♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Unfortunately, about 20 years ago, I wrote a piece called "Throw Out Your Wok," and I was wrong, I admit it.

It turns out the wok is a great tool-- doesn't need a lot of fuel, it has hot and cooler spots, you can move a lot of food around quickly; and the best thing is you get the breath of a wok, you get that wonderful aroma.

So we're going to do two recipes today in a wok.

We'll start with a stir-fried broccoli, and a sesame pork with shiitake.

Then we'll move over to the skillet and do a stir-fry, and this time we're going to do Vietnamese shaking beef.

So stay tuned right here at Milk Street as we do great stir-fry in and out of the wok.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

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We offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our U.S.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you.

To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

- Since 1899 my family has shared our passion for everything that goes into our Mutti 100% Italian tomatoes.

Only tomatoes.

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♪ ♪ - You know, the mix of French culture and Vietnamese culture was a disaster on most levels, obviously, but the food was, was interesting, and it-it was sort of odd, right?

I mean, the banh mi, the sandwich, refers to the Vietnamese version of the French baguette filled with pâté, right, a schmear of pâté on the bread.

But the shaking beef recipe, which we're about to do, also is similar.

I mean, you have beef, you have butter, you have a cast-iron skillet, it was marinated with soy sauce and fish sauce and sugar-- very Vietnamese.

So you had a sort of a combination of a French sauté and ingredients from the Vietnamese pantry.

- This dish is often made in Vietnam with tenderloin, which is, you know, it's pretty deluxe and has a very mild flavor.

We wanted a slightly beefier cut, and we used one of my favorite cuts, which is sirloin tip.

Before we cut the beef, let's make the sauce for the stir-fry.

First of all, it's four tablespoons of lime juice, two tablespoons of white sugar, three tablespoons of fish sauce, and one tablespoon of soy sauce.

We're going to stir that up.

So we're going to use a pound and a half of those sirloin tips, and we're going to cut them into fairly substantial, one-and-a-half-inch chunks.

And we're going to leave these in pretty big chunks here.

So let's go ahead and flavor that meat now.

We've got two tablespoons of soy sauce and a half teaspoon of black pepper.

We don't want to overwhelm the meat here, so that's all of the seasoning we need.

And now it's time to get the skillet pre-heating, so we're going to add a tablespoon of a neutral oil.

You want something with a pretty high smoke point, and we're going to go from medium-high, and we want to wait till that oil is just beginning to smoke.

As you can see, we're starting to get whiffs of smoke coming up, so let's go ahead and add that meat.

And we want to make sure, Chris, to add it in a single layer... (sizzling) ...so everything browns evenly.

(sizzling) I'm really trying to give each piece of meat some space so it doesn't crowd, which, as we both know, leads to steaming.

And then you don't really get any browning.

So contrary to the recipe, we're not going to shake it.

We're going to leave it well enough alone so we can get a really good sear on that outside.

- Was it called shaking beef because it's a sauté/stir-fry, and it was being shaken in a cast-iron pan?

- Yeah, I-I think it is called shaking beef because of the shaking.

Let's go ahead and check that.

Oh, it's looking great.

You can see that the pan's really dry.

You're not getting any of those juices coming out like you would if you overcrowded it.

So it should be about a minute, minute and a half longer.

(sizzling) So, Chris, it's been about another minute and a half, and this meat looks perfect.

Now I'm going to transfer it to a bowl.

Make sure to put the cooked meat into a clean bowl.

Then we're going to return it to the heat, but we're going to drop it down to low.

So we're going to add one tablespoon oil.

We're going to add eight cloves of chopped garlic.

Seems like a lot, but it's great in the dish.

And then we're going to add one teaspoon of black pepper.

So we're going to cook it and scrape it a little.

And we just want the garlic to lose that sort of raw edge to it.

And it's just going to begin to soften.

So the garlic's looking a little soft.

You can smell it, it's super aromatic.

So at this point, we're going to deglaze the pan with that sauce we made.

So we're going to pour that in.

(sizzling) I'm going to go ahead and add any of the meat juices to the pan.

We're just going to cook this down till it's pretty syrupy and can coat the meat really well.

It takes about four minutes.

- You know, it was very fishy when you first started, but now it's not.

It's rich, a sort of foundation, but it's not fishy.

- You're starting to get that sort of toasty garlic smell too.

Okay, that's looking great, looking very syrupy.

