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

Remember the old saying: too many cooks spoil the broth.

I don't believe it.

There were plenty of time when I spoiled the broth all by myself.

(laughing) I believe in a new saying: two cooks are better than one.

Or just to be on the safe side today, I'm not gonna make any broth.

Of course, we might make a little bit mess.

Today, the show is going to be fun, and I want everybody here have fun, I want you at home to have fun, so make sure you stay there for the next 30 minutes.

Now, first of all, I'm gonna show you how to do a dish, I think, this wonderful dish, this dish I call big stuff mushroom.

I kind of make up this dish because one day I have some leftover rice and I don't know what to do with it, so I decided to do big stuff mushroom.

I don't know how many of you in the studio audience, or whether you at home have ever tried this before, but this is the second time I've tried it, I hope I can make it.

(laughing) Now, first of all, you've got to have all kind of stuffing.

Here, I have some chopped mushroom.

I'm gonna get a knife and chop us some mushroom.

In the mean time, I am gonna heat up my wok because I have to stir-fry this stuffing.

While you're chopping, you gotta look at what is going on in the wok.

(laughing) (rhythmic chopping) Ah, that is okay.

(applause) Now this is also great exercise, if you need more exercise, all you have to do is, you only need one mushroom, all you have to do is just keep going.

(laughing) It depends on how long, depends on how many calorie you wanna burn up.

You can do it all day.

Then you have what you call finely minced mushroom, otherwise your coarsely chopped mushroom.

Now, aside from this, I also have some chopped carrot, about two tables chopped carrot, two tablespoons to three tables one chopped zucchini, and some chopped cooked shrimp.

And also one chopped one stalk of green onion, also chopped.

Now, this is very easy to do, first of all, when the wok is hot enough, let's turn it up high, put a tiny bit of oil, not much, exactly half a teaspoon, up to one and a half teaspoon up to two teaspoon, see, very flexible.

(laughing) And then, put, oh, also, you need a tiny bit of garlic, so we also slice up some garlic then press this and go... (chopping) Still watching the wok.

(laughing) Done.

And put it over here.

Start putting all the ingredients, shrimp, okay.

This, you got to get your feeling ready first, because you got to cook it and let it cool down, okay.

Put all this ingredient in.

Carrot, zucchini, green onion.

And then a tiny bit of, about half a teaspoon of salt and a dash of white pepper.

And then move them around.

Stir.

And then you can actually toss the damn thin.. like this.

(rhythmic sizzling) (applause) Make sure you catch it.

(applause) Okay.

And then put some rice, leftover rice from yesterday.

Okay.

Stir.

Stir, and stir.

The great thing about this is this is actually a .. do you agree?

This is actually fried rice with m.. this actually a dish by itself, so that means if you run out of patience, you don't wanna bother to stuff your mushroom, you stuff yourself with stuff.

(laughing) See.

Okay, beautiful.

And then you shut it off.

After you shut it off, you put the egg, I have two egg.

This would make it easier for you to stuff into the mushroom.

You see this?

Okay.

See, nice, moist, look beautiful.

We'll put it over here, put it over here.

And you put it over here.

See, the egg is not totally cooked.

We'll put this aside.

We'll put this over here, so everybody, I want to show everybody.

Okay.

Now, it's very important.

Then, you start to stuff the mushroom.

Here, I have one mushroom, two mushroom, and then you open up very carefully, you don't want to break the mushroom.

Juggle around.

Remove this.

Juggle this around.

Remove this.

And then you use a spoon to push this over here.

Now, make sure you have a nice smooth mushroom.

You see this?

Each birthday, I would use one of these mushroom and that's enough to make about 28 mushrooms.

(laughing) One for each of my birthday.

I'll be celebrating my 28th birthday for 25 years.

(laughing) You see, one.

The great thing about this is if you have time, you do it, by yourself.

You don't have time, you should ask some help.

For 28 of these, I won't want to have this for dinner, otherwise I will have dinner in the year 2001.

Fortunately, my brother Michael came here a little bit early and gave me a hand to stuff some of these mushroom.

So, we can put this in the oven and bake it.

Okay.

