(chopping) (Joyful music) (applauding) (speaking in foreign language) - How's everybody?

Welcome to Yan Can Cook show.

People often ask me, "Hey Martin, "which is your favorite dish?"

I have many favorite dish.

I don't really know which one, I guess, this one might be my favorite dish.

(audience laughing) Because I have been using this for 200 y.. And the reason why it lasts so long, is the darn thing doesn't break.

(audience laughing) I remember when I bought this, 200 .. and it's only seven cents.

Today, it's probably six bucks.

Now, actually, I couldn't really tell you, exactly, which one is my favorite dish.

In fact, one of my favorite dish is, one of these, that I'm gonna show you.

This is Fish Roulade.

Right here, with, I'm gonna serve it with a ginger wine sauce.

I remember, when I was a little kid, growing up in Guangzhou, China, we're closer to water, closer the ocean, so my whole family loved seafood.

Here, you can use any fish.

You can use a filet of cod, red snapper, perch, all kind of fish.

You can even use catfish or even flounder or filet of sole.

I would normally don't use any fish are too fatty.

Like for instance, mackerel and yellowtail, it's a little bit too fatty and I like simple, light, healthy, white fish.

So, that's the reason why I choose this cod filet.

All you have to do is sprinkle this, a tiny bit, with salt and white pepper.

Sprinkle a tiny bit over here and if you want, you can even cut it into a little serving size.

It's easier for you to put in a steamer.

Cut it up in half, put it here, cut it up in half and you put it here and all your cod, you can do it a little bit slower.

(audience laughing) You put it over here.

Now, you do not really have to worry about, you can have the whole thing because it depends on how you serve it.

When it's done, we set it aside.

We are gonna put this into this bamboo steamer.

We are gonna heat up my bamboo steamer.

I put this bamboo steamer on top of about three or four cups of water and I heat this up and then I lay some of these, wow, this is hot, you can tell.

This is napa cabbage.

I put it over here, one, two, three, four!

Okay, and I'm gonna steam my fish.

One, line them all up here, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and then we're gonna steam it!

Now, here, you can even put a tiny bit of ginger.

Put a tiny bit of these ginger slices, put it round top to give the flavor, okay, and then we'll put it over here and steam it for approximately six to eight minutes.

And then, while you are doing that, I'm gonna make sure, I'm gonna, do a tiny bit of ginger wine sauce.

First of all, I'm gonna crush this ginger.

Put it over here, look at this, this is how you crush ginger.

You put it over here and go (banging).

What the heck!

Smash it and you go.

(chopping) How you doing?

(clapping) I always tell people, "look at what you do" and then, in this sauce, we also use a tiny bit of Shaoxing wine.

This is about a quarter of a cup of Shaoxing wine.

If you don't have Shaoxing wine, it's no problem, because you can use dry sherry.

I guess, a quarter of a cup of Shaoxing wine is definitely enough to put the fish in the right mood.

(audience laughing) Now, first of all, we'll put this, I'm gonna make the ginger wine sauce.

First of all, you have to turn this on.

Then you put this, this is quarter of a cup of Shaoxing wine Wine and about a tablespoon of soy sauce and a tiny bit of oil and I also use approximately a teaspoon of sugar.

Mix them all up and then put the ginger right in here, so, you're gonna have a ginger wine sauce.

When it's done, what you can do is thicken this up with cornstarch solution.

It's very, very important to do this.

Now, everybody know, fish is perhaps the only creature on earth, don't have a drinking problem.

(audience laughing) They stay in water, they swim, they.. No problem!

(audience laughing) Now, put this over here, stir this in, when it's hot stir this in and make sure you stir this so they do not get too thick.

That's a cornstarch solution, I use about one tablespoon of cornstarch to about three tablespoons of water, mix them all up.

In the meantime, I want to show you how easy it is to steam.

Now, when you use a steamer, you can put this right on top of your wok, okay?

Now, the great thing about steaming is steaming is the most natural and the most wonderful way to cook because you cook everything in its natural juice.

I guess I need a tiny bit more cornstarch.

So, I will put a tiny bit more here and thicken it up and then when I'm getting this ready, when steaming the fish, making the ginger wine sauce, I am gonna show you, we're gonna get start with our second dish.

We're gonna poach chicken leg.

We're gonna put this over here so everybody can see this.

We're gonna poach the chicken leg.

The sauce is ready, we're gonna shut it off.

Now here, I want to show you.

Here, I have six chicken leg.

You have four people, you will serve four people, you use four of them.

All I have is six chicken leg, you got to make sure you get the good legs.

See, this is pretty decent, this is not bad.

This is perfectly looking legs.