And at this point, we're going to add the meat back to the pan.

It's going to finish cooking at this point, and we're going to coat it really well in that sauce.

This should take another two, four minutes.

That's looking great.

So we're almost done here.

But we've got one final addition, and that is thin-sliced red onions.

Onions are added as this really crunchy, sharp accent note, so we're barely going to cook 'em.

They're just going to be softened in the heat.

- So this is a real social dish.

Fish sauce, black pepper, onions, lots of garlic... - Lots of garlic.

- It's good.

- So, Chris, this is looking great.

There's onions have just softened, the meat's super glossy.

Let's go ahead and wrap it up.

We're going to make a little watercress salad to put beneath.

That watercress is super peppery, really crisp-- it's a nice contrast to the meat.

- Yeah and this is traditionally how they would serve it too.

- Oh absolutely, yep.

- Okay.

So we're just going to add half teaspoon of salt, and one tablespoon of lime juice.

And you know what?

If you can't find watercress, which sometimes can be hard to find, go ahead and use arugula, it'll provide the same peppery bite.

It smells great.

Let's go ahead and get that beef on there.

- This is very appealing.

Quick, interesting, I like the onions at the end.

You know, that's really good.

- Let's go ahead and plate you some here.

It'd be great with some rice on the side.

The way the watercress soaks it up, that's one my favorite parts of this dish.

Super flavorful salad beneath the meat.

Importantly, you need a lime wedge.

A little finish of lime juice really helps bring up those flavors.

- Mmm.

That is really good.

I mean, it's bright, it's fresh.

It's um... it's different, but there's no... You know, I'm going to get a T-shirt that just says, "Fish sauce, get over it."

'Cause, you know, people see fish sauce on a recipe, they go like, "No, won't do that."

There's nothing fishy about this at all.

- Well, it's such a great secret ingredient.

Once it cooks off, you'll never know it's there.

There's this amazing body and depth and... well, unctuousness to it.

- Mmm....

The onions are... really sweet.

- Mm-hmm.

- But they still have bite too.

So this is an unusual recipe, Vietnamese shaking beef, obviously Vietnamese flavors.

A little bit of French technique with the sautéing sirloin tips, little bit of soy sauce and black pepper, marinate briefly, into a skillet.

Brown on both sides then the sauce-- soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar-- and then you finished it off with some onions on top and then a bed of watercress.

So I think this is a definite winner.

Very unusual flavors.

Clean, bright, crunchy, great dish any night of the week.

♪ ♪ - So before we actually season this wok, let's talk about the wok in general.

It's been around for a very long time, it got very popular in the Ming Dynasty, which is 1400 onwards.

The reason it's popular, it used to sit on a small terracotta base, and very small amount of wood or whatever else they had for fuel could heat that up very quickly-- it was thin metal.

So it was a very efficient way of cooking.

The bowl shape of a wok allows you to move food around.

You could actually handle more food sometimes, There are hot spots, there are cooler spots.

It's a different way of cooking, but very often it's a better way of cooking.

Let's talk about how to season a wok.

What you really want to do is coat the pan with fat, and that fat becomes part of the finish on the pan, which makes it nonstick or very low stick.

The key is an even coating of fat and getting it heated up just to the right temperature so it doesn't become sticky.

So we'll take some vegetable oil.

You want a high heat oil, grapeseed oil is great for this, or sunflower oil.

And before I heat the pan, I just want to rub it all over.

So now I have a nice even coating.

Now I'm going to turn it on to high.

(pilot clicking) And we're going to heat this up.

Now the trick is you want to watch this, when it starts to smoke, I go back in with the towels and we're going to rub it in.

If you have excess oil in any place, it's going to end up having sort of a thick coating that gets sticky.

So you want to keep burnishing the pan with the towels as you heat it up, you get a nice even coating, and then we're going to let it cool down and repeat.

So now it's smoking.

I've got it all burnished in.

We're going to turn the heat off and set it aside.

So I'll do that a couple more times as it cools, have it fully cooled, and repeat.

And I would do this almost eight times if it's a new wok to get a nice finish on it.

So that's how to season a wok.

Just use a little bit oil, use the method I showed you, and you'll end up with a great nonstick wok.

And every time you use it, make sure to season it one other time.

That's how to season a wok.

♪ ♪ - You know, I'm beginning to think the wok's not just a kitchen tool, it's a philosophy.