And we'll bake this for approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

Now, the great thing about this is time pass by very fast.

(laughing) (applause) This is basically... Now, the next thing is important, is to make sure, the important thing is, when you do it, make sure the stuffing is nice and smooth.

And this is the rice stuff.

Don't make it sloppy stuff, otherwise the stuff is all going all over the place.

Okay.

The next thing is you want to make a sauce, and the sauce, you can use the juice from the mushroom, okay, and then also use about a teaspoon of sesame seed oil and also use a tiny, tiny bit of wine.

And then the mushroom juice is very tasty, then thicken it up with corn starch, one portion of corn starch to about two to three portion of water, okay.

Stir this, make it into a thickening.

Make sure that it's thicken enough, okay.

Let's put it over here.

And then, when it's done, you pour it on top of this gorgeous mushroom.

Look at how beautiful.

You see?

Next, I am gonna cook some seafood, but let's go down to the fish market and see what is fresh, okay?

This is my second home, a fish market.

I love fish so much, I could have it every day.

I'm gonna show you some more popular salt water fish that I love.

This is snapper.

And here we have a king-size red snapper, look at how humongous this is.

And this a white bass.

And this is rakso.

This sanddab.

Yellowtail.

Sheepshead.

Striped bass.

And galloper here.

Now, tips for fresh fish.

The first sign of a fresh fish is you look at the eye, look at how shiny, how clear, if it's opaque and cloudy the fish is not fresh.

Tips number one.

Tips number two, you open the gill to make sure it's nice and bright red, that means it's nice and fresh.

If it's dark and brown, it's old.

Third, you gotta poke it into the muscle.

If it's firm and springy, it kind of bounce your finger, that means this is nice and fresh.

Last tip on freshness: you, of course, sniff a little bit and smell it.

Mmmm, it smell like an ocean breeze.

It doesn't smell like a fish.

If it smell fishy, it's not a live, fresh fish.

So tips for freshness and I'm gonna show you how to do a wonderful fish dish today.

(applause) I was going to bring the beautiful, giant, king-size red snapper back to the studio, but I left the damn thing in the taxi.

If any of you taxi driver there watching the Yan Can Cook show right now, please pay extra attention.

If it doesn't smell like fresh ocean breeze in your cab, please give me a call right away.

(laughing) Now, the next dish is, I wanna show you, this is actually a red snapper, some, is actually become, belong to the rock fish family.

This is smaller one 'cause that damn thing is too heavy to carry damn thing .. can you imagine carrying a big gigantic fish around Chinatown, bring it back over here, they think you're nuts.

Now, basically, I cut it into about three quarter an inch to one inch thick, like a steak, then I marinade with about two tablespoon of soy sauce, one tablespoon dark soy sauce, and also one tablespoon of Chinese rice wine, or dry sherry, and also one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, and also a tiny, tiny bit of five spice powder.

And I'm ready because I'm heating up this heavy-dut..

I'm gonna brush a tiny bit of sesame seed oil over here.

Sesame seed oil.

Instead of using butter, I use sesame seed oil, okay.

Chinese stuff.

And then here, I have some wonderful spices, blackened salt.

Here is a mixture of two teaspoon of black pepper and about one and a half teaspoon of chili powder, hot stuff.

And also one teaspoon toast Sichuan peppercorn, also three quarter teaspoon of five spice powder, and also a tiny bit of salt and a tiny bit of corn starch.

Now, this is so hot, the fish is getting very excited.

(laughing) You know, to calm it down, you should put this in, you should put this fish in the fridge for little while, the idea of doing this allow to season to really penetrate through the whole thing, okay, then you blacken this like this, with a tiny, tiny bit of oil, not much.

So, I cut down the calorie, so I use oil instead of butter.

I blacken it like this, look at this.

Very, very hot.

Very hot.

Now, the important thing is, when you are doing this, make sure to turn on your exhaust vent, otherwise you are blacken more than the fish, you're gonna blacken your eye, your kitchen, you whole house, so make sure you turn on the exhaust, can you see the smoke, come, come.

(laughing) And then look at how fast you can actually do it because this is very, very heavy, this heavy metal, I cannot even lift the damn thing, can you... (laughing) How heavy the damn thing is.

