(Joyful music) (applause) - Hi, welcome to Yan Can Cook show!

No great meal is complete without a sweet ending.

So today I'm gonna give some nice sweet element into your life.

I'm gonna show you how to make a few very wonderful Chinese sweets.

The first one I want to show you is very traditional, the Chinese call (speaks Chinese) Means laughing donut.

The donut actually laughs when you prepare it.

I don't know how it laughs, I'm going to show you how to do it.

All you need is four cups of flour, this is four cups of flour, use approximately one tablespoon of lard, and use approximately one to two whole eggs, and use about one teaspoon to one and a half teaspoon baking powder.

Mix them all up with enough water until you've got a nice smooth dough, okay?

And then you roll it into a cylindrical, like this.

This how I exercise.

(laughter) Wow, see!

Efficiency.

(laughter) It feels wonderful.

It's nice, the great thing about playing with dough is you can shape it any way you want.

You can cut any way you want, we're going to cut it up.

See, cut it up, set it aside.

We're gonna make into shape of little ball like this.

One, two, three, four, five.

How many people you have make how many balls, makes no difference.

Then you shape it into little balls.

You can make it into medium ball, big ball, makes no difference.

The great thing about, as I said, is you can shape it into a round ball, a triang.. a square ball, or a flat ball.

Have you ever seen a flat ball before that's actually flat?

I'm gonna shape it into this.

You can even shape it into a rabbit, you can even shape it into a bird.

Here I want to introduce you to little pet dough bird.

The dough dough bird, I call him dough dough bird.

(laughter) I've been hanging around for two weeks.

Are you gonna move?

(laughter) I guess now they're gonna stick around for the show.

(laughter) We'll put over here, don't move!

Hold onto this.

While you're doing that, the most important.. make sure to heat up your oil to 360 to 370 degrees.

Now it's important when you deep fry something, make sure the oil is not too hot or not too low.

When it's too hot, it smoke.

It started to burn, as soon as you put the food there they burn.

Instead of deep frying it you burn the darn thing.

The outside would be burn charcoal burn!

Inside is bloody raw!

(laughter) Thank you very much.

(laughter) I think this was pretty funny.

If I laughed, it was pretty funny.

Roll it up, now of course you don't have to do it in front of all your guests.

You should do it a day ahead of time, you don't have to do it at the last minute.

It's wonderful to do it ahead of time.

I am having so much fun, I am having a ball!

(laughter) Of course you can make medium ball, I'll show you.

This is small ball.

Then I want to show you, you can make a gigantic ball.

(laughter) Except this one you need big hands.

See the difference, this is about ten times as much as that so this is gonna be a big laughing donut, small laughing donut.

When this is done, want to set this aside and then get some water ready.

This is how you do it, very simple dish.

And then you have a plate, doesn't matter what kind of plate.

You have two different kinds of sesame seed, black sesame seed and white sesame seed, okay?

And I put some over here.

Mix it up, mix it up.

If you want, you can actually do the whole thing there in the bowl.

And I slightly dredge this in water, dip this in water.

And I put over here, dip this in water, put it over here, dip this in water, dip this in water, and then.

Now every time you say that, you've got to repeat it.

Dip this in water, (laughter) and you once again dip this in water.

So you remind yourself you don't forget.

Otherwise you forget, see?

Dip this in water.

And then, put it over here.

Black sesame seed and then white sesame seed, mix them all up, it's much easier to do it in a bowl.

Roll them all up, okay?

Roll them all up like this, and then when the oil is ready, you can deep fry it.

Now make sure, as I repeatedly say, if the oil is not hot enough, don't do it.

How can you tell when the oil is hot enough?

We're going to show you.

You use a clean pair of chopsticks, you put it in, if it bubbles like this.

I hope, please come out, don't embarrass me.

Hurry up, come out.

It is bubbling can you see that?

If you cannot see, I can see millions of bubbles coming out.

Can you see that?

You can't see that?

See, can you see?

Absolutely bubbling, absolutely bubbling.

I think it's bubbling.

And then, my friends and my relatives oh they are so serious.

They are making me nervous.

