(futuristic effect) (Joyful music) (audience clapping) - Many common ingredients from my childhood are still somewhat hard to find in the local supermarkets here.

So, everything is relative.

What is secret ingredient to you is a stable item to me and we use many of these ingredient in our everyday home style cooking, like this preserve fish.

This is preserve by dehydration, sun-drying.

And this is also preserve fish.

You'll soak them in oil, just like olive oil for sun-dried tomato.

This is sun dry fish.

And this has been in this jar for approximately 244 years!

(audience laughing) I inherited this.

(audience laughing) What I'm trying to say is, once you do this they don't have o.. they don't have to worry about anything.

If you keep in the fridge, you would last for at least about a year or so.

So, make sure once you open, use it, put it back in the fridge, okay?

This way there's minimal dehydration and oxidation.

The only thing you have to worry about sometime might go rancid, so you make sure you eat them up in a hurry.

This is dry fish.

Normally, you cut it up, after you cut it up, you should let it wash and rinse before you use it.

Normally you steam it, okay?

The piece coming out from this jar, it looks like this.

'Kay?

Now, when this done, I'll let it se.. and put it right over here.

The first thing I wanna show you is a very interesting dish.

I call minced pork with preserve salted fish.

Preservation of fish is very, very popular and very common in many country where there's no refrigeration.

And I ate a lot of them when I was growing up.

My mom always served those.

And I always thought our kitchen is the salt fish capitol of the world!

(audience laughing) You can go to the store and buy a whole fish or section of it.

It can be expensive, so it really worth it salt!

In this particular dish, I'm gonna use, I'm gonna use approximately three quarter pound of lean pork.

Chinese use a lot of lean pork in their soup.

And in all the steam dishes.

How do you mince pork because no food processor?

All you have to do is slide this thing, slice this thin, like this, okay?

Set it aside.

Okay?

Slide this thing, slice this thin.

Set this aside.

Put them all together.

And then you go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.

Set it aside.

And you go one, two, three, four, .. (audience laughing) Put them all together.

And then, you mince it.

You can use it one knife.

But is more efficient to use two knife.

(chopping on wood) (audience laughing) (audience clapping) I'm so glad you excited, me too!

(audience laughing) This is how the Chinese do it.

This is how my mother, my grandmothers doing it.

You use two knife.

This way, you can do a much more efficient job.

When it's done, you transfer the food from here to here.

(metal clanging) Done.

(audience cheering) Okay?

(audience clapping) And then, when this is done, you gonna quickly put everything together.

You gonna mix it with one Chinese sausage.

Okay?

And then, some water chestnut.

'Kay?

Water chestnut.

And you have to chop some water chestnut like this, see?

All crushed water chestnut.

Crushed water chestnut, done.

And also, you want to quickly marinade this with a tiny bit of egg white.

One egg white.

Mix them all up.

Tiny bit of dry sherry, one tables (indistinct) dry sherry.

And tiny bit sesame seed oil.

And some cornstarch.

Okay, and white pepper, mix them all up.

Okay.

After you mix it up, make sure you put a, you can mix it up over here.

So no problem at all.

Bigger bowl.

So, you can mix more efficiently.

(laughs) It feels good.

(audience laughing) Nice and smooth.

(audience chuckles) (pork squishing) You can do this while you're watching the Yan Can Cook show!

(audience laughing) When this is nice and done, you see, you got all kind of seasoning and ingredient.

And the Chinese sausage give that nice flavor.

And the water chestnut give the texture.

So, when it's done, you form a little patty from here.

Put it over here.

You form a little patty, like this, see?

(pork being pounded) (audience laughing) Done!

And then you chop up some green onion if you..

Okay?

And you sprinkle the green onion on top.. You can steam this until they are done.

It takes approximately, okay, look at this.

And then put the, a piece of salted fish right on the top.

And then, if you want, you can also julienne some ginger.

One, two, three, four, julienne some ginger.

And we'll put it right here, look at this.

You can mince the ginger or you can julienne the ginger.

(chopping on wood) (audience clapping) Okay.

Sprinkle the ginger 'round.

This is how my mom used to do it for the past 40 years!

And you put them all over here, this way you can steam this.

Now, of course, you cannot steam unless you turn this on.

So we're gonna steam this.

We're gonna steam this until they done.

It takes about 12 to 14 minute.

In the meantime, I wanna quickly show you something also very, very popular, very important, very traditional and exotic.

What I'm gonna do is a dry bok choy soup.

