(Joyful music) (fingers snapping) - Hello everybody.

Are you ready to wrap?

Today, I'm gonna take you all over the map, in Thailand, the Philippines, and China, too.

Everybody's wrapping up a gift for you.

(audience clapping) Not bad, not bad.

Okay, I admit it.

Yan can cook better than Yan can rap, but I couldn't resist.

After all, today's show is all about food cooked in a wrapper.

If you ever order your famous and the most popular moo shu pork in your favorite local Chinese restaurant, you probably know it comes with our beautiful, delicate paper-thin Mandarin pancake.

You have heard of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

I'm gonna show you how to use moo shu pork wrapper to make delicious chicken and mushroom purses.

Look at these.

I have all kinds of wrappers here.

This particular dish, you can use any of these wrap and put it in first.

For instance, this is pocket bread, and this is the French crepe, and this is the Chinese spring roll wrappers, and also called lumpia wrappers in the Philippine cuisine, Filipino cuisine.

So we're gonna set this aside and put it on the side because you should always cover this up.

If you let it dried up, they would be like this.

Look at that.

I have these on top of the cutting board for fo.. That damn thing, it just, oh.

This is the same one that I used for years.

(crowd laughs) Now, kidding aside, you should always remove the package, all the towel right before you serve so they won't dry it up.

It's very easy to dry it up.

This is the regular spring roll wrappers or the lumpia wrappers.

We'll steam it and heat it up.

Of course, you can always use your microwave.

Just cover with tiny bit of saran wrap, allow a tiny bit of steam to come out.

Then you do it in the microwave.

While I'm steaming this, I'm gonna get ready to do my filling for the purse for the chicken and the mushroom.

Here, I use a tiny, tiny bit.

This is ground chicken.

I cut it up into pieces, with my knife and I chop it up.

And then I'm gonna marinate it with about one to two teaspoons of soy sauce, a tiny bit of white wine or dry sherry.

And of course, to seal in the juice, to give that nice texture, I always use corn starch, cornstarch not only sealing the juice, it also give that nice shiny glaze, and also, cornstarch help to make the dish nice and velvety because it turn into a nice gelatin when it's cooked.

It gelatinize.

When this is nice and set it aside, and then we're gonna cook in this little, baby wok, okay?

You can cook in the, a big wok, medium wok, or baby wok, and I'm gonna show you we're gonna use this chopstick to stir this because as I said, first, the wok has to be hot.

Nowadays, everywhere you go around the world, people only have three ways to pick up the food.

Of course, they use chopstick, they use their hands, or they use a knife, fork or spoon.

And of course, people use chopstick occasionally, also use the spoon and the chopstick together, but anywhere you go around, they always, let's cook the chicken first.

Oh, look at that.

Stir, stir, stir, small wok, baby wok.

When a wok is small, you don't need a spatula.

A chopstick is a very, very functional cooking utensil.

As I said, even in China, they use choopstick to cook and to eat, but they still use a knife to prepare the food.

Stir, stir, when the chicken is almost ready, you'll put carrot, quarter of a cup of chopped carrot, a tiny bit of watered chest nut, and then a bowl of mushroom, black mushroom, about four or five of them, cut it up, put it in.

And also, I have something very unique.

I wanna show you this, look at this.

This is something called the Chinese garlic chive.

You chop this up into little pieces like this, and I'm gonna put this in right together, like this here, and then I'm gonna remove these.

And then, instead of the traditional moo shu pork, you put the hoisin sauce right in your pancake.

I am gonna mix one portion of oyster sauce, two portions of hoisin sauce, and a tiny, tiny bit of moisture.

Yeah, whether you can use moisture or you can use broth or water.

So the whole thing is very delicious.

Wow, one, two, three, and just enough sauce, okay?

Just enough sauce.

Can you hear the sizzling sound?

It's unbelievable.

Toss, toss, toss.

When it's done, we'll put this right over here.

Move some more here.

Oh, look at that.

Sizzling sound.

When it's done, I want to show you, okay?

How, How do you make this little purse, okay?

Very easy to make.

Put this right over here.

Put the filling right over here, which already is very well-flavored and seasoned, okay?

