(joyful music) (chopping) (audience clapping) - [Announcer] And now, Martin Yan, the Chinese chef.

(audience clapping) - Thank you.

N# h#o ma?

That means "how are you?".

This how the Chinese in Canton greet each other when they see each other, they say, "N# h#o ma?"

Today, we're gonna go fishing in the South China Sea near Canton, now they call Guangzhou.

See what we're gonna catch.

(audience laughs) Oh my!

My worm got away!

But with what I caught, today we're gonna be able to cook crab and bean curd soup, seaweed rolls, and sea harvest in a nest.

This particular dish we call "crab and bean curd soup".

Is very, very simple.

All we need is about two ounces of ham, and approximately 1/4 pound of crab meat.

And also use one cube, one bean curd cake.

You can also use about one small cucumber, and a tiny, tiny bit of ginger.

And also I have one or two egg white.

And of course, if you want to add some exotic taste, use some Chinese parsley, Chinese.

Sometimes we call "cilantro", see.

Let us start with the bean curd.

This is soft bean curd, this is a firm bean curd.

You can find this in all supermarkets.

They basically very soft custard-like.

When you handle soft bean curd, you have to handle it with TLC, that means "tender loving care".

TLC also means "tofu is a lovable curd".

(audience laughs) It's very, very wonderful in terms of nutrition because one eight ounce of these have the equivalent of protein of about the same as a glass of milk, so it's very healthy.

But it's no fat, see?

Make sure you use this in soup, in stir fry, and all kind of dish.

Now, I'm not quite sure how many o..

This is soy bean, little beans you make soy sauce, you make tofu or soybean curd.

And also, from this little soybeans, you can also make this press bean curd.

There are a lot of ways to do it.

This is spiced pressed bean curd.

You don't have to take this darn thing to the dry cleaner.

If you do, you're liable to get this pleats all over when you come back from the dry cleaner.

(audience laughs) How many of you, that is serious!

(audience laughs) Everything I say is so important.

Now I also want to remind all of you, this is very important.

A lot of people don't know in China nowadays, they make clothes out of soybean byproducts.

That means if somebody's offering you a shirt off his back, that means you might be invited for lunch.

(audience laughs) Now, here I'm gonna show you.

First, I want to cut some cucumber.

Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.

You can cut a lot.

You can do it one by one, like this.

(chopping) (audience clapping) Nothing to it.

(audience laughs) Or you can do it together, like this one you got two by four.

(chopping) (audience laughs) (audience clapping) And also, I want to cut a tiny bit of ham.

This is leftover ham from last October.

(chopping) Make sure you look at what you're doing because it can be detrimental.

If I go faster than this you won't be able to see it, that's why I slow down.

Also, I have some crab meat.

I spent three hours today get all these out of these gigantic crab.

Now, also I have some egg white.

When you handle this soft bean curd, make sure you handle very carefully, and you do it like this.

Parallel cutting technique, wow!

Put it here.

In the meantime, we bring six cup of homemade soup stock to a boil, you see.

Right here, I've been boiling this ever since this morning.

Cut, cut, cut, slowly.

Cut, cut, cut, cut.

Then you put this, set it aside.

You can use firm bean curd or you can use soft bean curd.

No big deal.

And also, for those who love ginger, you also can slice a couple slice of ginger, stack them all up, julienne.

(chopping) Put it right here to give that nice ginger flavor to it.

Wonderful, look, amaze myself sometimes.

(audience clapping) When this is done, put the crab meat, put the ham, put the cucumber right in here.

And put the tofu right in here.

Bring it to a much higher temperature, hot.

And also, get ready some of these.

Now, I lightly salted and taste the broth.

Make it tiny bit of, about half a teaspoon of salt, a dash of white pepper, and also I get approximately a half a teaspoon of sesame seed oil to make it nice and tasty but not too heavy.

When it's done, I get a ladle, thicken this up lightly with corn starch solution.