Now this ingredient is very important, because we have some dry bok choy here.

This is how dry bok choy look.

And this is soak dry bok choy, okay?

First to save time, we're gonna heat up the broth, okay?

Now, bok choy, "bok" means white, "choy" is leafy vegetable.

Okay.

Look at this.

In China, everybody dry their own in a good .. Like in a bok choy season.

You see more bamboo post like this, (bamboo taps on ground) than people.

They drop bok choy all over the place, in the backyard, in the front yard, in their neighbor's backyard.

(audience laughing) It's marvelous!

In this particular dish, all you have to do soak the bok choy for about half an hour to an hour, okay?

And then, you cut up some lean pork.

See, this pork there's a piece of fat, it's lean.

I wanna get rid of the fat.

Okay, look at this by parallel cutting technique.

And then we cut off this piece of pork fat.

Nice and lean.

And then I cut this up into bite size chunks.

One, two, three, four, five, then put in my broth.

And then, we're gonna have lean pork bok choy soup.

Bring to a boil and the bok choy is already there.

So, already soaked, so also put it in.

Okay?

Now, the other ingredient, very, ve.. you can use is the, look at this.

You can use figs, this is the brown figs, and this is the white figs.

And then you can also the jujube, this is jujube.

Sweet date, also called (says in foreign language).

And then, you can also use a tiny bit of ginger.

Couple slice of ginger, put it over there.

And also, salt to taste.

We're gonna put a tiny bit of salt to taste, okay?

And that's all you have to do.

Put the fig or the jujube right there and sometimes they also very traditional, they also use a tiny bit of bitter almond.

You see, this is the bitter almond.

Look at like this, very small.

And we put the biter almond over there.

And you cook it for about two hours over low heat.

Now here, everybody know that we have (indistinct).

In China, we measure everything with this bamboo pole.

(audience laughing) We put all together.

This is facts, it's not funny at all.

(audience laughing) Now, we'll cover this up and if you notice this.

This is has been boiling for about two and half hours.

So, we can serve these right over here.

It's very easy to do.

Look at this.

This is boiling.

And it looks good.

And this is our bok choy soup.

And let's look at our other dish.

(audience clapping) (exhales) (audience laughing) It is hot!

Here you have this scrumptious minced pork with preserve fish and this dry bok choy soup.

(audience clapping) Here is the secret ingredient that you don't want to meet face to face.

Dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong.

One of the all time classic on a Chinese banquet table is sharks fin soup.

Despite its name, sharks fin is not tough if you know how to prepare it properly.

All you have to do is soak this darn thing in water for couple days until that soften and you scriggle off the surface, get rid of the bones and you end up having gelatinous stuff.

Looks like this in a store.

You dry them up and can keep for months.

You can use this to make soup with savory chicken broth or you can braise sharks fin with savory broth.

Classic dish.

Now, this is really something you can sink your jaws into.

(audience clapping) This is sharks fin soup, it's delicious!

Look, man eating eating shark!

(audience laughing) We're gonna do a braised dry oyster with black moss.

It seems we're doing everything dry today, we're drying everything.

We have dry bok choy, they call "choy gon" in Chinese.

We have dry fish.

Now we have dry oyster.

Look at this, this is dry oyster.

When it's dry it looks like this.

Then when it soak it looks like this.

See, different color.

Nice and firm.

And we also have black moss, this is black moss.

Dry black moss, called "fat choy".

And this is soak black moss.

It's very easy to do.

It should go really well, all of these dry stuff should go really well with dry beer!

(audience chuckling) In fact, my nephew try to dry beer under the sun for two months.

(audience chuckling) (laughs) One smart kid.

Fat choy, this is fat choy.

It's usually use in Chinese New Year, for Chinese New Year dish because fat choy means (speaking in foreign language).

See, "fat" is to grow, to expand, "choy" is your wealth, so this is to wish everybody prosperity.

In this particular dish, we're gonna get ready some ginger.

Just to get you excited.

(clanging of metal blade) (audience laughing) Just to get you excited.

We mince ginger.

Make sure are you're pay total attention.

We do it one more time.

(audience chuckling) Mince ginger.

And I have some minced shallot and some green onion, okay?

We'll also put some green onion, cut it up, cut it up, cut it up.

Set it aside.

Put it right here.

And then, we're gonna cook.

This particular dish is very, very easy to cook.

Heat up your wok first.

When a wok is nice and hot, use a tiny, tiny bit of oil.

Not much.

Put some shallot and ginger.

