(Joyful music) (audience clapping) - Just because root vegetables spent most of their lives with their heads buried in the dirt, is no reason why we have to neglect them.

Today, I'm going to bring this underground hero to light.

My first dish remind me of a sinking ship.

It is full of leaks, caramelized leeks, to be precise.

(audience laughing) First of all, I wanna show everybody, a lot of people probably have not used leek as much.

I'm going to show you how easy it is to clean up leek and julienne the leek.

Then we'll caramelize the leek and stir fry with beef.

First, we cut this off, and then, we hold onto this and we cut this in quarters like this, one, two.

Do you know that, there's a lot of mud and dirt around.. so we got to wash it okay?

So I want to take over here, and wash it right here.

I just recently remodeled my kitchen.

(water flowing) It looks absolutely beautiful.

I spent a fortune.

(audience laughing) Okay.

Shake it.

Now we are ready to cut.

First.

We cut this off, throw that away.

And then I want to show you cut into about three inch long and set aside, and then we julienne this.

(knife chopping) Look at that, very easy.

You just keep moving your knife and then you have julienne pieces like this.

Look at that, like this.

You can take time to do the whole thing and you do not have to do in the last minute.

(knife chopping) Set it aside, and then put it right here.

So we have a lot of leek, and this leek will be used to put it on the very bottom of our dish.

Okay.

First you have to have a hot wok, put a tiny bit of oil.

Okay.

And then you saute your leek, because I'm going to show how quickly, how easy it is to caramelize your leek.

Toss.

Toss this.

Toss.

Now you cannot caramelize your leek unless, you have the right ingredient.

Okay.

What we did, is to have, a tiny bit of garlic, and ginger, if you want, you can also use a tiny bit of soy sauce, a tiny bit of, vinegar.

Jinjang vinegar, that vinegar.

Or you don't have it, you can use the Balsamic vinegar.

Toss.

And then also use a tiny, tiny bit of sugar.

Okay.

Don't use too much in the beginning.

You got to do it one by one.

Oh, look at, we've got to shut this off first a little bit because it is a little bit hot for me.

(vegetables sizzling) Okay.

Okay.

Stir.

Can you see this?

You'll continue to stir.

Now I'm using this bamboo chopsticks to do, not only to serve, but to cook.

How many you know that most the chopstick make with bamboo?

Because bamboo it is strong, flexible, heat resistant, and also very economical besides there's no older.

So it's very easy to do.

You continue to do this, stir, stir, put more brown sugar.

Put a tiny bit more, Jinjang vinegar or Balsamic vinegar, it would not take too long to do keep on tossing, tossing.

In the meantime, we are going to get ready to do our beef.

While I'm caramelizing this leek.

Here, I have some beef already cut up, and I am going to quickly marinate it with a tiny bit of soy sauce, and also a tiny tiny bit of cornstarch, to sear in the juice.

Give that nice, shiny glaze, and also give the smooth texture.

Okay.

In the meantime, I'm going to stir my beef, stir fry my beef.

Would turn this up, hold onto this wok, heat this up, once again, put a tiny, tiny bit of oil, in the meantime, I'd toss this, so it won't get burnt.

Move them around, until their nice and brown.

In the meantime, I'm going to also heat this up, put a tiny bit dry chili pepper, make it nice and hot.

Tiny bit of garlic.

(wok sizzling) Tiny bit of ginger.

(wok sizzling) Wow.

It is so hot.

The darn thing couldn't stand anymore, it jumps.

And then put the beef in.

(wok sizzling) Stir this.

(tossing wok) Toss.

Make sure you're tough.

And then you'll come back here and you'll toss.

And then you'll come back here.

You'll continue to toss.

(audience laughing) You can burn now all your calories.

(audience laughing) (tossing wok) (audience laughing) I am having fun.

(stirring beef) And then last minute, put a tiny bit soy sauce, to flavor it.

(beef sizzling) A tiny, tiny bit of Sesame seed oil.

If you want to make a sauce, very simple.

Put a kind of a chicken broth or beef broth.

(beef sizzling) Oh, look at that.

(beef sizzling) And then you're thickening it up with a tiny, tin.. of corn starch solution.