And then you use some blanch, water blanch.

I just deem it or just put in water.

This is the chive, and I tie this up, tie this up, tie this up, and close it like this, okay?

And then I tie this up like that.

It's very easy to do, and everybody can do it at home, and it's no big deal, and everybody would find it very interesting.

Do a little bow tie so this way, it looks very cute, and you'll put it right over here.

Let me show you.

This is the chicken and mushroom purse mar.. (crowd applauds) Now, our next wrapped dish is called Thai fish Now, our next wrapped dish is called Thai fish in a banana leaf.

It is that simple.

We're gonna grill the fish inside a banana leaf in this oval fish grill like this, okay?

Now first, I wanna show you something interesting.

Here, I have some banana leaf, look at that.

You can buy this banana leaf frozen in Asian stores, and you can, this is the same piece that I have since 1936, and it's still nice and green, and it's still reusable.

So after that, I'm gonna give it to all the people in the studio and still have enough to send it up to you.

See, I put this aside and I'm gonna show you, okay?

Very simple.

In this particular dish, all you need is a couple piece of fish.

For one person, you have approximately six to eight ounces.

This is a firm whitefish.

If you like catfish, You could use catfish.

I always use red snapper, or you can use the rock cod, or use even catfish, okay?

We're gonna marinate the fish.

First, we'll use some fish sauce.

That's all you need, about tablespoon or so, and a tiny, tiny bit of sesame seed oil, and of course, put a tiny bowl chopped cilantro.

Oh, look at this, chopped cilantro, shallot, minced shallot, tiny bit of white pepper, depends on how hot you like, a pinch touch of salt, not much because the fish sauce is actually quite salty, and then, lots of ginger and garlic.

This is all you need, might as well.

Garlic, this much, might as well.

When it's done, let us remove these so everybody can see me very well.

Now, when this is all nice and ready.

You like, fish sauce is made from fermented fish You like, fish sauce is made from fermented fish and add salt, just like soy sauce, but it's from fish instead of soybean.

Put this in, okay?

Let it soak for a couple hours.

In real television time, times flies.

Now it's already half an hour.

By the time I turn around, exactly two hours.

When this is all nice and done, we'll set it aside.

I wanna show you how easy it is, okay?

In the meantime, I heat up my fish grill, oval fish grill, and then I have this banana leaf right here, and I put two pieces of this one here and one here, okay?

And I use a tiny bit more of this marinade to put this all over.

This way, it give moisture and flavor.

Look at this, a lot of these, the more, the better, okay?

Let's put this over here, and I wrap this up like that, one, two.

Look at how I wrap this up, okay?

I use a little skewer, bamboo skewer, and I go like that, like that, and I close this, close the whole thing, okay?

And I use another bamboo, bamboo skewer, and I close it like that.

So the whole thing is like a package.

If you want, you can even close it, like that, okay?

Look at that, isn't it cute?

And then, you will put a teeny tiny bit of oil right here.

Look at that.

Whoa, that's fine, and put this and grill this.

I get so excited, I jump.

Look at this.

While you're doing this, you can actually turn this upside down, move them around.

This, actually, this particular grill is actually for grilling fish.

Look at this, oh.

Wow, Look at that.

Can you see?

Can you smell at home?

Look at the color.

It takes a few minutes to cook over medium high heat to allow the flavor to permeate into the fish and also, the bamboo leaf also have a very delicate flavor to permeate into your fish.

In the meantime, I wanna show you that one we just have done.

Look at this, okay?

Open this, open this.

We have it done ahead of time.

We open it up and serve it like this.

And when you serve, you serve with a couple piece of lime on each side lying on each side, and then you can also chop up a tiny, tiny bit of Thai basil.

Look at that, sprinkle it right on top.

This way, it looks marvelous, and this what you call the grilled Thai fish in banana leaf.

(crowd applauds) In the west, people wrap gifts for holidays.

In China, we wrap foods for our stomach, as well as for gift.

This little bundles of goodies wrapped in bamboo leaves.

This is what they call zong.

This glutenous rice with all the savory stuff, with pork, salted duck egg, and green mung beans, and all kinds of goodies.