Oh, look at this.

Thicken this up with corn starch solution, and then I shut this off.

I shut this off because it's boiling.

You shut this off, nice and lightly thicken, not too thick.

Otherwise will be a paste.

Then I slowly, slowly drip this down to make a flour drop out of this, see?

Isn't that beautiful?

Put it in slowly.

When it's done, you can see this is absolutely gorgeous looking.

It's nutritious, and it's wonderful.

We're gonna transfer these.

Why I'm transferring this?

I notice that Pauline over there have a question.

- I would like to know what kind of broth do you use in your cooking: chicken or beef broth?

- Well normally, for most Chinese dishes, you can use chicken broth, homemade chicken broth.

All the chicken carcass you can put in broth, and they just make a nice, light clear broth.

But if you are cooking a beef dish, you can use beef broth.

For some people, they don't like beef, they don't like chicken, they don't like any meat.

Then you gotta vegetarian broth.

And for those that doesn't like any of the above, you can have no broth (mumbles).

(audience laughs) Now, the next dish want to show you, and also Pauline over there, she is so inquisitive.

We're gonna show her how to make seaweed rolls.

I decided to do this, and actually I kind of developed the dish after I ate some of these Japanese sushi.

It looks so cute and so wonderful, so I was so inspired.

So I decided today we're gonna make something a little bit different, maybe you have never seen before.

I've never seen it myself.

(audience laughs) Now, what you really need is six b..

They also call shiitake, dry mushroom.

Chinese call "Xianggu", you can call any way you want.

And also have some cucumber or you can use a zucchini.

And also, two whole onion, green onion.

Whole, green and white.

And also some leftover ham.

Also, we have approximately one whole chicken breast.

Let me show you how I do this chicken breast.

Of course, aside from the chicken breast, we also have some seaweed.

This is dry seaweed.

Now, I'm not quite sure how many of you know, aside from this dry seaweed, this Japanese style or Chinese style seaweed sometimes they're round, sometimes they're square.

This is also called seaweed, but in Chinese called "fat choy".

They vary anywhere from $50-$150 a pound, and normally served around Chinese New Year.

It's quite expensive.

I never keep this in my pantry, I lock it out in my vault.

(audience laughs) A whole bunch of expensive seaweed ..

I'm not quite sure, this is true.

A couple weeks ago, there's a robbery.

A hold up in Chinatown, there's a Chinese store.

This guy walk into the store and talk to the owner.

And the owner said, "You can have all my money."

And this robber said, "I want all your fat choy."

(audience laughs) Is how expensive it is.

Now I wanna show you how to mince the chicken.

First of all, of course you do not have to do it like this.

If you have one of these wonderful technological things right here, I have a couple of these at home.

But if you don't have one of these, you can do it like the way I do, okay?

How many of you in the audience have one of these at home?

Oh, practically three out of a million!

(audience laughs) I'm gonna show you how to do it.

One, cut it into little cubes here first.

And then you cut into strip, long strip, and then you cut into little cubes.

And then you go... (chopping) Now, of course you can drive yourself crazy.

Now, if you have one of these, it takes twice as long.

If you have one of these more, you can do it twice as short.

(chopping) (audience clapping) No big deal.

Now, when this is done, we're gonna put this, set it aside.

And I want to show you, first of all, you gotta marinate this a little bit.

You put the the egg, this is egg white.

You can put the whole egg.

I am reversing nature, I'm gonna put the egg back into the chicken.

Have you ever heard of such thing?

(audience laughs) Move this.

I also have a tiny bit of salt and a tiny bit of white pepper.

Mix them all up, set it aside for anywhere from two hours, anywhere from half an hour to two hours, up to three months.

(audience laughs) This is only done for about two hours, okay?

When this done, I cut the seaweed.

Normally, the seaweed about this big, okay?

The whole thing looks like this.

You have to cut into quarters.