Turn this upside-down.

Can you see how nice and black, can you see that?

You can actually see this right away.

You do it at about two and a half to three minutes on each side, can you see that?

Beautiful.

Very easy to do it.

Then, after it's ready, you can roll this out, of course, you can roll this out, this raw fish, roll this raw fish out.

It is what you call, it is only rock and roll, (laughing) but I like it.

Okay, now if you really want to make it look wonderful, you should serve it like this, let me show you.

Make it nice and fancy, you should serve it with some lemon, look at, beautiful dish.

(applause) You see that?

Now, (applause) the next dish I want to show you is a very, very interesting, unique dish that I have developed last week, just for you!

(laughing) And you!

Prawn with fragrant tea leaf.

And it's very, very easy, because everybody know that Chinese, most Chinese, are tea drinkers.

They drink tea with their dim sum lunch, they drink tea at the end of the meal, and also, I don't know how many of you know that the Chinese also use tea as an ingredient in the dishes, to cook.

So today I'm gonna show you how to do it.

First, you got to start with good quality tea leaf.

And I grind, this damn thing is $94 a pound, because you, at home, you're worth it.

(laughing) For myself, $1 and $75 a pound.

Ground it up in a little mortar, okay, into nice powder, like this.

This is oolong tea, good quality oolong tea.

And then you marinate the tea leaf, you marinate this prawn with approximately one egg white, two teaspoon of dry sherry, up to a tablespoon of dry sherry, and also a tiny bit of salt, dash of pepper, and a tiny bit of corn starch, then you can steam it.

We're gonna steam it over here in boiling, wonderful, you see, this time we do not need a bamboo steamer, because we have a little steam rack here, you see.

We're gonna put this over here and let it steam.

When it's ready, we are gonna make the sauce.

Here, I have quarter of a cup of chicken broth.

Tiny bit of salt.

And pepper.

And a tiny bit of shaoxing wine.

And a tiny bit of tea leaf.

Now, you gotta use a nice, good quality tea leaf, you don't want to use cheap stuff like this.

(laughing) Don't get caught holding the bag.

(laughing) And then, you make a sauce.

(applause) Look at this.

You make a sauce.

When it's done, you stir this, and you stir this, and then we'll set this aside, if you want to have extra flavor, all you have to do is put a kind of a mint leaf, you see that?

You can also have a choice of using orange spice, lemon spice tea to make this.

When it's done, you put this over, let me move this, you put this over these wonderful prawn, which is already done, all you have to do is pour this all over here.

Look at this.

How beautiful.

Very unique dish.

(applause) Now is the moment we have been all waiting for.

I'm finally getting some help in this kitchen.

So please, welcome the owner of the famed Chef Chu's Restaurant in the San Francisco Bay area, and author of this wonderful cook book, "Chef Chu's Distinctive Cuisine of China."

My good friend, Chef Larry Chu.

(applause) Welcome to the Yan Can Cook Show.

- So happy to be here.

- So, Larry, we've known each other for hundreds and hundreds of years, and I know that you were born in Sichuan, and I know that this particular dish you're gonna show us is one of the most popular, the four-star dish in your restaurant.

What is it, can you-- - Well, actually, it's a Sichuan style of tan.. what we have here, of course we need a preserved tangerine, if you don't have a piece of tangerine you can use dry tangerine is fine.

First, though, you have to soak in the warm water, so let then of reconstitute it so we can, the flavor will release, it will start, and then of course we need a beef, flank steak, which is, you're good at it.

(knife clanging) (laughing) - He is making me nervous already.

- By watching your show all the time, we gotta kind of a, every time, look at the cleaver.

- So, first of all, we gotta cut this up, we gotta marinate this, and then we're gonna make a sauce, this is very unique dish.

So you're gonna do it.

I am gonna help my good friend Larry to do it.

Should I cut this up for you while you're getting ready for the... - Well, you're good at it, I watch you did it bef.. - [Yan] No, I'm just helping you, I'm not, not because I'm good, because I'm helping you.

- All right.

(laughing) No sense in arguing.