And I hope at home you're not that serious, please smile at home.

And then we deep fry this.

When you deep fry, don't just slam dunk.

Slide it down like this, otherwise you're gonna get into trouble, your complexion.

Then we're going to remove this because we are ready.

And then we put this aside.

And then I want to show you, you've got to deep fry until they are nice and go.. and they open up like this one I want to show you.

Right here, wow, look at this.

(audience oohs) Isn't it wonderful?

(applause) Look at this one, this one is defective.

It's crying, it's not laughing.

This one is a little bit better, it's smiling.

This one is perfect, look at this.

Laughing donut, isn't that true?

We are going to make sure, we set this aside.

Now, I would like to remind all of you, as I said, a lot of people do not really know that in Chinese cuisine there are a lot of sweets.

Many very interesting Chinese sweet pastries and things like that.

I want to show you a few.

Some of this you might have seen it.. or maybe you have never seen, but it doesn't matter, I will show you.

Don't blink now look at this.

Here is, the Chinese call this wedding cake.

This is a nice wedding cake, it looks like this let me show you.

It's got a salted egg yolk inside, lotus bean paste.

And then this is also a wedding cake.

It looks like this, I cut it open.

And inside there is coconut, sesame seed, and lotus.

And then, this is a (speaks Chinese) chicken cookies.

And it's shaped like a little chicken, that's why they're called chicken cookies.

And this is also very interesting, this one is also made from lotus, it's a little bit smaller.

It's just like a little moon cake, okay?

And then these are little baby cakes.

Inside there, this one is walnut and pork.

This one is sweet bean paste, this one is black bean paste.

One is red bean paste, one is dark bean paste.

And this is also a very nice moon cake, let me show you.

It looks like this, inside there got an egg yolk.

Now here I have something called the thousand year old egg pastry, okay?

It's very odd, that's why I want to show you later.

I want to set this aside, in the meantime I want to show you, this is all done.

I'm gonna put them back over here.

Then, can everybody see that?

Nice and open, this is how it looks.

Can you see how gorgeous it looks?

(applause) Very very easy.

Thank you very much.

Now, we have just shown you, you can make something non-human laugh, the laughing donut.

Now I'm going to show you something even more interesting, very very popular in China in dim sum restaur..

In fact my mother loved this, myself loved this.

It's called coconut snow.

Everybody knows, in many parts of China, coconut is very foreign, very exotic.

In fact, when I was growing up, I'd never seen a coconut before.

But this is a coconut, you've seen the coconut?

This is the nose, this is the eye, this is the ugly face.

And the hair is bald, gone, hair is gone.

It's got a pure haircut.

The fastest and the most convenient way to crack a coconut is (crash) (laughter) Done!

Excellent, goal.

When you open it up, you can drink the coconut juice.

Please save the juice for me.

And it looks like this, nice and you can actually chew on it, it's really nice.

And not only that, the Chinese also use this to make c..

So we want to put this aside.

This particular one is very easy to do.

I have sugar, I have boiling water, and I have one and a half package of this non-flavored gelatin.

All you need is about one third of a cup of water, kind of soak the gelatin a little bit.

Nice and softened.

And then you put the sugar, and you put a tiny bit of boiling water, mix them all up, mix them all up.

And let it set in the fridge for a little while.

Don't beat it up too much, otherwise they foam okay?

Do it like this, or you can use a chopstick to mix it up, it doesn't make any difference.

But make sure to dissolve the sugar.

And then when it's done, you can also mix a tiny bit of coconut milk.

When I was growing up, in China, I was always puzzled.

I've never seen a coconut cow!

How can you get coconut milk?

(laughter) Now those at home, if you think it's funny you should applause.

(applause) See, the people in the studio, they think it's funny.

Then you put this over there and we'll set this aside because we don't need this any more, we'll set this aside.

And then we've got to chill this, so we're gonna go to the fridge.

And then set this aside.

Now the magic of television.

I have chilled some of these ahead of time.

This is already chilled, you see this?

And then also ahead of time, I whipped up some egg white.

I whipped the darn thing in shape.

And then I am going to fold this into this.

