.

(audience clapping drowns out Yan) This is an ancient art.

Very few people in the U.S. know how to do this.

You start with a globule of noodle, of dough, made out of cake flour, and then, you knead it and you knead it until they are long, cylindrical, like this?

With some flour.

(dough slaps against table) Beat that thing-- (audience laughs) You, dah, hi-yah!

(audience laughs) The best way-- (dough slaps against table) The best way to get your frustratio.. (dough slaps against table) (audie.. And then you keep on beating to make it more elastic, okay?

Apparently, Chef Wong doesn't want me to talk.

(dough slaps repeatedly against table) You keep on beating it and make sure they won't get stuck on the table.

And then, you twist this, from two to four, and you twist it again.

Great exercise.

And you twist it one more time, great for your hip!

(audience laughs) One more time, and that's enough!

Good!

And then, after that, you roll it up, some more flour.

And then, one more time?

(audience laughs) Ah, almost.

And then, look at this.

This is wonderful.

You roll it, you roll it, and you roll it.

You roll it.

Wok and roll, roll and roll!

(audience laughs) And then, from one, to two.

You see, how you can, from two, you can make four.

Geometric progression.

From four, you will have eight.

From eight, you will have 16.

From 16, you're gonna have 32.

From 32, you have 64.

And you keep on counting and counting.

(audience laughs) Until you run out of juice!

(audience laughs) Look at this, this is a fascinating art.

It takes years of practice.

We were childhood friends.

When we were little kid, we don't have any others toys, so we play noodle games.

(audience laughs) When we graduated, Mr. Wong, oh, this is a little knife.

This is done.

I want everybody, believe, look at this.

I want everybody look at this.

(audience claps) Wonderful!

Now, after, after this, you have to boil it, before you can cook it.

So we're gonna boil it here, then we can use this noodle just freshly handmade by Mr. Wong.

- Don't worry, I have one ready make for you.

- You have one already ready?

What a nice guy!

Wonderful!

(audience claps) - (speaks in foreign language) Thank you so much, Chef Wong, from the San Wang restaurant.

- Thank you.

(audience claps) - Oh, what a fascinating exercise.

I love it.

I've been trying to practice the whole thing.

I've been practicing with this dough for the past two years, it never come out!

(audience laughs) It's always the same dough!

Now this particular dish is very simple.

I will have to marinate all my meats, and use these, marinate this.

Of course, when you do this at home, you should marinate this with your chopstick, okay?

Do not marinate it with your finger, because it's not too nice, to do that.

So we will marinate it with chopstick here, this is the way it goes, okay?

Stir-fry, stir-fry.

In a bowl, you can, more or less, like, stirred it and mix it well.

Let it sit for about half an hour or so.

Now, and then, I'm gonna heat up this wok, here.

For convenience sake, we use this electric wok, because you can put it, you can walk anywhere you want.

It doesn't make any difference.

(audience murmurs) So give us the flexibility.

First of all, heat it up, and then, we use one teaspoon or so of oil, and then, when the wok is hot enough, you add the seafood.

Seafood.

Now make sure, when you do stir-fry dishes, make sure the wok is piping hot.

Make sure the oil is hot enough, when you put it in, nothing gets stuck.

Okay, stir-fry.

Oh!

Can you see that?

Stir-fry, stir-fry.

Now, when you boil the noodle, in order to avoid mushy noodle, as soon as you boil it, make sure you sprinkle with oil.

Kind of, put oil in your engine, so it won't get stuck, otherwise you end up here with a gigantic noodle ball!

(audience chuckles) Stir-fry, stir it like this.

Look at how easy it is, stir, stir.

How can you tell the seafood is cooked?

When the shrimp turn pink, when the squid turn curl up like this, because they're shy, it means they are cooked.

Stir a little bit more, stir a little bit more, great exercise!

Turn on your Jazzercise music and do it like this!

And then, put the ingredient, which is carrot, mushroom, and also sliced onion, okay?

For those who love snow pea, you can also put some snow pea over there.

Stir-fry, stir-fry, stir-fry.

And then, you put the sauce.

Now, when you mix the sauce, this particular sauce has one cup of broth, three tablespoon of oyster sauce, and also, have approximately two tablespoon all-purpose soy sauce.

Let's put this in, and also, one tablespoon of sherry, okay?

And also, a tiny bit of wine, Shaoxing wine, or dry sherry.

When this is done, you put the boiled noodle right in here.

Okay, see, this is not mushy mushy-roo noodle, because I have put the oil, over there, to oil.

I did a oil job!

(audience chuckles) Stir-fry, stir-fry.

Now I'm not quite sure how many you know, how beautiful this dish can be.

When I put this out, you will be amazed how wonderful this dish will look.

Look at this.

Look at this!

(audience claps) Wonderful dish!

We would like to show you, not only you can do a noodle, pan-fry noodle dish like this, pan-fry noodle, in Chinese talk, chao mian.

Chao means stir-fry, mian is noodle.

So this is pan-fry noodles, so also called chao mian, okay?

Now, in Cantonese style, they also make noodle pancake like this.

You see, you make into a pancake.

This is a Chinese-style noodle Frisbee.