Now, Chinese love all kind of legs.

Chicken legs, frog legs.

Chinese love anything with legs except a table.

(audience laughing) This dumb thing must be a marathon runner.

(audience laughter) Now, let us-- (clapping) Now, to save time, to save time what I'm doing is, I put this in there.

I put six of these legs in there and I've been simmering it, poaching it.

Poaching is a very good cooking technique because you're not boiling it.

You put it in hot water and let it soak there and let the heat slowly, slowly transfer.

Now, in this particular dish, what I'm gonna do is, I have six leg, I already put in there and I put all the spices in this cheese cloth and I will tie this down.

One, this is a good, wonderful tangerine peel, dried tangerine peel and then star anise.

Look at this, star anise and then this is another star anise and put about four or five slices of ginger and some green onion.

Stack them all up, tie them all up and put in there and I want to show you, I already have one of these.

The magic of cooking!

It's already cooked.

Put it there, you cook it for about 15 to 20 minutes and cook until there's no red juice coming out.

The most important thing is make sure you do that, and do that prop.. Now, the next thing I want to show you is I'm gonna make a nice, wonderful sauce and I'm gonna put this on the side.

Let's put it over here.

Now, the important thing is, we're gonna make the sauce.

We're gonna make two sauces for the chicken leg.

Okay, when the chicken leg is done, we'll put it over here so we can serve with two different sauce.

The first sauce I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use oyster flavor sauce.

They're two sauces.

This oyster sauce, (scraping) a tiny bit of chicken broth, mix it up, mix it up and also use a tiny bit of sesame seed oil.

Mix it up to a mixing, dipping sauce, Of course, if you have enough, you can make enough for about 12 legs, okay?

Poaching, as I said, is very wonderful.

You boil something, chicken leg has got a lot of long fiber tissue, when you boil it too much, they toughen it up.

When you poach it, heat transfer very, very slowly into it, it's wonderful, okay?

The other one, is for those who love hot and spicy food.

Chili sauce, we put it over here, put it right over here, chili sauce and then also, sesame seed oil.

You can fill it up, so this way, it's a nice, wonderful.

We wanna remove all this, and put it aside.

Now, we are gonna put the leg.

Okay, so you should stir this a little bit, this is a lot of leg work here.

Put it over here, like this, one, two, look at this, three.

When you eat this you simply dip this, each guest should have one of these.

One, two, three.

Look at this, this is one of the dish.

Chicken, poached chicken with two sauces.

Isn't it wonderful?

(clapping) Look at this, look at this, we will also transfer this fish over here, we'll serve it with a ginger wine sauce.

Look at this, when you steam make sure the water is boiling when you put the fish in, otherwise you will be waiting forever and you will be not able to steam the fish and you will be steamed not the fish.

(audience laughing) Make sure there's enough steam comi..

When it's done, you pour the sauce right on top.

Look at how beautiful this, I guess, everybody love both of these dishes.

When it's done, we're gonna transfer and we'll put it right here.

We're gonna take this out so everybody can enjoy both of these dishes which I have prepared for you.

Isn't that wonderful?

(audience applauding) We have two dipping sauces for the poached chicken leg.

Actually, the magic of Chinese cooking is in the sauces.

That's why I called it double dipped chicken.

In the sauce, there are all kinds of sauces.

I remember when I was growing up, my mother has a corner grocery store, sell all kinds of Chinese ingredients.

These are sauces I've been familiar.

When I was growing up 75 years ago this is my favorite, it's a dark colored soy sauce.

I use it for putting on fish and also for dipping sauce and also for stews and casserole, to get rich dark color.

Normally, they're a lot sweeter then the regular soy sauce.

You can tell by shaking the bottles.

Very, very dark.

This is a regular soy sauce which is my most favorite because I use this for everything.

Use this for marinade, for seasoning and you can use it practical on every single dish.

And this, is absolutely my most absolute favorite.

This is oyster flavor sauce.

When I water blanche vegetable, stir-fried beef with broccoli, all I have to do is at the last minute, I sprinkle a tiny bit in.

Once you open, you should keep this refrigerated.

I'll be using quite a bit of these in a variety of dishes.

Here, is my next most absolute favorite sauce and also this, actually, very, very strong.

Once you open it up, you make sure you inform all your relatives and friends and neighbors.

This is fermented brown bean sauce from soya bean.

It's very, very strong.

When you steam fish, when you steam seafo.. sprinkle a tiny bit around it, give very exotic flavor.

And this is Hoisin sauce.

When you go to Chinese store, Chinese restaurant, to have, what is it, barbecue pork, barbecue spare ribs, barbecue duck, they use this as a barbecue sauce.