Okay.

Shallot and ginger.

And then you put the dry oyster which has been soak.

Oyster is called "hou si", it means "good business".

That's why they always serve this too.

(wok sizzling) During Chinese New Year.

This is sizzling experience.

(audience laughing) And then you put a tiny bit of dry bla..

Right here.

The great thing about this is you can braise it, you don't have to worry about it for the next few minutes.

We use about three quarter cup of broth.

And put a tiny bit of sesame seed oil.

And one teaspoon to one tablespoon of dry sherry.

And set it aside.

And we have all of these ingredient.

Braise it with a tiny, tiny bit of green onion.

And you will cover up and let it braise.

When it's done, you simply thicken it up, okay?

Cover this up.

Now, everybody know that this particular dry fat choy is actually a moss in China, they actually call fat choy.

You know, "fat" is "hair".

Do you see the resemblance?

(audience laughing) "Choy" is "vegetable".

It's call "hair-like seaweed".

That's why they call black moss and also hair-like seaweed.

Now, I borrowed this little thing, here, see this?

I borrowed this toupee from my cousin, Tom.

He'd love, he'd love to look young.

But he doesn't like to wear hat, you see.

Do you know that I borrowed this?

Do you see the difference?

This is, I'm gonna give it back to Tom later (chuckles).

(audience laughing) Now, the next dish I wanna show you is a dish I would call "jellyfish salad".

It's very easy to do.

And this is a piece of jellyfish.

The whole piece, the whole big round piece.

Like this, I cut it up already.

And I put them all together and I'm going to julienne this.

Cut them all up into pieces and I julienne this.

One, two, three, after you julienne this, the amazing thing is I don't know why they call "jelly" fish.

You don't put nothing in a jelly mold!

In a party.

Put them all together.

The trick to this dish is to give the nice, crunchy texture is you put it in boiling water and let it cook for few seconds.

You pick it right out and dump it in cold water.

You rinse under cold water couple of time, so the trick is the speed.

From hot to cold, cold to hot, hot to cold, cold to hot, hot to cold, cold to hot, several times.

Look at this.

Never overcook this, immediately ta.. dump it in ice cold water, okay?

In the meantime, I am gonna put this in and let it drain well.

And we're gonna make a dressing, okay?

We're gonna make a dressing out of these.

We're gonna put this over here.

A dressing would be what, let's shut this off first.

And check our oyster!

First, make sure everything is okay!

Look at this, it looks great!

And it's still braising over low heat.

And then when it's almost ready we thicken it up and we're ready.

This particular dish, all we have to do is make a little dressing.

We use some vinegar, this is the Chinese dark vinegar.

You can use the regular vinegar.

And also use a tiny bit of sesame seed oil, one teaspoon of sesame seed oil.

A tiny bit of soy sauce.

If you want, you can use salt.

But I like to use soy sauce because more tasty, not as salty.

And a tiny bit of sugar and white pepper.

Mix them all up.

Look at this.

Mix them all up.

And this way you can do this ahead of time, you do not have do in the last minute.

Okay?

When it's nice and done, this is go.. Because when it's done you can serve these in this nice platter, look at this.

Put it right over here.

And looks really good.

And this one of the most popular appetizer item in Northern Chinese dish and Southern Chinese dish.

When this done, we also wanna show you a (indistinct), we also take a look at our braise dry oyster.

As I said earlier, you should stir this occasionally to allow uniform cooking and also you have to thicken it up.

You notice that I use chopstick to do it because I can stir things around.

I use chopstick to cook.

I use chopstick to eat.

I even use chopstick to pick up my pork chops!

(audience laughing) Oh, when this is done, you shut it off and all you have to do is get one of these little thing.

Look at this.

Put it right over here.

And one or two pieces of this oyster and put it right over here and then you do another one and you do another one, you continue to do it until you ran out of time!

(audience laughing) Okay, look at this.

Very easy to do.

Here, we have two very interesting, traditional secret ingredient dish.

Braise dry oyster with black moss, and the jellyfish salad for you.

(audience clapping) Today's show is about secret ingredient.

Some of these exotic ingredient you have never seen before.

And you might never see it again!

So, concentrate.

(audience laughing) Here is dry bamboo shoot.

Put in soup and braise dishes, casserole.

This dry beef tendon.

High in collagen, good quality protein.

This dry bean curd sheet from soya beans.

When you make soya bean milk, you have this, skim out and you dried it.