You know, Grace Young wrote The Breath of a Wok, and she told me that as a kid with her father at a Chinese restaurant, they'd sit right next to the kitchen because when that food came out just for a minute or two, there's this wonderful aroma.

So wok cooking's not just about a practical design, it's about the flavor of the food and also the aroma of the food, right?

- So today we're going to be doing a broccoli stir-fry dish that has something really unique to it, it has Sichuan peppercorns.

These don't add actual heat as much as they add a sort of really nice resinous, piney flavor and a little bit of a tingling sensation in your mouth.

First we're going to grind it up in our mortar and pestle.

We want to really get it finely ground.

And just so you can see there are some little extra fibers in there from the husks.

And I'm just going to sift these out real quick because they don't always, you know, feel so good when you chomp on them.

All right, and now to this, I'm going to add the rest of the aromatics that are going to go into our stir-fry.

This recipe uses two scallions, and this is the white and the pale green parts that have been minced.

These are three cloves of garlic that have been finely grated.

One and a half teaspoons of finely grated fresh ginger.

And here we have red pepper flakes.

This is a half teaspoon.

You can use a little bit less if you're a little sensitive to heat.

I'm just going to stir these together.

All right, I'm just going to set this aside for later.

Next thing we're going to do is get our sauce ingredients ready.

So we have a tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar, tablespoon and a half soy sauce.

And a teaspoon of sugar.

And I'm just going to whisk this to combine and dissolve the sugar.

And now we get to the fun part, get to use the wok.

So we're going to heat the empty wok on medium-high heat (pilot light clicking) for a good one to two minutes.

And a great way to test if it's ready, you just take a little drop of water, and it should sizzle and evaporate within a couple seconds.

(sizzles) I'd say we are good to go.

So we're going to add three tablespoons of peanut oil.

You can also use grapeseed oil.

Pour it down the sides of the wok and sort of swirl it around, and this heats up the oil really quickly.

And now we're going to add our aromatics.

(sizzling) And we stir those around.

(sizzling) They only need to cook about 30 seconds.

That smells great already.

- Looks great, smells great.

- Yep.

Now we're ready to add our broccoli.

These have been cut into one-inch florets.

(sizzling) All right, I'm going to season this with a quarter teaspoon of salt.

Now I'm stirring this up to coat with all those tasty aromatics there.

Now we're going to do something a little different.

We're going to add three tablespoons of water.

And we're going to cover it very quickly... (sizzling loudly) ...with the lid.

And we're going to let this steam for one minute.

And what this does is allows us to do a stir-fry successfully without having to blanch the broccoli first.

You can see the broccoli's a nice break bright green color.

You can see the stems that I have in there.

Those have been peeled and cut into.

one-quarter-inch coins.

So this is going to take about three to five minutes.

All right, this looks great, Chris.

It's got some nice color on it.

And now we're going to add our last main ingredient, and that's our sauce.

And again, I'm going to do the same thing I did with the oil.

I'm going to try to pour the sauce around down the sides of the pan... (sizzling) and this helps it start to thicken and not totally sog out the broccoli.

So I'm going to stir this and try to scrape up any brown bits on the bottom.

I'm getting another nice... (laughs) - I'm getting the breath of the wok.

- Getting the breath of the wok.

I see the sauce looks nice and thick, so I'm going to turn that off.

We have two teaspoons of toasted sesame oil and then an additional tablespoon of that rice vinegar that's going to give it a nice brightness.

(sizzling) - Whew!

- Yeah.

(chuckles) And then go ahead and put this in our platter.

(sizzling, scraping) - That is so satisfying.

- It is.

I'm just going to garnish it here with the remaining scallion greens.

- So four or five minutes, and then you do have the steam coming up.

It is highly aromatic.

You know, which is very different than the skillet.

- Yeah, and this pairs really great with rice, because it does have such intense flavors in it with the red pepper flakes and those Sichuan peppercorns.

- Mmm... - Mmm... - Man, is that good.

It has that wok flavor.

It has that slightly charred, fiery, you know... - Yeah.

And the broccoli has the perfect texture.

It's just crisp, tender, nicely browned, it's not mushy.

And I'm actually feeling those peppercorns-- the Sichuan peppercorns-- in back of my throat from the steam.

- So the answer to the question "Is a wok just a kitchen tool" is no, actually, there is a breath of the wok.

You get that wonderful wok aroma and that slightly charring the vegetable, crisp, tender.

