(joyful music) (audience applauding) - [Announcer] And now, Martin Yan, the Chinese Chef.

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

Some dishes not only have aroma, they also have sounds.

Today, we're gonna give you the aroma and sounds of some of the sizzling dishes from Sichuan.

We have seafood medley over sizzling rice, and steam whole spice chicken.

So, let's get started.

Now, for this first dish, everybody can do it and I'm quite sure most of you have probably ordered this in a Sichuan, Hunan or Mandarin style restaurant.

They sometimes called singing rice, sometimes just called sizzling rice.

This particular dish, all you really need is 12 pieces of rice crisp, dry dehydrate, you can make it yourself, it's very easy to make, I'll show you how to make it.

And here I have some green onion, I have two, I only have to use two to three of this whole green onion.

I also have one to two pieces, approximately half a pound of lean pork.

You can use beef, you can use chicken.

And also I have a couple of piece of mushroom.

And also I have some shrimp.

This are called prawn because is bigger than shrimp.

Shrimps are small, this is medium.

And I also have some bamboo shoot, Chinese black mushroom or called Shitaki mushroom in Japanese, and also, I have some seasoning here, this is a sauce.

I have one and half cup of broth.

And I also have two tablespoon of soy sauce, one teaspoon of sesame seed oil, and also I have one teaspoon of chili oil.

This is basically all you need.

And if you want towards the end, you can also thicken it up with a tiny bit of cornstarch solution.

Okay.

I'm gonna put this here, so we can get started.

Start with the pork.

You slice it.

Now, since we have 1000 people in the audience, we're gonna slice it up so we can fit thousands of people.

- I'm here, I'm here.

I just come from the airport.

- This is my brother, Michael.

I don't know what's happened.

(audience applauding) - Thank you.

- Now, it's true that Michael just got in from the airport, I just went over there and pick him up.

It's my baby brother.

Now, I don't why I called him baby brother, he's about five inches taller than I am.

You have high heels shoes on?

Look, look at this.

Since you're here, I'm gonna ask you to give me a hand, to do this particular sizzling rice.

Here is a piece.

I'm gonna give you half a piece, and I'm gonna ask you to go work, because we have a lot of people to feed.

Now let us start to slice this up, into thin slices like this.

Slice, when you slice this is what you call parallel cutting technique, okay.

You put the cleaver parallel to your cutting board, and when you are slicing it, you slice it at an angle, not towards your finger, but slightly towards your cutting board.

If you do it like that, I do not guarantee whatever will happen.

Let me see how well you're doing Michael.

I didn't know that you can cook.

Wow, look at this!

I am amazed.

(audience applauding) Let us do it.

This is a family act here.

We cut it up, put it together, and then, see the way of doing this is to save time, you can stack them all up like this, stack them all up, Michael you can do that too.

Cut into little shreds, stack them all up, just stack them all up.

Now, the idea, let me show you why we do parallel cutting.

When you do parallel cutting, for half a pound of pork, you can cut into 65, 100 pieces.

And feed an army except they all go hungry within half an hour.

We'll cut it up, cut it up, cut it up, cut it up, or you can do it together like Michael does.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, all done!

No big deal.

Almost just as fast.

Amazing.

Michael, you amaze me.

Now, when we put it here, let's put this, Michael, let's put this over here, and then we're gonna cut up some of these.

I have two, you have two.

Actually, since you're so fast, you can have three.

(audience laughing) (audience applauding) So much fun.

Now, since we're so fast, we have so much time.

Let us do some more.

Besides, this way we can feed more people.

You gonna have two, I have one.

Pay attention.

Okay, this is nice and done, let's set it here.

And get another plate, to put it here, yeah I got it here Michael.

Michael has never worked in my kitchen, so he sometimes get lost.

Now, the next thing I wanna show you is, we gonna cut up some bamboo shoot and mushroom.

See, this is what you called seafood medley.

Over sizzling rice, this is seafood.