Sometime you can use chicken, you can make it sweet, or you can make it savory, depending on the region or the occasion because sometimes, they use this basically to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, and Chinese call zong, okay?

We'll put the zong over here.

The next thing I wanted to show you is something exciting.

I'm gonna show you another dish, which is very, very interesting that we only serve in very festive occasions, chestnut and glutinous rice in a lotus leaf, chestnut and glutinous rice in a lotus leaf, and I want to show you, first, I wanna show you quickly how a Lotus leaf looks like.

You got to soak this, this is very big, look at that.

You open it up.

They come dry.

You can buy this dry.

It'll only cost about $1.50 to $2, a whole package, and one package will last year for 16 years, and this is the one that we bought in 1944, and I still have a lot of these left.

It keeps indefinitely in cool dry place, and you can even freeze them.

It was, soaked them in water overnight or you can actually boil them for approximately two hours over low heat, okay?

In the meantime, I wanna show you, we've got to get all of these ready.

I'm gonna cut up the filling to go with the glutinous rice is Chinese barbecue pork.

This is very unique.

You can buy it in a Chinese deli o.. you can make it yourself, barbecue pork.

Cut it up into thin slices, okay?

Barbecue pork can be make ahead of time.

You can freeze them.

So whenever you use it, you use it, pu.. and I also have some Chinese sausage.

This is a whole piece of Chinese sausage.

They normally make with ground pork, a tiny bit of pork fat, and also in a ship casing, small ship casing, and they marinate it with soy sauce, salt, sugar, and wine, and then they can be preserved for months and you can also freeze them for hours, and you can also freeze them for at least six months up to a year, and this is of course shiitake dry mushroom, also called black mushroom.

Chinese call dong gu.

Put it over here.

Gu means mushroom, dong means winter, winter mushroom.

Set it aside, we also have some dry chestnut, okay?

When you go all the way to New York in the winter, you see this roasted chestnut all over the street, as well as in many parts of Europe.

So we have dry water chestnut, this is not water chestnut, and then this is Chinese sausage, barbecue pork, and then chicken, and of course, we have some green onion, ginger, and garlic, we're gonna quickly saute it in this wok.

First, we hit up this wonderful non-stick wok and we put a tiny bit of oil.

The great thing about this kind of wok is you do not have to worry about using a lot of oil.

And then we put all the ingredient, ginger, garlic, green onion and chicken.

Stir, toss them around.

The great thing about this is you toss, toss, toss.

Toss, continue to toss, allow uniform cooking.

And then when it's almost ready, and you put all this chestnut, everything right in here, okay?

And then you flavor this a little bit with oyster flavor sauce, okay?

A couple of tablespoon, a tiny bit of sesame seed oil, and a tiny, tiny bit of soy sauce, and that's all you need.

This is enough to flavor your rice.

When this is done, you just stop, and then you shut it off, and you're ready to do this, okay?

I wanna show you, can you see that?

This is still piping hot.

Now this is how you're gonna do it.

First, you get the lotus leaf ready.

Put it on top of one of these, a bamboo steamer.

If you wanna make this very exotic, look at how big this is.

Put it right here, fold it in like that.

Fold it in, fold it in, fold it in, fold it in into a little packet.

This way, you can serve the whole dish right out of this whole steamer, okay?

If you are worried about it might break, you use two of these.

This way, it will never break, okay?

This way, you can seal in the juice, and also, this Lotus leaf, not only it act as a package to control and close all of this, but what makes it good is it has a very delicate aroma and flavor.

So you can, when you steam it, the flavor and aroma permeate into your rice, and this is the glutinous rice I've been soaking it for a couple hours.

You can soak it overnight.

I put this right in here, look at that glutinous rice, also called sweet rice, okay?

Put it right here.

Move them around, and then you put all of these goodie, put it right on top.

Look at that, put it right on top, and then you cover it, and you steam it for approximately an hour or so over medium to medium high heat, look at that.

You close the whole thing.

You close the whole thing like that.

You close it, you close it, you close it, and it's marvelous, this is wonderful.

In order to make it easier to do, to cover, you use this little plate, the pie plate.