Of course with the Sichuan peppercorns and soy sauce, lots of layers of flavor.

So stir-fried broccoli with Sichuan peppercorns is a hit, and you can make it any night of the week.

♪ ♪ - You know, a couple of years ago, we traveled to Tokyo to take a week of cooking lessons.

At night, we went out to a burger place.

(laughing): I don't know why.

It was actually really good.

Obviously we had ramen, et cetera, but we also went to an izakaya, which is one of these pubs, essentially, sort of a tapas-style place, drinks and small plates, and one of the dishes they had was pork belly, which was essentially stir-fried or sautéed with kimchi.

So they actually cooked the kimchi with the pork belly.

So we thought the notion of pork and cooked kimchi was a good combination.

So we brought that idea back to Milk Street, and now you're going to do something with that.

- Yeah, yeah.

The combination of pork and kimchi is a very classic flavor combo in Korea.

Now, kimchi comes in a couple different varieties, but essentially what it is, is it's something like Napa cabbage or daikon radish, all fermented together with Korean chili, with a little bit of anchovy or fish sauce, and a number of other ingredients.

And that's what develops that very funky, fragrant flavor.

That aroma is an indicator of the flavor that it has, right?

So we have three different kimchis right over here, and you could often find all these kimchis out in a number of grocery stores at this point.

But when you're looking for kimchi in grocery stores, sometimes it will come in a spicy variety like this one.

This one is a spicy Napa cabbage.

Now, this would be a good example of more mild kimchi.

As you can see, it's not as red in color, and that's because the gochugaru, which is the Korean pepper flake, isn't nearly as present.

Now, both of those were made with cabbage.

They also make kimchi with radishes, which is what we have here.

And as you can see, it's very simply put together with some scallion, some aromatics like ginger and chili.

And then they also throw in some carrots in there for a little bit of extra crunch and flavor.

For the recipe that we're going to make today, you want to work with cabbage kimchi, so we're going to take two and half cups of kimchi and just very roughly chop it.

Honestly, just run your knife through it.

You don't want to get these pieces too small.

And then you can go ahead and transfer that all back to the bowl it came from.

And we'll use this later on right at the end of the cooking process to really spike up the flavor.

- So it's the lazy man's way of stir-frying.

(Josh laughs) - If it works, it works.

Now that we have the kimchi all cut up, we can take a look at the other star of this dish, which would be our pork tenderloin.

Now traditionally, in the dish that you were talking about, the buta kimchi, usually you would use pork belly.

Here we're using pork tenderloin instead of the pork belly.

It cooks a lot faster, it's easier to manage, and on top of that, it still maintains that kind of rich, chewy bite.

First thing I want to do is take care of that silver skin that you see right there.

That tends to be a little bit on the chewier, more stringy side of the texture spectrum, so we don't want that.

We only want the tender pieces of meat on the inside.

Now, once everything is taken off of that tenderloin, we can go ahead and cut this in half lengthwise.

And then from there we can go ahead and cut this into half moons, quarter of an inch thick, so that way they cook very quickly in the pan.

So now that we have all of our pork in our bowl here, we can go ahead and marinate this in a very simple marinade.

We're looking at one tablespoon of soy sauce.

We're also going to add in half a teaspoon of black pepper.

Give that a toss.

So we're going to cook all of our pork in a wok, which is going to to make this dish happen... (snaps fingers) like that.

So we're going to set it over high heat.

I like to test the heat of a pan by holding my hand... - Me too.

- ...in the pan.

- I do the same thing.

I think it's pretty hot, but just to test, splash some water in there.

(sizzles) Yeah, everything's evaporating.

So, in fact, I'm going to lower the heat just a little bit.

Now that this is screaming hot, I'm going to throw in a teaspoon and a half of grapeseed oil and very quickly spread that around the pan.

We'll go ahead and we'll cook half of our pork.

We want to work in batches here, so that way we don't overcrowd the pan and therefore only steam the meat.

We want to create some nice caramelization.

(sizzling) So once it goes into the pan, you want to get it into one even layer fairly quickly.

Again, these are very thinly sliced pieces of pork, so they're going cook in about one to two minutes.

But once you have them in their spot, you don't want to touch them, leave them alone.

Let him cook for about two minutes, undisturbed, so that way they can really caramelize in the pan.

And after that, we can go ahead and give them a stir until none of that pink meat remains.