I have to put this aside.

I fold this in, look at this.

Fold this egg white, whip it until you've got a very nice consistency.

And then you graciously fold this, fold this.

And mix it well, okay?

Fold this.

This way you do not get rid of the bubble from the whipping process.

It will form a shape, okay?

And then after that, I will transfer this whole thing into this little square pan.

Let's do it this way so everybody can see us.

If I do it this way, nobody can see anything.

So I do it this way.

And then, when this is done we'll set it nice and smooth like this.

And then you put in the fridge.

When you serve this, all you have to do is sprinkle a tiny bit of either toasted sesame seeds or you can put a tiny bit of toasted shredded coconut, it's beautiful.

So we're gonna put this over there and we are going to let it chill.

Now this one I have done ahead of time, so I want to show you how wonderful this is.

This is beautiful.

(applause) Isn't it wonderful?

I'm going to set this one over here.

Now, I always tell people I'm nuts about coconut.

That's why I want to show you this particular one.

The next one I want to show you is very very easy to do.

I call this, honeydew tapioca delight!

Its very light and very easy.

First of all I get the honeydew out, cut it out like this.

And cut into little chunks, okay?

Peel this and do this ahead of time.

And I will cut into little chunks like this, set it aside.

And then I will use the other half, and I will make a little garnish like this.

Of course you can use a big knife or you can use a little baby knife, no body cares.

(laughter) In the meantime, I am gonna heat up some boiling w.. Because I want to boil the tapioca, okay?

This is tapioca, you see how beautiful?

You see, depends on how much time you have.

You can do the whole thing, you don't have time do one quarter, just show people this is how you do it.

And then I want to show you all these ingredients, okay?

Tapioca, you soak them a little bit and when the water's boiling, you're gonna scoop it and put it right over here.

This is what we are doing, put it right here.

Let it boil for about two to three minutes.

You have half and half, chopped tapioca over there, pureed honeydew and honeydew chunks, okay?

Bring it to a boil.

When it's done, stir this a little bit.

Let me get one of these, you stir this.

Make sure to bring it to a boil, stir this in.

Now you should serve this chilled okay?

Because it tastes a lot better, you use very little sugar.

You see this is very little sugar, this is all you use, you see?

It depends on how sweet you want, I am a sweet guy, so- (audience laughs, applauds) And then, not only that, let's put some, about half a cup of pureed honeydew here.

It's a very unique dish.

A lot of people probably don't realize, a lot of these are very original.

When I was growing up, I'd never seen a honeydew before.

So we are creating very new, very interesting dish.

And serve it cold, it goes well with any of your dinner or your menu.

Dinner for two, dinner for four.

When it's done, I'm boiling this up.

After you bring this to a boil, as soon as the tapioca start turn to translucent, you immediately take it out, transfer to a glass bowl and you chill it.

So you can serve it any time you want, okay?

Now this is done, when it's done I want to show you how to serve it.

When this is done, you pull this, use a ladle, this already chilled.

Put this right over here, right over here.

And everybody can see, it's beautiful.

When you serve this on individual bowls, what you have to do is use some evaporated milk.

You can buy them in a can or you can evaporate it yourself, it takes about a hundred years.

(laughter) This is how you serve, you see this?

When it's done you have two of the most wonderful desserts you can enjoy!

(applause) Now, the Chinese love food so much that a lot of times they make candy out of it because there's no refrigerator in China.

No big gigantic refrigerator truck to truck nice fresh fruit from one place to another, so they preserve it.

I want to show you something very very interesting.

This is something that they serve during Chinese New Year, look at this.

You start from here, this is lotus root sliced.

(speaks Chinese) This is winter melon, this is kumq.. this is coconut, lotus seed, and this is another winter melon, this is candied ginger, this is candy water chestnut, and this is candy Hawaiian pineapple.

And this is rock sugar.

This darn thing, you can kill somebody with it.

(laughter) I'm gonna put this back because when I w..

I loved candy ginger.

Now I'm going to show you how to do a very interesting, sweet rice dumpling.

Wonderful, easy to do.

First I'm going to bring a pot of water to a boil, and I start with glutinous rice flour.