All you have to do is use a scissor or you can do it with one of these Chinese food processor.

All done.

When this is done, I use one of these wonderful stainless steel knife, dinner knife.

Put this here.

In the meantime, I'm heating up some oil.

I want to show you how easy it is.

Put approximately one tablespoon full of these, okay.

Put it right here.

Use a tiny bit of ham, a tiny bit of mushroom, and a tiny bit of ham, cucumber, mushroom.

And then you roll it up like this, roll it up.

Roll and roll.

Darn thing gets stuck.

(audience laughs) When this is nice and ready, see?

I know that we have 5,000 people here so I make this ahead of time.

Now we have enough for everybody.

Now, how can you tell whether the oil is hot enough?

Very simple.

You use a clean pair of chopstick, like this.

Put it in.

If the oil started to bubble immediately, vigorously, around here, that means this is hot enough.

Now this is so hot it almost did not bubble.

When it's bubble, everybody at home can see.

Now, when this is hot, make sure you do not use plastic chopstick.

(audience laughs) When this is done, we're gonna slowly, slowly put it in here like this.

And deep fry it, okay.

Now, normally you should use medium-low heat to deep fry it because this is chicken.

If you have shrimp paste you can deep fry it much higher because it doesn't take too long to do.

Now, after you deep fry it you can put it over here, because this way you can save the oil.

Now I have done a couple of these ahead of time.

I want to show you how gorgeous it looks.

Look at how wonderful this looks.

This is absolutely wonderful.

(audience clapping) I'm gonna cut it up, cut it up, cut up.

The reason why I have to do this is because we've got so many people in the audience, I want to make sure we have enough for everybody.

Now after this is done, you can see how nice it looks.

Look at this.

You put it like this, you put it lik.. with tomato, cucumber, and also you will garnish it with a tiny bit of pineapple.

Wonderful.

Looks like this.

Oh, look at how beautiful this dish is.

(audience clapping) I know Phil over there have a wonderful question for us.

- Yes, Martin.

I'd like to know the difference be.. - The difference is soft tofu is very soft.

Firm tofu is very firm.

(audience laughs) No, no.

Let me be serious.

Soft tofu use less coagulant, firm tofu they use more coagulant.

Also has less water because after you make the tofu, you press it, so less water is retained in the firm tofu.

That's why they are firmer.

For the pressed tofu, they even squeeze more water out, that's why they're much firmer.

I just want to show you, give you (mumbles), the darn thing bounce.

See this is what you call pressed tofu.

Now, a lot of people knows that soybean is called the cow of China because it's very high protein, a lot of wonderful things, so that's why you use soybean to make so many things.

Soft tofu, or firm tofu, soy sauce: the all purpose seasonings they use for marinade, for seasoning, for soup, for everything, for your hamburger.

And also soybean milk, because I have lactose intolerance, so I can only drink soybean.

Otherwise I'll be reading "Reader's Digest" forever.

(audience laughs) And also, this serious, please.

This is pressed tofu you can use in salad and soup and stir fry dishes.

This is red fermented tofu or what they call [Foreign Language].

It's basically for seasoning.

This is five spice pressed tofu, this is deep fried pressed tofu.

Here I have something very interesting: bean curd stick.

This is normally used for stew dishes, for soups.

This is bean curd sheets.

So all of these are make out of the soybean.

So all of you can go home and try them all out.

I notice Joy over there, Joyce over there, have a question for all of us here.

- Martin, I'd like to know is it best to use peanut oil for all of your Chinese cooking?

- That is not necessary.

You can use any polyunsaturated oil: corn oil, safflower oil, soybean oil.

The only thing that Chinese people don't normally use is olive oil or butter because they smoke easily, and also olive oil is quite expensive.

So any polyunsaturated oil is good for you, is good for Chinese cooking.

(audience laughs) And I want to make sure the person.. can also pay some attention.