Bamboo shoot, we're cutting bamboo shoot.

Okay, bamboo shoot let's put it all here.

Mushroom.

Wow, he's getting smart.

(audience applauding) This is a lot nicer.

Let's put those here.

So we have everything.

Now, when this all nice and done, oh, we also have to cut up a tiny bit of these.

You have one, I have one.

Put them all together.

We can cut it all together and put it right here, so we have all these ingredient ready, and let's get the sauce ready.

We gonna stir-fry this dish, and we gonna deep-fry the rice crust, why?

I am gonna get everything ready.

Michael, do me a favor, check if the oil is hot enough right here.

Check the oil is hot, see the way that you test, we know the oil is hot enough is make sure, because you don't have to use thermometer, you don't have to use, see Michael, I don't understand why you're so quiet, are you nervous or what?

You know at home, when we were growing up, Michael talk, and talk, and talk, I never get a chance to talk.

Now... - On the show right, today.

I just come from the airport.

- He ran out of breath, that's the reason.

Now, make sure when you do this, the most important thing, I think is, Michael taught me yesterday, how can you tell whether the oil is hot enough, you put a pair of chopstick right here, if the oil start to bubble, okay, that means the oil is very hot.

If is nothing happen, that means oil is not hot enough.

So very important to do that.

Now, it's very, very important, now, when this is done, Michael, why don't you deep-fry this, while I'm gonna stir-fry this.

So, when it's done we're gonna put it right here.

Okay, put the, after this is deep fried, we'll put the rice here.

In the mean time, I'm gonna stir-fry all these thi.. Now stir fry-the dish is very simple.

First, you heat up the wok.

And you add approximately one to two tablespoon of oil.

Okay, let's stir-fry the pork.

Michael, can you give me the pork?

You deep-fry 'em, they puff up.

Wonderful.

Stir-fry.

Stir-fry.

The oil has been nice and hot, otherwise the rice won't puff up, you see?

Some people call this dish singing rice, somebody call snapping rice, somebody call crackling rice, somebody call popping rice, no matter what it is, it's delicious.

Okay stir this, and stir this.

When this is done let's put it in the bowl.

Put the bamboo shoot, mushroom, green onion.

Stir.

Stir.

The most important thing about stir-frying is, when you stir this, make sure you keep on moving your wok, and you move your spatula around to allow uniform cooking.

Now also, I want to show you quickly, how easy, Michael you can handle both at the same time.

You can deep fry this and stir fry this, because I want to show people quickly, how they can make the rice crust.

Now, this is how you do it.

The old-fashioned way is, you do it with leftover rice, okay?

You have a pot, you have cooked rice and you scoop some of the rice out, you have a little bit, a thin layer of rice crust left on the pot, okay?

And then you bring it to, you know, bring it up to high and kinda brown the bottom, kinda dehydrate it and dry up, and you can use the spatula, just scrape it up.

But the new fashion way of doing it is, you press the cooked glutinous rice on this iron, this cookie sheet, like this, cookie sheet.

Press it, press it and then bake it in the oven, at low temperature, okay?

If you don't have have time to press it, you use one of these to press it down, it works even better.

(audience laughing) I wanna go over to the oven to take up the one that I have already done, right here.

Wow, this is hot.

I'm gonna show you how easy it is.

Look, how wonderful.

You see, then I'll pick one, this how you do it.

(audience applauding) Now, when the dish is done, we'll put the rice here, we'll put all the crackling rice here, let's put this rice back here, and put the rice here and then put the dish, put the sauce in your, put the sauce there, Michael.

Put the sauce there, and then I want everybody listen, this is why they call sizzling rice.

Oh, perfect!

Perfect.

- Almost done.

- This is how you do it.

Then when it is done, let's put this here.

Quickly, Michael let's put it, sizzling crackles, listen.

Wow.

Yeah, crackles.

(audience applauding) Like a rock band, it snapped, it crackles, don't think she get a recording contract.