- Cut it diagonally, while I'm cutting this up, why don't you tell everybody what we're gonna need for the marinade.

- Okay, the purpose of a marinade is trying to tenderize the meat, give the flavor to the meat, what we need is a two tablespoons soy sauce, and of course we'll need a bit of water, two tablespoon water.

Tend to tenderize the meat, give more moisture to the beef.

And then have little oil set aside, and a pinch, little bit of white pepper will give a flavor to it.

And of course I have a little corn starch right here, that goes a little later.

- I am done, let's-- - That was a f.. (speaking simultaneously) Together, all the flavor penetrate into the beef, okay, this is purpose of, we gave it flavor to the beef, and also will tenderize the beef, and this way, we immediately will give it a corn starch.

The purpose of corn starch is try to give a body to the beef, to give a body of beef.

- [Yan] Shiny glaze, so in the juice.

- [Larry] That's right, we try to keep the juice inside the beef.

And then we'll just put some oil.

- Tiny bit of oil.

- Oil will help-- - Why do you put oil over there?

- Because once put oil in there, the beef will be able to separate it, imagine this, after beef been cut up, marinated, all glued together.

The next technique I wanna share with your viewer is the oil blanching process.

- Oil blanching technique.

- Well, I know you never heard about oil blanching.

- I've never heard of it.

(laughing) - I created it.

- I agree.

- You heard about water blanching, actually is partial cooking, right now let me see the temperature's the water now.

Oh!

It's hot, 350 degrees.

- 375 degrees, to be exact, you said.

- That, because it's no longer the old method, put your finger in there to tell the temperature, we have electric wok right here, we can set a temperature, the temperature we want it.

Oil blanching, the purpose of it, is you cook in the oil, it will separate oil, it can able to separate the beef, to create a light, uniform outside, to keep the juice inside.

This is a little different than a normal oil blanching process, as for you know, Chinese cooking, not just, the nice flavor, aroma, also texture.

This particular beef, if we want it, blanch it a little bit longer.

- But a lot of people bothering concern, would that absorb too much oil in this particular case?

- No fear, 'cause, no fear.

(speaking simultaneously) Oil just like a bridge.

We'll take the beef out, we can oil, use the oil again and again, so we didn't waste in oil, what we're trying to do is try to create a texture, so this we want, what we want is little bit, we'll give it another 15 second.

- [Yan] 15 second, why would-- - [Larry] While we're doing, can we cut some up-- - [Yan] While we're doing that, we wil.. garlic, let's chop up some garlic.

- All right.

- Let's do it all together.

(rhythmic clanging) (laughing) (applause) - [Yan] Oh!

- [Larry] All right, we got it all .. - Perfect, let's put it all in here.

- All right, let's go back a little bit.

What else is in the, ingredient.

- I'm getting more nervous after this.

- Well, being professional chef, you do this day in, day out, no big deal.

- This is a very, very popular restaurant technique.

- You see, the beef is all separated.

You can tell, there almost a charcoal outside, very much well done inside.

We want to set aside-- - [Yan] In the mean time, I'm heating this up for .. - Thank you.

- [Yan] Garlic.

- Okay, beside, we have a main ingredient, which is beef, and then we need a compliment ingredient, and it's spices, in this particular item, we do not need a compliment ingredient.

What we need is a spices, one is spice, of course, is preserved tangerine peel, if you don't have it, you can make one.

- Peel it right .. so everybody can see - Okay, we don't need that much.

- What we're doing.

That's all we need.

- All we need is that much, is all de.. if you want more, you put a little more.

- Okay, I keep that for myself.

(laughing) - We need the Sichuan peppercorn.

- I'm gonna keep this for myself, okay.

- And, of course, we need a dried pepper.

- Dry pepper.

- A little bit of... Four piece, few pieces like this.

- [Yan] I'm learning.

- Set aside.

- From one, two, three, four, four.. - Okay, now, first thing's first, we'll put some oil, need a spatula here, - The great thing about is you can use the same oil, that's perfect.

- Oil again and again, the purpose oi.. it's a strip, try to separate the beef, try to create a texture you wanted, and the first thing we do, we don't want it too hot this time, what we're trying to do, we'll put some Sichuan peppercorn in there.