So I've left this pork alone for about two minutes, and as you can see, we got a really nice brown color on there.

So from here, just give it a stir.

You want to cook this pork through.

(sizzling) I think we're good to go.

So I'll go ahead and transfer this into a bowl.

We'll repeat the process with the next batch of meat, but we do have to start again with that teaspoon and a half of grapeseed oil.

So now that all of the meat is definitely cooked, we can go ahead and move on to the next step of this recipe, which involves our shiitake mushrooms.

Now, we'll start off the pan with another tablespoon of oil and just like before, coat the interior and then throw your mushrooms in.

Now this is eight ounces of shiitake mushrooms with the stems removed, and then the caps are just sliced into half-inch pieces.

And we're also going to throw in half a teaspoon of salt.

And that's going to not only season the mushrooms but also help them release... - Get the moisture out.

- Exactly.

And then we'll let that cook for about four minutes.

All of the mushrooms have shrunken a little bit, and that's because they've released a lot of their moisture.

So at this point that we can go ahead and add in some more flavor here.

So we do need to prime our pan, if you will, with a little bit more oil.

We're looking at another tablespoon of oil.

And that's going to go in with three cloves of garlic that have been sliced.

So we'll give that a toss until it's aromatic, and that should really only take about a minute.

You'll also start to notice that some of the garlic will start to brown around the edges.

That's a good indicator that you should move on to the next step.

We can go ahead and return all of our cooked pork, along with any of the juices that are in the bowl... (sizzling) back to the pan.

Give that a little toss, and now we can go ahead and add in our kimchi at this point, along with two tablespoons of that kimchi juice, one and a half tablespoons of soy sauce, and, finally, three tablespoons of mirin.

And then now we can go ahead and give this a good toss.

(sizzling) And we're really only cooking this through until the kimchi warms up, so that should only take about three minutes.

(sizzling) I'm sure you can smell that, right, Chris?

- It doesn't smell like fermented kimchi now.

It's changed.

- Applying heat does kind of mellow out that funkiness, but then also we threw in soy sauce and mirin, so it has a nice background for flavor.

So we'll turn off the heat, and then we're going to add in the whole bunch of scallions that we've thinly sliced.

We'll throw half of that in there, along with half of our sesame seeds, so that should only be about a tablespoon's worth.

And, finally, we'll finish this off with one tablespoon of sesame oil, and that's really going to give this dish a really nice nuttiness and very, very aromatic.

- No, it smells great.

- Smells fantastic.

And as you can see, a lot of those juices did reduce down.

So we have this nice glaze going over everything.

going to pour that juice right on top.

Now to really finish this dish off, we want to give it a pop of color.

And that's what we saved all that scallion for.

Sprinkle that right over the top.

And don't skimp on it.

And then we'll also finish it off with our sesame seeds.

- I think it's time to eat.

What do you think?

- It's time to eat.

(laughs) So while you serve yourself up, sorry, I'm just going to beat you to it.

I want some of this now.

- And now we'll see.

- Now we shall see.

- I mean you've given this a great sales pitch.

Now we got to figure out whether... (Josh laughs) Mmm...

It's got a little bit of heat.

It's interesting, but it's-it's very different than just kimchi out of the jar.

- Yeah.

What I really like is the contrast of texture between pork tenderloin and shiitake mushroom.

They both have that same kind of meaty bite.

- So sesame stir-fried pork with shiitakes is a stir-fry, but has a really interesting concept to it, which is taking that fermented kimchi, which has a very distinctive flavor and aroma if you just eat it.

But once you cook it, it just adds a whole base of flavor to it that's quite different than what it is before cooking.

So you can get this recipe, sesame stir-fried pork with shiitakes, and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

All episodes and recipes from this season of Milk Street Television are available for free at our website, MilkStreetTV.com.

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Order your copy of the Milk Street cookbook for $23.95, 40% less than the cover price, and receive a Milk Street tote with your order at no additional charge.

Call 855-MILK-177, or order online.

Funding for this series was provided by the following.

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- Since 1899 my family has shared our passion for everything that goes into our Mutti 100% Italian tomatoes.

Only tomatoes.

Only Mutti.

- Designed by cooks for cooks for over 100 years.

Cookware collection by Regal Ware.

Handcrafted in Wisconsin.

- The AccuSharp knife and tool sharpener, designed to safely sharpen knives in seconds.

AccuSharp: Keep your edge.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