Put it right in the middle, right here.

(stirring beef) Just enough.

Very nice.

(stirring) Just enough.

And then this is also, this is all about done, so when it's done, you know what I'm gonna do?

(claps) I'm gonna transfer this.

This is not mine, so I'm not as concerned.

(audience laughing) Put this right in the middle.

Shut this off.

Look at this, chopstick.

Put it right in here.

This is caramelized.

Okay, it's kind of darken a little bit.

Look at this.

I'm going to put this over here.

And then you know what?

I am going to put the beef, right on top.

(tossing wok) Over here.

(pouring sizzling beef) Oh, look at this.

This is absolutely delicious.

Look at this beautiful beef with caramelized leek.

(audience clapping) Now, for another family member of the vegetable underground, the potato.

the root of all delicious soups, including this one, with black, white fungus.

Okay.

We're going to show you how to do this marvelous dish.

Everybody can do it and enjoy it at home.

Here, I have two different kind of fungus.

This is the snow fungus also called white fungus.

Xueli, we call it in Chinese.

And this dry one, it can be kept in air tight container for at least 6,000 years.

(audience laughing) And then when you soak them, they bring out to be this big.

And you got to remove the little stem like this with this little knife.

This a little stem.

You use your knife, you put it over here.

You got to look at this.

You just cut it out like this, cut it out.

Don't cut your fingers.

Okay.

Trim this and trim, this is a pretty tough part.

Look at that, the whole thing comes up and you say goodbye.

And then you break this up.

Look at how easy it is.

You just break this up like this, look at that, you just break this up, break this up, this way, you can do in a lot of stir fried dishes and a lot of soup, and even in dessert.

Okay.

And also we have the other fungus, which is also called cloud ear or black fungus.

It looks like this, also can be kept infinite, indefinitely.

When it's soaked dumped, they become three times as big.

Okay?

Look at this original, copy of the original, much bigger.

If this is getting too big, you can cut this in quarters so they won't look too big.

And then we get ready to cook this dish.

Before we do anything else or I want to save the time.

So here, I am going to heat this up.

Let's turn this up, and put the soup stock, right in here, a lot of soup.

Okay.

And then I put the fungus right here, and I put the white fungus, and then we stir this a little bit.

While I'm cooking this, cover this up.

We're going to get ready the chicken.

Okay.

Let's remove these.

And then get this ready, I want to show you this.

I have a piece of chicken, I'm going to show you how the Chinese chef mince the chicken.

First.

You use this parallel cut technique, cut in half cut into thin pieces like this.

And you have more time.

Do again.

Julienne.

Cut it up.

Mince.

(knives chopping) Having fun.

(audience laughing) (knives chopping in beat) (audience laughing) Well done, this is how they do it.

Set it aside, put it right here.

Then, when this all ready, we remove this, and put the chicken right in here.

Let it cook.

Put the mashed potato, which is act as thickening as well as add some extra carbohydrate and starch.

And then of course, let's flavor this with a tiny bit of salt, tiny bit of sugar, tiny bit of white pepper, Sesame seed oil.

Wow.

The pepper it driving me nuts.

(audience laughing) If I were you, I would not add that many peppers.

(audience laughing) I would add half as many.

Fortunately, I didn't get a chance to taste that yet.

When it's done, you remove this, and you can serve right here.

This beautiful.

If you want, you can lightly thicken it up, either with corn starch, or tiny bit of egg white, shut it off first.

Then you drizzle in the egg white, with your chopstick.

And then you can serve the whole thing, like this.

Shut it off, drizzle it in, this is a lot of good nutrition.

Look at that.

The whole thing is done.

When the whole thing is done, all you have to do simply, is put this in a beautiful bowl.

Look at this, huh?

Whole thing in a bowl.

The whole thing is here.

And then garnish it, with a teeny tiny bit of chopped, green onion, and cilantro.

And you'll have a beautiful, light, healthy soup.

(audience clapping) The Chinese all around the world, are very concerned about food and health.

And do you know that in China, there are many medicinal property attribute to the white and black fingers.

They are believed to improve your complexion and purify the blood.