I don't know where Michael learn how to cook, but it seems to me he is a very, very good cook.

Michael, (speaking foreign language).

(audience laughing) - He told me, right, just get in the kitchen to wash the dishes.

(audience laughing) (audience applauding) - A lot of people ask me.

You use so many chicken in all your dishes, I mentioned it to somebody the other day, we have 455 recipe doing chicken dishes.

A lot of people say how we gonna use, how you gonna take care of the chicken?

I wanna show you how you can debone the whole chicken.

Of course, the most important thing in particular for beginners, you do what I do.

Start with a chicken and cut up the chicken with a dotted line like this, so you're never mixed up because you cut everything according to the dotted li.. (audience laughing) This is for beginner.

I started with this.

But as you go along, become more efficient, then you don't have to worry about, this imaginary dotted line here.

Now, also the chicken has to be relax.

(audience laughing) Stay.

Dumb cock, sit.

(audience applauding) And never... Now, its not polite for the chicken to stand, to sit in front of everybody like this.

Please, be polite.

(audience laughing) And also you gotta massage this a little bit, because when a chicken is very tense, its tough.

(audience laughing) Are you relaxed now?

Now it's ready.

Now, when it's ready, when it's ready, its very flexi.. because when it's ready you can do somersault.

(audience laughing) Step number one, imaginary dotted line.

One cut right here.

One cut right here, another cut right here.

One cut, along the breast bone, one cut, one cut, then turn it to other side.

One cut right in the middle where it is and also protect this most delicate portion of the chicken, very important.

One cut right here.

And then the next step, you see the joint is right here, you cut the joint, put it here and then you can dejoint the wing, hold onto the wing, you push the whole thing out like this.

See, the whole chicken breast come out.

Amazing!

And then, you put this back, hold onto the thigh, twist these, and then you can this little 'cause, you do not have to chop anything.

We'll put it right here.

You do it exactly the same way on this side, but this time I'm gonna do it a little bit faster.

You go like this, and push it out, push the whole thing out, put it right here, push this back, hold on to this, push this out, you do not have to chop anything whatsoever.

And then, the only thing left is this little piece of tenderloin.

Let's push this out and then hold onto this, and the whole thing comes out like this.

And then you turn it to the other side, do the same thing, push this out, hang onto the ligament, and then you can push this out, and then this is the ligament.

Hang onto the ligament and put it over here.

And then trim the fat off, and trim the most delicate part out, save it for chicken surprise.

(audience laughing) And then, put this carcass, don't throw them away, because this is what you use for homemade soup stock.

Then you put it here to make homemade soup stock.

Now, the next thing I wanna quickly show you, is how to quickly cut this out.

Take this out.

Use a little knife or a big knife, one cut a.. One cut along the bone.

Use this, this is the thigh, cut, push this down a little bit, one cut here and the whole thing comes out, save this for homemade soup stock.

And then you do the same thing with this.

One cut here, one cut here, and then, hold onto this is the leg.

You push this, and the whole thing comes out like this, homemade soup stock.

After you finish this, this whole thing is boneless.

You set it aside.

For this, you cut it up right here, then you have a whole chicken breast.

And then you have a wing.

See, just like I normally do, I'm just winging this damn thing.

I have wing, save this for another dish, save this another dish.

Now, you have the whole thing.

Look that cut out.

(audience applauding) The steam whole spice chicken is very, very interesting.

Everybody can do it because you can do it way ahead of time, and serve it a couple days later.

You start with this one whole chicken, approximately two and a half to three pounds, gigantic fryer, and also we use about half a teaspoon to one teaspoon of salt, and approximately one or two shallot, chopped.

Also about a teaspoon of Sichuan pepper corn, and also do some ginger shredded or minced ginger, and then you have a dipping sauce.