Cover this up and you can steam them in the bamboo steamer.

Now, I wanna show you something I have done a little bit earlier.

Look at that.

This is, and then you can transfer this whole thing over here.

Look at how beautiful.

Now I wanna show you, this, this, open a more up, this, and this is a marvelous steamed chestnut glutinous rice in lotus leaf.

(crowd applauds) What about desert?

Sweet things always come in small packages too.

In the Philippines, the number one wrapper is the lumpia.

It is often filled with savory ingredients like vegetable and pork, but we are, today, do something different.

We're gonna fill it with banana and dry fruit.

It's marvelous, it is delicious, and also very healthy.

Here, I have a nice medium ripe banana.

You can tell the little dots right here, a little sandy texture right here in the skin, and most Asian like the banana a little bit ripe, medium ripe, and then I cut this up, cut this up, and then I would open this, and cut the whole thing out like this, and then I cut it in three, and I cut it in half, and I put it right over here first, right over here, cut it in half.

There's a lot of ways you can cut it in half.

I just do this parallel cut.

You can do up and down cut, side cut, round cut, deep cut, all kinds of cuts.

And then also, when this is all nice and ready I'm gonna mix this with a whole bunch of other thing, chopped walnut, and also, this is something that I would use it to coat it.

This is white, the regular sesame seed, white sesame seed.

This is dark or black sesame seed.

I'm gonna mix these both together to give this nice black and white sesame seed, ying and yang sesame seed.

We'll set aside.

Now, the next I wanna show you is how we're gonna fold .. We have a lot of dry fruit here, but the main dry food that I use is the pitted dry prune, very good, high fiber, okay?

We'll mix it up also with some nuts, walnut, a coconut, tiny bit of sugar.

We'll put this together, mix it up, make it into, it depends on how big you wanted to make it.

In the meantime, I heat up some oil.

Now look at that, we put this up.

Now, you know that why I always tell people you should use and eat as lot of fruit because this is what recommended, and some of the fruit is very good, lot of nutrient, in this case, I use dry prune.

It's delicious, versatile in cooking.

You can use in dessert, salad, and main dish.

Very easy to fold this, okay?

Look at that.

I fold it just like spring roll.

I fold it, and I fold it, and I fold it like that, and then I use a little mixture of flour and water, and close it like that, okay?

Look at this, I don't know how many of you know that dry prune is not only give the color, nutrition, and texture, but also, as I said, a lot of fiber, fiber is good for you.

So everybody always should have more fiber.

Hold it, and then after that, now this is what makes it interesting, look at this.

This is regular without the banana, okay?

I wanna show you one with the banana because that means you have a lot of choices.

Here, I have the nuts right in the nuts and also the dry prune, and I have banana.

Otherwise, you cannot call it a banana lumpia, lumpia with no banana, and then make sure you do it, close it.

The great thing about, I don't know how many of you know that prunes are also used in a lot of stews, and also, they only, for 1/2 a cup, they only have about nine gram of fiber, yet it's very, very high, and also is the best source of dietary fiber, it has color and sweetness, and we close this once again, close this, close this, and we are going to use egg wash, egg wash, okay?

And you know why I'm gonna do it?

Because I'm gonna coat this.

Look at that, this is how you do it, and then we're gonna deep fry this right over here.

Look at that, we're deep frying this, deep frying this, and you can do all kind of thing.

It doesn't take too long to deep fry.

It only takes about a minute or so.

Look at that.

When it's done, you can actually coat it like this.

Let me show you.

It is very easy to do.

I have some powder sugar here.

You can actually put a little piece of paper over here.

You can dust this with a touch of powder sugar.

Look at that, touch of powder sugar.

That means you have add extra sweetness to your dish, and this is what I call the banana lumpia, sweet banana lumpia.

(crowd applauds) Now serving food under wrap, it's just like giving your guests a little gift to open up right in the table.

I hope you'll give a try.

Well, today it is the end of the show, or we usually say in show business, it is a wrap.

So til next time, keep on wrapping, and remember, if Yan can cook, so can you.

“Goodbye!” (##!)

(crowd applauds)