Now the next dish we're gonna show you is "sea harvest in a nest".

All we need is a quarter pound of squid, this is squid.

Now squid is nature's inkwell.

This is very important, before the ballpoint pen was invented.

Last couple years I've been serving so much of this I have collected all this ink in this little bottle.

(audience laughs) Look at this!

Now, I also have approximately a quarter pound of scallop, a quarter pound of prawn, jumbo prawn, see?

Jumbo prawn.

Let me quickly show you how easy i.. Take it off, take it out, take it out, take it out, and the whole thing come out like this, no problem whatsoever.

You save these, some Chinese chefs save these for homemade soup stock.

Now also, I have quail egg.

I use about twelve quail egg.

This is hard boiled quail egg.

This is fresh quail egg.

Just like an egg, (mumbles) of Vitamin B complex.

And I also have a tiny bit, exactly 12 of these cashew nut because they quite expensive, so I only use 12.

(audience laughs) And also, one bell pepper.

And also, a little small can of bamboo shoot already sliced.

If you want, you can give some color contrast.

Use a small or half of a zucchini.

Some garlic, and that's basically it.

Of course, I want to show you.

Use these Chinese garlic press, very easy to do.

Now, the way the Chinese make the bird nest, they use potato or taro root.

So the bird lover, you don't have to worry a darn thing!

(chopping) Mince this and then we set it aside.

And also I chop up the ginger exactly the same way.

Now, and the next thing I want to show you is to save time.

We have some hot oil here, I'm gonna show you, you shred the potato and then you use these baskets, two of them.

Put them all together.

Put the shredded potato between, sprinkle tin.. corn starch, okay?

And put it right here and deep fry.

Wow, look at this!

You deep fry this over medium to medium-low heat so they won't get burned.

Look at this, this is deep frying.

Use the ladle to scoop the oil out while you are deep frying this.

Let it sit there.

While you're deep frying this, I wa.. to tell you we're gonna put all these ingredients together: squid, scallop, and we're gonna do some scoring of the squid to make it looks like a flower.

Cut it an angle like this, and then turn it to the other side, cut an angle like this.

And then you cut into big chunks like this, and then set it aside.

Marinate it with one egg white, tiny bit of white pepper, and a tiny bit of sesame seed oil.

Mix them all up.

If you have a lot of patience you use this to marinate it for about half an hour.

Let it marinate.

In the meantime, I'm gonna cut up a bell pepper.

See, this how you do it.

You cut it up like this, the whole thing come out like .. No problem.

(audience clapping) (chopping) All done.

When this all done, you have this, you have some zu.. which I have cut up in advance.

When this is nice and done, oh, let's check.

Our bird's nest is getting deep fried, it's nice and golden brown.

Now, when this is done, you can stir fry the ingredients.

Here we have the mixture of squid, scallop, and prawn.

You put them all together.

Heat this up, use about two tablespoon of oil.

Now when I say two tablespoon, you use two tablespoon.

You measure it precisely.

(audience laughs) Okay, now precision is very important in Chinese cooking.

Put this around.

To save time, we have one of these already deep fried.

This is antique from 1776.

(audience laughs) When this is nice and hot, we stir fry this.

Stir fry it nice and hot.

Do not overcook any seafood.

If you overcook, nothing is wonderful.

Okay, stir fry.

Hot, this is hot.

Then when this is hot and nice enough, you put the ingredient which is colorful vegetable, put it right in here and you stir fry.

When it's all done, all you have to do is put it in this wonderful bird's nest.

Now, to save time, I'm gonna show you one of these look so gorgeous, see?

(audience clapping) (mumbles) Now I want to make sure once again, everybody should go home and try the tofu because tofu is absolutely the most wonderful, most healthy, most natural ingredient.

All of us can try.

The time is running out, but remember: if Yan can cook, so can you.

“Goodbye!” ( ##! )

(audience clapping) (joyful music)