This is the, what do you call, the wood ear, also called tree ear, (speaks in foreign language).

And this is bean curd sheet stick.

The same thing except it's into a stick.

And here is dry persimmon.

You eat it like a little snack, a little candy, it's very nice, I love it.

This is dry red date, you put in soup and call (speaks in foreign language).

Put in bok choy soup, it's wonderful.

Give the sweetness.

And this is dry fish.

Also, actually looks like a little worm, but I call it dry fish, 'kay?

And here, you see the fish maw, this how the fish control the air, the flotation.

And here the little dry anchovy.

All of these are very traditional, everyday ingredient.

Now the secret is out!

About all those secret ingredient.

I wanna show you how to do another dish call rock braise Chinese fungus.

Now, the word "fungus" is bad word.

Negative connotation, so all you have to do, sauté, rock sauté mushroom from China.

'Kay?

We have some of these very popular, we're gonna, today we actually gonna have some fun with fungus!

(audience laughing) Here is snow mushroom.

Is call (speaks in foreign language).

Snow mushroom.

And here is (speaks in foreign language).

You see, little (speaks in foreign language), a little bit smaller than this (speaks in foreign language), or "tree ear".

Is very good for you because they believe this will slow down your blood clot and reduce your cholesterol, mushroom is very, very good.

And this is, of course, the regular shiitake mushroom, dry, okay?

When you soak (speaks in foreign language), the tree ear, they get to be so big.

One piece will feed 600 people.

(audience laughing) To save time, we are gonna, quickly we're gonna blanche some napa cabbage to put in our dish, okay?

Let's turn it down, make sure to put everything in so we can power boil this.

Okay?

Power boil so it's nice and soft.

So add some more vegetable in our vegetarian dish.

To make a very interesting fungus dish, we need a funky wok (chuckles).

(audience laughing) (laughing) Look at this, a funky wok.

Now, here you have snow fungus and you have cloud ear, it sounds so heavenly!

Make sure this is hot.

When you soak the snow fungus, you can see on the bottom they have a little stem like this.

You gotta remove this.

So, the thing to do is break this up first.

Break this up, break this up into pieces.

Bite size pieces like this, okay?

And then, you'll remove this little stem because it's very tough and you don't want it, okay?

You'll remove this.

You don't want it.

Remove this little yellow piece right on the bottom.

So the little piece, the stem, you don't want the stem.

Okay.

Now, when this is nice and done, you break up into pieces, bite size pieces.

Set it aside.

And then you have some mushroom.

In this particular dish, we'll also use some ginkgo nut.

This is ginkgo nut, you can buy them fresh, you can crack it or you can buy them in a can.

When it's nice and ready, you heat it up.

Heat up your funky wok (chuckles).

(audience laughing) Hand paint!

And you put tiny bit of oil.

And you mince with a tiny bit of ginger.

Once again, I wanna make sure you are totally alert.

(blade banging on wood) (audience laughing) Are you?

Mince ginger.

Put it right over here.

Give some flavor to it.

And then in the meantime, we're gonna put all the ingredient.

The shiitake mushroom, the (speaks in foreign language), right here, already soak for half an hour.

Put it right here.

And then, the ginkgo nut, put it right here.

And then, also, the snow fungus.

Put it right over here.

Stir, stir fry.

And then you put approximately two third of a cup to three quarter cup of chicken broth.

Or just vegetable broth.

No problem at all.

Okay?

Look at this.

And then put a tiny bit of dry sherry, let it braise.

Let it braise.

And some soy sauce or oyster sauce.

Okay?

Tiny bit of soy sauce too.

This way, you let it braise for approximately half an hour to 45 minutes over very, very low heat.

In the meantime, we can take out the napa cabbage, then you can serve it.

Now, of course, everybody know, you should always make the dish looks really nice.

So, I wanna very, very quickly, show you just one simple garnishing.

Look at this, parallel cut technique.

Parallel cut, parallel cut.

One over right here.

Then you can put it right here.

You see that?

So easy to do.

When this is done, you thicken the dish.

You thicken the dish.

Always remember the dish is thicken.

Very easy to do.

Look at this.

Thicken the dish.

When it's thicken, serve it, okay?

Put it right over here.

Look at this.

(audience awing) This is absolutely delicious!

(audience clapping) Now, that we have discover all the secret ingredient, try them.

You just may like them.

In case you don't, you can always send them to me (chuckles).

(audience laughing) Until next time, if Yan Can Cook, .. “Goodbye!” (##!)

(audience clapping)