Made from fermented soya beans, garlic, vinegar and sugar.

And this is black bean sauce.

You can start by making your own with the fermented or salted black beans.

It's very, very powerful, very strong, very pungent, very aromatic.

And this is great for egg roll, for ducks, because this is plum sauce.

Make from salted plum, sugar and rice vinegar.

And this is for those who love to smoke their hair.

This is chili sauce with garlic flavor.

This is also my favorite, particularly, when I get very excited, I want to use this.

This is sesame seed oil.

Basically used for flavoring, for seasoning.

Normally, you only use a tiny, tiny bit.

Now, all of these are my favorite sauces.

I'm really confused.

I don't really know which one is actually my favorite sauce because I'm kind of a sauce kind of guy.

(audience laughter) Now, we're gonna show you the thir..

This is eight flavor shrimp.

I called it eight flavor prawn.

Look at this, remember I told how much I love shrimp because I lived very close to my mothers house which is very close to the ocean.

We've got a lot of fresh fish, crabs, shellfish, a lot of ocean fish, a lot of lake fish, all kind of things.

Here, I have approximately three quarter pound of prawn or I call it shrimp, call it prawn, it doesn't make any difference, nobody cares.

Now, in this particular dish what I'm gonna do, is, I remove the shell but I will leave the tail intact, like this, okay?

This way, it looks wonderful, like this.

You see this, the whole thing like this.

We'll do another one.

Hold onto the tail and pull it here.

Now, you should not use little baby prawn.

You should get the big brother of the little baby prawn to do this otherwise, it won't look good.

Look at this, and then, the next thing I want to do is... Let me wipe my hands.

In the meantime, I'm gonna heat up my oil.

Let me put this over here.

I want to make sure my oil is nice and hot.

Wow, can you see that?

It's getting hot because you can see the bubbles start to come out right over there.

How do you de-vein?

All you have to do is go like this, like this and then you can see the vein, okay?

And then all you have to do is go over there and rinse it and give the darn thing a little cold shower, get them excited.

Now, remove these and clean up is much easier to do it in running tap water rather then do it right here.

Okay, one more time, do another one.

Can everybody see this?

Everybody can do this.

When this is all nice and ready, we're gonna sprinkle a tiny bit of cornstarch and salt, mix them all up and then we're gonna dump this in, let it sit.

You can also put a tiny, tiny bit o.. and dump this in hot oil and you can quickly cook over hot oil, you call this, let me turn this on and then, look at this, put this in, look at how wonderful.

How can you tell the shrimp is done?

You go and ask "excuse me, are you ready?"

(audience laughter) Actually, when it turns pink, it's..

It doesn't take too long.

In the meantime while you're doing this, heat up this wok and also, you can heat up another wok if you want.

You can brown a tiny bit of these Sichuan peppercorns, brown Sichuan peppercorn.

In the meantime, you're gonna get this wok ready and I'm gonna show you for this, I'm gonna use a tiny bit of shallot.

(chopping) Okay, a tiny bit of pepper for those who love hot and spicy, this is a fresh pepper, this will definitely smoke the hair.

Set it aside.

Now I have cut up a little bit ahead of time and the reason why I called this a eight flavor prawn is because I have eight different flavors.

I have shallot, I have chili pepper, I have five spice powder which is five different flavor, Sichuan peppercorn, salt and white pepper, okay.

When this is done we'll set this aside, look at this, we'll set this aside, okay, put it right here, isn't that beautiful?

Let's put it right over here and then this is also done.

When you do this, take it out, let it cool down, crush it.

And then we're gonna use approximately, let me get my spatula here, use approximately half a teaspoon at the most of oil.

Put a nice, wow, chili pepper then put the shrimp back.

Ooh, look at this.

Unbelievable, can you smell it ?

Wow, look at this and then put all of this flavor right in here and then you toss these.

Look at how beautiful, look at this.

While you're doing that, you are able to clean up and put this back and then we are gonna serve this!

Put it right over here.

Can you see how beautiful, this is very simple dish.

It is so simple yet so delicious.

That's why I always love the dishes which is simple and delicious is my favorite.

Remember, how your mom used to tell you always to eat your vegetables?

Mine didn't have to do it because I love vegetable, I just came back from one of those wonderful markets in China Town, so let's take a look.

I love leafy vegetables and this is bok choy.

One of my favorites.

Choy means in Chinese, means all kind of vegetable but is white and this is big bok choy.

The came in different size and this, look at this, this is medium size.

And look at this, this is baby ones, like this, just like the size of my hand.

Can you see this?

New world cuisine has created a lot of excit.. about baby carrot, baby zucchini and baby squash and the Chinese have been having baby's for thousands of years and I love these kind of things.