You throwed it from here, it'll go all the way to Washington D.C. (audience chuckles) I would like to take this opportunity, I understand that somebody over there asked me earlier, when you cook noodle, how are you, how many minutes you're gonna boil it up?

Very simple.

All you have to do is boil off about two and a half to three minutes, okay?

Look at how beautiful, a piece of art!

(audience claps) We're gonna show you how to make Curry Rice Stick Noodle.

You may be surprised because this is the only rice to never st..

I don't know why they call it rice sticks!

Here, we start with approximately six to eight ounces of rice stick noodles, okay?

This is how it looks.

Rice stick noodles, okay?

And we also have half a cup to a quarter pound of bean sprouts, quarter pound of shrimp, cooked shrimp, and I also have quarter pound, or even two ounces, of Chinese-style barbecue pork.

We also have one to two large whole green onion, and one omelet, small egg omelet.

One egg omelet.

And also four or five to six black mushroom.

If you have, happen to have some shallot, you can also cut up some shallot, okay?

I want to show you, we're gonna cut up the black mushroom first.

(fast chopping) (knife taps against table) (audience claps) And I also want to show you how to cut up the Chinese barbecue pork.

There a number of ways to get this.

One is, you prepare it yourself.

One is, go to a Chinese restaurant for takeout.

(taps knife rhythmically) (audience chuckles) Cut it up at an angle, like this, because you want to julienne this.

Cut it up like this, okay?

Then you stack them all up, like this, and then you go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

And then you put them all together.

Now, when these are all ready, this dish is so easy to do.

Heat up the wok.

I prefer you use nonstick frying pan or wok, this way, you would not have to worry about getting stuck.

Make sure you add approximately two teaspoon, up to a tablespoon of oil.

Not much, because they're nonstick, okay?

And then, you put all these ingredient there, sliced shallot, mushroom, Chinese barbecue pork, green onion, omelet, bean sprout, and shrimp.

It's a wonderful, colorful, very typical Chinese restaurant dish.

You stir.

While I'm stirring this, I understand Ruth, over there, has a question for us.

- How many different kinds of Chinese noodles are there?

- Oh, there are many, many kinds of Chinese noodle.

I only want to show you a couple of different kind here.

While I am stir-frying this, I have some time.

Now, here, is wonderful.

You remember we start with the rice noodle, right?

This is rice noodle.

And this is cellophane noodle.

Rice noodle make out of rice flour.

Cellophane noodles make out of mung bean flour.

We also have the thick Shanghai noodles, they make out of wheat flour.

We also have the flat dry noodles, make out of wheat flour and egg.

We also have skinny wheat flour noodle, in a pancake like this.

And then we also have the rice noodle, fresh rice noodle, and we, of course, have another kind of cellophane noodle.

This cellophane noodle is cute because they cut into the same length, except, like, five inches long.

So you don't have to drive yourself crazy trying to pull the darn thing out, like this.

Hey, hey.

(audience murmurs) There are, of course, many other more, there are Eastern noodles.

See, a lot of people love Eastern noodles.

But this are basically the most popular type of noodle that available and serve in Chinese restaurant.

I hope I have answered your question.

Now, let us come back here, before it get burned.

Wonderful, wonderful!

And then, we will put the rice noodle, which is blanched.

Water-blanched, or you call parboil.

Approximately one minute in boiling water.

Some Chinese restaurant, they don't even parboil, they just run boiling water through a strainer, put rice noodle there, and soften it up, okay.

This way, you stir-fry.

Look at how colorful!

This is, look at how colorful!

And then, we're gonna make this dish a little bit more unique by using the following ingredient.

We're gonna use the exciting ingredient.

Like, in this bowl here, I want to show you what it is, because this is very important.

This is what makes it wonderful.

I have approximately one tablespoon to one and a half tablespoon of curry powder.

How many you like curry powder, raise your hand.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Got nice aroma.

And also, I have a dish of five spice powder.

This is five spice powder, okay?

Five spice powder.

And I also have one to two tablespoon of all-purpose, all-purpose soy sauce, okay?

Mix them all up, and also use about a quarter of a cup to a half a cup of broth.

And then when this is ready, we'll put it right here, and you see the change of color.

Look at this, look at this.

Mix them all up.

Stir, toss, wonderful!

Wow, so aromatic!

I can smell it.

Then you can also do it like this.

You toss your wok like this.

(audience murmurs) Look at this!

(audience claps) Wow!

Now, of course, as my favorite, always use a touch of pineapple, of course.

(fast chopping) Oh, cut up.

Wow, look at this!

(audience claps) And then, give the nice zest to it.

When it's done, I wanna show you how easy it is to make this dish looks absolutely gorgeous.

Put it here.

Always shut off the heat when the dish is done, so they will not continue to get cooked.

Put it right here.

Look at how gorgeous.

Isn't that beautiful?

(audience claps) Isn't it beautiful?

Aren't you grateful?

Today in the audience, aren't you grateful that Marco Polo.. "Pass the mian, pass the mian"?

(audience laughs) That's the reason why we have the pasta to.. (audience claps) Unfortunately, the pasta party is o..

Remember, if "Yan Can Cook," so can you!

“Goodbye!” ( ##! )

(audience cheers) (joyful music)