In fact, the Chinese have turned the study of medicinal food into a science.

And let me show you what I mean.

(speaking in Chinese) Here's a unique concept, a health food restaurant that comes with a doctor, a pharmacist, and a chef.

At the Yi Chao Hao restaurant in Hong Kong, you can have a consultation of a doctor as you come in.

No appointments needed.

- So, okay.

(speaking in Chinese) - The doctor said, I have indigestion, and wrote me this prescription for herbal tea.

(ripping paper) China's prescriptions are almost as legible as American ones, don't you think?

There's a pharmacy inside the restaurant, where I can fill my prescription.

Mr. Chow here is the only man in Hong Kong who can read the doctors handwriting.

They store the herbs in little wooden drawers inside the circular cabinet.

And I think of it as a lazy Susan with herbs.

They fill my tea prescription twice, one to drain here, and one for me to take home.

Now I'll go upstair to drain my herbal tea and eat my dinner.

His herbal tea, the doctor have just prescribed for my indigestion, and taste it.

(sipping tea) Wow, strong, slightly bitter, but it feels good.

In fact, I'm ready to eat again.

Look at this, this is a manual.

Looks very much like all the dish that you can order from your local Chinese restaurant, but they all prepare with exotic herbs.

Let's start with ginseng tonic, with longan and fruit.

It replenish your energy and calms your nerves.

This is spring chicken soup of sea dragon, and sea horse.

Great for those of us who are no longer spring chickens.

Duck will close, will stabilize your stomach, and walnut chicken roll, helps vision and gives you a great deal of energy.

Crispy fry eel balls are good for everyday aches and pain.

Plus they increase your blood circulation.

This are ginseng dumplings with spinach.

They calm your nerves.

And this are sharksfin dumpling with cardamom seed, they strengthen the spleen and help the kidney.

This a shumai, make with wolfberry fruit help your eyesight, so you can see forever.

Here is my favorite, shrimp haga, with the feet from the dry, frock ovary duck.

It strengthened the muscle, and nourish the liver.

At the Yi Chao, When they say eat it in good health, they really mean it.

(audience clapping) Wow, you see that?

A restaurant and a doctor's office under one roof.

In fact, the guy next to me, order six pots thicker, and a side order of cough suppressant.

Now, okay, let us get back to our roots, again.

Today, I'm so excited because all my relatives including my brother's whole family is right here.

And that's the reason why I'm so excited.

Look at that.

This next recipe is braised lamb shank, loaded with delicious root vegetables.

Here you look at this here.

I have lamb shank already cut into pieces, like this.

Okay?

And then I will use this lamb shank, I'm going to braise it, and in fact while I'm talking about this, simultaneously, without your attention, I already braised this already.

So here, we come to this, we braise this.

You got to brown this for two reasons.

One, you'll make it nice and brown.

Second, you get to rid of some of the fat, so you can drain them.

Okay?

And then after that, when you're ready you'll put some home mix soup stock.

Let's put this over here.

A tiny bit Sesame seed oil to flavor.

And of course, Shaoxing wine.

The amount you put in, it doesn't make any difference.

This much or more or maybe even more.

And then you don't make it hot and spicy, put a tiny bit of sweet chili sauce.

Oh, this is going to be hot.

And then a tiny bit soy sauce, and more interesting, a tiny bit of Hoisin sauce.

H-O-I-S-I-N that they use for barbecue spirit, barbecue pork and Moo Shu pork wrappers, all of these.

And then after this is ready, we are going to get ready two more thing.

I have some mint leaf.

I julienne this, and also look at this, this is star anise, tastes like licorice, but stronger.

Looks like a star anise, we're put two pieces of this star anise right here.

A very popular Chinese spice.

And after that, we're going to bring this to a boil, and reduce the heat to simmer and simmer, for about 45 minutes to an hour, until they're nice and tender.

Okay.

In the meantime, while I'm stir frying, while I'm braising this, I'm going to show you quickly, how to get ready some of these daikon.

This is daikon or white turnip, would peel that.

After you peel that, I cut it up into, roll cutting into chunks like this by roll cutting.

I cut and roll quarter of a turn, I cut and roll quarter of a turn, row cutting technique, same size, different shapes.