Nice and less fibrous and succulent and sweet.

Now, I remember when I was growing up, my mother even dried the bok choy.

This is called choy gon, dehydrated bok choy.

I remember my mother put this on a long stick and then hang it up and let it dry for a couple of months and then they are not bok anymore, actually they turn brown.

Use all of these bok choy, you can stir-fry them, you can put it in soup, it is one of my favorites.

Now, here I want to show you, this is Chinese Flowering Cabbage.

Can you see this flower?

This is nice and sweet, has a little sweet bitter taste.

This is one of my favorite.

You can stir fry them, you can put them with soup, it's wonderful.

And this is the regular broccoli.

Everybody knows beef and broccoli in oyster sauce is my favorite but this is the cousin of the regular broccoli, I call Gai Lan.

Gai Lan is very good because you normally have a lot of leaf and is very sweet and you stir fry them and you can also put it in soup and this is wonderful.

When you buy all of the vegetable, the most important thing is, you want to make sure they stand straight up.

No signs of dehydration, it doesn't dried up.

When it's dried up, they had them too long.

Look at this, if you buy vegetable like this, that means they have been in the store for 246 years and you don't want to buy same things like this, if they're limp and their turned color.

I am gonna take this out to dinner.

I'm gonna show you something exciting with this bok choy.

(audience applauding) This is the same one I got from the store.

So today, I'm gonna show you how to do another a fourth of my favorite dish, stir fry bok choy.

First of all, I want to heat up my wok first to save time.

So, we're gonna heat up the wok.

In the meantime I also want to remind all of you, each year I dry about three tons of bok choy to send it to all my friends and relatives.

I've been drying it, look at this.

(audience laughing) I think, no panics, this last batch.

I hope by next week it will be ready.

I hope we have enough for everybody here and still have enough to send it to you.

(audience laughing) Now, all you have to do is cut this up, in order to make it more interesting, what I do is I cut it up, the leaf on this side and then the white part (chopping) cut it up, you can cut them on at an angle, it doesn't make any difference, nobody cares.

This is the white part, we'll set it aside, and then the leafy part and go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12.

You just keep going until you can't take it anymore.

I couldn't take anymore.

So, we'll put them all together, fortunately I have done some ahead of time.

So, we put the white part here and we put the leafy part here.

All I really need in this particular dish, is something very simple.

I use salt and pepper and tiny bit of ginger and garlic and some sesame seed oil and let us mince a tiny bit of these.

This is garlic, press this.

(chopping) (audience laughing) Are you having fun?

(audience applauding) Ginger, garlic, now a lot of the time people don't know that even very simple ingredient can be very delicious.

All depends on how you season it up.

Now, when it's ready, you want to get some oil, put it right over here, this flat bottom wok so you don't have to worry about it.

Also, this is very unique because you don't have to season it, you don't have to worry about rusting, you can use any spatula.

(metal scraping) Look at this, wonderful.

Put the garlic and ginger there.

The stem takes a bit longer to cook.

Now, green leafy vegetable is very, very good because it has a lot of vitamin, mineral and particularly a lot of iron.

It's good for pregnant women.

(audience laughing) For those who are expecting, or expecting to be expecting.

(audience laughing) It's wonderful for your daily diet.

To accelerate the cooking time, what are you gonna do?

You can put a tiny bit of home mix soup stock.

Wow, look at this, wonderful!

And then, put this in, put the leaf in and then put this down here and then you stir this.

You can even, wow, beautiful.

All you have to do is put a tiny bit of salt and pepper.

This is a tiny bit, didn't I tell you?

And then a tiny bit of sesame seed oil.

Wow, this is exactly a tiny bit too.

(audience laughing) And then when it's done, all you ha.. wow, look at this, when it's done, set it aside and then, magic of television, we have a plate!

(audience laughing) It doesn't take too long to cook, do not overcook.

If you overcook, you ruin the pigment, you ruin the vitamin, mineral because some of the vitamin are heat sensitive and also it lost the texture and the color so it's absolutely no good.

So, we will put this over here, oh, beautiful dish.

Now, when you are ready, in order to make it very easy and simple, all you have to do is toss some sesame seed in a hot frying pan.

Sprinkle this right over here.

What you have is a wonderful looking, healthy, simple dish.

Most of my dishes are very, very simple.

Very light, this is my favorite.

I don't like anything complicated.

So, I would like to take this opportunity to once again, I would like to thank all of you, everybody in the studio audience to come to the Yan Can Cook Show today.

As I always say, if Yan can cook, so can you!

(audience clapping) (upbeat flute music)