When the chicken is steamed, you'll need a dipping sauce, dipping sauce have one quarter of a cup of soy sauce, three tablespoon of rice vinegar, and also you use two tablespoon of sesame seed oil, and also notice that I have about one or two clove garlic here, and also a tiny bit of sugar and chopped ginger.

You mix them all up and get that dipping sauce ready.

So, basically this dish is very, very easy to do.

And everybody can serve this as part of the menu, that's how we do it.

We do a whole menu everyday.

This can be appetizer, can be main dish, can be anything.

Now, first of all you put this chicken right over here.

You can put it in like this or you can put it in, depends on your mood, you can go like that.

You tenderize the chicken.

And then you sprinkle a tiny bit of salt all over, approximately a teaspoon, that's all you need.

One teaspoon is exactly 16000 grains of salt.

Put, sprinkle, and also you have some roasted pepper corn.

I'm not quite sure how many of you have ever tried pepper corn, this Sichuan pepper corn.

Sichuan pepper corn are wild pepper.

They're not hot, but they're very pungent.

Very aromatic.

This is what gives the Sichuan dishes all these characteristics.

Let me smell it.

Wow, wonderful.

Then you sprinkle this here and there and also some shallot.

Okay, and let it marinate.

For those who like hot and spicy food, just rub it and rub it.

Let it marinate for approximately, feels good.

(audience laughing) Rub it, rub it, make sure to rub the whole thing and after you rub let it sit anywhere from two hours, to overnight.

Don't do it for two minutes.

And then, you put it in this wok and you steam it.

You steam it in this wok.

We got too many woks around here.

We put this over here and we steam this.

See, when we have so many people around here, we always have to cook a lot of food.

So everybody can get a chance to get it.

Everybody have at least one or two or three pieces.

Now, after this is ready, you wanna get ready some garnishing, because you need the garnishing to make the dish looks gorgeous, you see?

We have some tomato here and we have some parsley here.

Now, the most important thing is to save time.

You should remember, make the dipping sauce way ahead of time, because when you make this ahead of time, keep in the bottle, keep in the fridge, then you don't have to worry about doing it in the last minute.

See, if you try to rush and do it in the last minute, drives you crazy.

So it's important when you plan a menu, make sure you do that.

Now after this is done, you steam this chicken for at least, steam it for at least half an hour to an hour.

Depends on whether you're using gas, or using electric.

If I were you, if I have electric burner at home, I will steam it for about 45 minutes.

If I turn it down low, I can even steam it for about 50 minutes, because you can steam at a lower temperature.

After steam, I have done one a little bit earlier to save time.

After steam you take it out, and then you have to hand shred this, because, traditionally you hand shred this.

But sometime you run out of time, then you can cut it.

Where is my cleaver?

- Here, I was cleaning it up for you.

(audience applauding) - Michael, this is cleaner than I expected, thank you.

Now, I'm gonna cut this little piece out, I'm gonna cut this little piece out.

Michael is very conservative, he's also very patient.

Michael, I'm going to do something since you are still here, you gonna give me a hand.

I know that you don't have to rush to the airport in the next half an hour.

Michael, why don't you hand shred this?

(speaking foreign language) Means hand shred it.

When I was a little kid, I'm always rebellious.

Broke away from, that's why Michael is the conservative one, he will do the hand-shred chicken.

(speaking foreign language) You do it by hand, it takes weeks and weeks.

(audience laughing) Michael, I remember when we were little kid, when we were growing up, you were always mother's favorite.

- Nah, my mom like him better than me.

- We cut it up, and then you do a garnishing and then you put all the chicken right here and you put everything together, you use some pineapple.

- This is mom's favorite recipe.

- This is our mother's favorite recipe.

You put it right here, you put it right here, and then it will come out like a dish like this.

Look how wonderful.

(audience applauding) Michael has to go the airport.

So we have to rush now.

Remember, if Yan can cook... - This Yan can cook.

- So can all of you.

“Goodbye!” ( ##! )

(audience applauding) (joyful music)