Do it the same thing with carrot.

One, quarter of a turn, cut, quarter of a turn, cut.

Aside from this, we also have mushroom and onion.

Okay.

And also potato.

All of this will be put into our wonderful dish.

You set this all aside.

Okay.

In the meantime, I want to show you because it takes about 45 minutes to an hour and a 50 minutes to braise this, to simmer this, and this is already done.

One for you.

Oh, look at this.

This is looks unbelievable.

When this is done, you can actually scoop it out, look at this, if you want, you can slightly thicken it up a little bit with cornstarch solution, okay.

Thicken a tiny, tiny bit with cornstarch solution.

And this way, one portion of cornstarch at about three portion of water.

We'll put this over here and it's a beautiful wonderful dish for all seasons.

This is the braised lamb shank.

With all the spices and daikon, how beautiful and delicious.

(audience clapping) Now, let's move from lamb to yam.

Yams are the sweetheart of old underground stuff.

I used them to make one of my favorite dessert, fruit fill yam cookies.

Here, look at all of these yam I have.

This is very interesting.

This is Nam Mi yam from Hawaii.

And this is of course, sweet potato and yam, and sweet potato, sweet potato, yam, and all you have to do is, boil this and you peel it, boil it until they're nice and soft, and we are ready to do this.

Cut into a couple pieces like this, and we're going to make this yam dough in this food processor, we dump this yam, and put a tiny bit of glutinous flour.

And a tiny bit of a sugar.

And then we use this food processor.

We're going to do.

(food processor whirring) Make this yam dough.

Okay.

It doesn't take too long to make.

While I'm doing that, I want to show you when it's done.

You should put in the fridge, for approximately half an hour to an hour.

Okay.

Until they're nice and firm up a little bit.

In the meantime, I'm going to turn on my oven, and the burner, not the oven but the burner, to heat up my frying pan.

And I cut a little piece, another little piece, another little piece.

We'll set this aside, and you know what I'm going to do?

I'm putting some extra flour, put it right here.

Okay.

And I'm going to get ready with this.

And I press this.

Look at that.

Like that, so this way is perfectly round.

Okay.

And then, I'm going to fill this yam, with all this filling.

I want to show you what filling I have.

Here, I have sweet red bean paste.

Sometimes it's dark bean paste, I have apricot chopped up, raisins, and Manju date.

And this is sesame seed, coconut, and of course, some roasted nuts right here.

When you put them all together, it looks like this.

And we're going to use this fruit fill, filling to put it right over here.

Set it aside.

And I want to show you, okay.

Hold onto this, put a tiny bit.

This is very, very good texture.

Put all of these over here, and you close it up like this, close it up, close it up, close it up.

And then you put them all backs kneaded.

And then you put this right over here again.

And then once again, you press this perfect round shape, like that, look at that.

And then you are going to brown this with teeny, teeny tiny bit of oil right here, not much, just a teeny tiny bit.

You do one.

You can do one.

You can do another one, maybe another .. Huh?

If you have time, do one more.

And if you have more people, you do absolutely no big deal.

And other one, when this is all done, we remove all of these, you know why?

Because we, I'm going to show you how easy it is to serve it.

Of course, you should always clean up.

Very, very interesting.

One of the easy way to clean up, is use your knife, look at that, to clean up.

This is a easy way to clean up.

Look at this, all clean up.

When it's clean up, we're going to serve these alone.

This is wonderful.

When this is done, you take this out, put one over here, take this out, put one over here, and take this out, put another one here.

You know what?

I serve along with one of my favori..

This is, fun Sui tong soi, means, sweet yam cube with a ginger flavo..

When I was growing, my mother always served me this.

If you want to make it more interesting for the yam, you can put a tiny bit of powder sugar, right here.

So you have a beautiful, exotic yam cookie filled with dry fruit.

(audience clapping) Now, root vegetable may look like they have been direct through the mud, but clean them, peel them, and cook with them, and you end up with something worth rooting for.

Until next time.

Keep exploring your route.

And remember, if Yan can cook, So can you.

“Goodbye!” (##!)

(audience clapping)