You can see, you can find in a package like this.

I'm going to put this down.

This is glutinous rice, a little bit fatter and thicker than the long grain rice.

I'm going to put this down.

And then you use approximately, let me put this all together so everybody can see.

You use approximately, for dough, you use about one and a half cup of this glutinous rice flour, and use about one third of a cup of boiling water.

Make sure it's boiling, otherwise they won't partially cook.

And also use approximately five tablespoons of cold water, okay?

Then mix it up making a nice round dough.

Once again, you shape it into a long cylindrical.

(laughter) And then you can break this up into little balls like this, let me show you.

And shape it, shape it, and you shape it like this.

Nice round ball, okay?

And then after you do that, you shape it into a little flat dough like this, okay?

And then we will have the filling.

You can use any filling you want, you can use a peanut butter, let's make it a little bit more Westernized.

In China you can just use chopped peanut, sugar, and a tiny bit of, I'm glad at least one person is smiling.

This must be very funny.

One out of two million people, smile.

I hope you are smiling at home.

And then I use this spoon, mix the peanut butter and all of this up, and I am going to fold this together, look at this.

And then shape it into a little ball like this.

Shape it into a little ball, okay.

And then, the water's boiling, and when it's boiling we are going to boil this up, okay?

One, two, three, four, five, six.

The one that I make, this looks so ugly forget it!

(laughter) Now the great thing about this is, you can serve it with a sauce, let me show you.

You can serve with a sauce.

Here I am going to bring some water to a boil, and use some sugar and some peanut butter.

Not much, just enough, okay?

And then, stir this around.

Very easy to do.

Oh, look at this.

Make it into a sauce, if you want you can even thicken it up a tiny bit with cornstarch, it's no big deal.

Now how many of you know that there are three different kinds of rice flour?

One is long grain rice flour, one is medium rice flour, one is short grain rice flour, they're more sticky.

They're sometimes called glutinous rice, if you don't remember the word glutinous, just remember glue.

Glue something rice, it's very easy to do.

Stir, when it's done you get ready.

It looks like dough dough bird is getting dehydrated.

Are you okay?

Aw, unbelievable, it is still damp.

And then when it's done, you can tell.

When this is done we are going to, how can you tell when it's done?

When it's done it actually will float.

Now if it's not floating it's not done.

See, is starting to float, okay?

Don't overcook them.

In the meantime, you see this?

Nice, round ball.

This sauce is also done.

When it's done, all you have to do is shut it off.

Put this right over here, because you serve this as a little sauce, put this right over here, okay?

Don't make it too thick because you can more serve like a sauce.

And then when this is ready, nice and floating like this can you see that?

Can you see this?

It's floating.

Get a little bigger, and then you put it over here, and you can see how wonderful this looks.

Can you see that?

This is how you do it.

Now, if you want to make it fancy, you can do it either way.

One is, you can sprinkle, of course once you finish it, you gotta make sure to shut the darn thing off.

You don't need this anymore.

So we shut this off.

And then, in order to make it more interesting, there are two choices I want to show everybody, there are two choices okay?

One, you can use chopped or roast sesame seeds, can you see how cute it is?

Now I'm going to bring my pet dough dough bird back here, because I want to keep him company.

Or, the other choice is you use a tiny bit of chopped peanut to sprinkle around the sauce.

You can make it very fancy, it's a very unique dessert that the Chinese use at all times.

Look at this, isn't it wonderful?

(applause) Now, I want to show you a very interesting way of shaping this, okay?

Because a lot of people don't know, when you shape doughs, you can do it like this, or this is a Chinese rolling pin, okay?

You can shape it like this, by hand, look at this?

(applause) See this?

See this?

I would like to invite all of you to immediately go back to your kitchen today, to make all of the desserts I just made.

And also you, at home, make sure, don't forget to make a lot of desserts.

I love dessert, I hope all of you love dessert.

That's the reason why I'm such a sweet guy.

(laughter, applause) Thank you very much for joining us today!

And if Yan can cook, so can you!

“Goodbye!” (##!)

(upbeat instrumental music)