Sichuan peppercorn is a very aromatic ingredient.

- It's not hot, isn't it?

- No, so, it has a special effect, if we put too much or if you let them fry come out too much, not only can smell, what happen is they have a tingling effect.

- Tingling, tingling - Tingling effect.

- Tingling for days, tingling.

- That's why make a Sichuan dish is so different.

That's not just, okay, now, we have quite a few of the pepper in there.

We don't want, - Brown it.

- We don't want it just hot, spicy hot, we want aroma from the pepper.

- [Yan] Flavor and aroma.

- Aroma of a pepper, so we don't want it get too hot, we wanna brown it, we don't wanna burn.

Just brown it, lightly brown it.

And this time we put it this way in there, as a matter of fact-- - Where can you find the dried tang.. - [Larry] As a matter of fact, in your backyard.

I'm just kidding.

Of course it's a widely available throughout-- - I remember, I remember when I was a little kid, my mom dried this all the time.

I understand that your restaurant serve a lot of Sichuan and Hunan dishes, a lot of people probably do not understand what is the difference between Sichuan and Hunan cuisine?

- [Larry] A terrific question.

A Sichuan and Hunan, basically, they are the similar, they are hot but entire in different way.

Hunan, known for their banquet dishes.

Their gigantic banquet dishes.

And Sichuan is known for home cooking.

- Home cooking.

- [Larry] You see, Sichuan is known for their distinctive spices, when you have a 20 different spices blended, mixed together, you create a thousand, hundred different style.

But let's mix some spices, please.

- Spices.

- Soy sauce, sugar.

- Soy sauce, s.. - Soy sauce, sugar.

- All together.

- One to two tables of soy sauce, mix them all together.

This is sugar.

One teaspoon of sugar.

- So right here, you see, the beef, the way we want to oil blanching, is have a little browning process.

The beef, is little bit of, it's not a tender anymore, but it has a nice chewy, good feeling.

Put in there.

- [Yan] this is one of the most pop.. not only in the restaurant, but all over America.

- [Larry] China.

- [Yan] All over China.

- What else, I like that.

- All over China, not just all of America.

Big, wonderful dish.

- Most of people were wondering at this time, how come it put so much broth in there, so many sauce in there, we try to let the beef absorb the flavor.

- Oh, the reason is because when you do the oil blanching, you kind of reduce some of the moisture, now it's the, the beef is kind of reabsorb the sauce, that's a wonderful idea.

- [Larry] May I have this one, please.

- [Yan] May I, sure!

(laughing) - [Larry] When a sauce reduce in half, - [Yan] See, two cooks is better than one!

- While the French chef do like this, what Chinese do, like this.

(laughing) - You can do any way, you can do a sideways, front, back,.. you can move, move them around.

- [Larry] As you can see, the sauce, it .. That sauce all, absolutely absorb by the beef, is time to move.

- This, this will, can you smell in the studio, it's absolutely wonderful.

This is beautiful.

- Talk about a smell, actually, this timing well, not just what's in there, the timing of our, timing is not how high-- - Larry, how about, how about a partnership, Larry?

You do the cooking, I will do the tasting.

(laughing) - [Larry] Fantastic, look at this.

(applause) - [Yan] Look, how beauti.. - [Larry] Just absorb in here.

You look the recipe, you know there's a pepper in there.

- Yeah, you know, you probably notice that Larry have, before we started Larry have done some garnishing with some nice kumquat, and some cucumber.

We put them all together, now the dish looks beautiful, can everybody see how beautiful the dish is?

(applause) Isn't it beautiful?

Now, cooking should be a sharing experience, and you're sharing the dining table, and you're sharing the kitchen, like me and Larry.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much for joining us.. on the Yan Can Cook, and special thanks for my good friend, master chef, Larry Chu, for sharing with us - Pleasure to be here.

- This wonderful dish.

Larry, if you can hang around a little bit longer, we have a lot of dirty dishes.

(laughing) So, if Yan can and Larry can, - So can you.

- So can you.

(applause) “Goodbye!” (##!)

- That's it.

Thank you.

(applause) (Joyful music)