(Joyful music) (audience applauding) - You know a great beginning can make a meal.

After all, that's the reason why they call the first course an appetizer.

It is supposed to wet everybody's appetite and set the stage for the main event.

That's why it's so important to have great good beginnings for any meal.

In Asia, the best appetizers are beautiful, simple, light and full of flavor.

Like this crispy seafood triangles I'm gonna show you.

There's several way to do it, I'm gonna to show you how to do it okay.

Here, I have several wrapper here that everybody can buy in all supermarket.

These are the regular wrappers that are long, wonton wrappers and you cut it up is long like this, you cut it in half is wonton wrappers.

Triangle, or you can cut into triangle, you can cut into square, you can also buy wonton wrappers and spring roll or egg roll wrappers which is normally about six inch in diameter.

This is normally three inches.

This is six inches in diameter.

And then you can also buy some spring roll wrappers which is eight inch in diameter.

Like this.

Most of the Chinese restaurant use this for their spring rolls, particular, traditional deem some restaurants.

And what I'm gonna do is pick up a couple of these and sit to the side use this for our dish, and also cut this up.

This is how you do it.

I use this knife the same knife as I said earlier that I shave this morning.

And I cut this up like that.

This is how sharp this knife is.

One, look at that.

Just like fabric.

And I cut this up like that.

I was save this for tomorrow.

And I have two pieces like this and I'm gonna make all kinds of triangle out of these because you can use your imagination.

We'll set this aside.

Now, this is very important.

Anything that you're not using, or you're not ready you should always cover up with a wet towel like this.

This way, it won't dry it up.

Very important.

In the meantime, I'm gonna make the filling for the spicy clam dish with the spring roll wrapper or wonton wrappers.

I have some cream cheese here.

And I have some clam.

You can use seafood, you can use shrimp, you can use fish, you can use pork, you can use anything you want.

I use clam.

Make it a little bit different.

You can use scallop too.

I put this clam right here, mixed it.

And then, I also put a tiny bit of, Oh look at this.

Jalapeno, chop.

Cilantro, chop.

And a tiny of lemon juice.

Chop.

Lemon juice, not chop.

When you get excited, everything is chop.

(audience laughing) Tiny of black pepper and a tiny of a sesame seed oil.

This will be the filling.

You'll mix them all up.

Look at that.

Mixed them all up.

Very interesting.

Just like you go to a lot of restaurant, they have wonton rangoon with crab meat and cream cheese.

Very, very popular.

But I use clam because this makes it a little bit taste different.

When you do things, why follow everybody's step?

Do something different.

Do something new.

Creates use your imagination.

When this is done, we open this up.

I wanna show you two simple to everybody can do a first.

Wonton wrapper, use a little spoon, why I'm doing this, now depends on how hungry you are.

If you're hungry, you use a lot more.

I will show you how simple it is.

In the meantime, I heat up my wok with oil.

So this way everybody can do it.

Look at that.

I use a tiny, tiny bit of water or egg white, to put it right here at the opposite angle and I fold this in like that.

Look at that.

Just to like a triangle.

Very simple triangle.

Like this.

Very easy.

And then, all I have to do is hold onto this and twist this and you know what?

You have a little wonton.

Look at that.

This is how you do it.

Very simple.

And I'll show you another one.

This is actually a triangle.

Put a tiny bit of these here, right in the middle.

And then use a brush if you want to save time.

And then you do it, all you have to do is do it like this.

And that's all you have to do.

One triangle, that's it.

That means you can shape it any way you want.

But if you want to have more crispy, better.

This is how you do it.

One, put a tiny bit here.

Very little thing.

Not much.

Put tiny, tiny bit right in the tip.. And then you once again brush this here and then you go like that.

Not all the way.

Just like that.

This way, you have all this dough, when you deep fry it's really nice and crispy.

And then you do this.

See this?

See?

This is the different.

For the hungry, for the diet conscious, if you are really on a diet, do nothing.

(audience laughing) And then the other thing I wanna show you, do you see this?

I wanna show you how easy it is.

I want to do a little brush here, and then this is the spring roll wrappers.

And I put some over here.

Not much, just enough.

Like this.

And I fold it in at this angle.

Look at that.

And then I fold it in this angle and I fold it in this angle.

And then I closed the whole thing up like this.

And I fold it in, look at this triangle.

Look at that.

See?

So you have all kinds of triangle.

You can make triangle, heptagon, all kinds of shape you want.

Depends on your imagination.

When it's done, we're gonna deep fry this over here.

Look at that.

When you do this, make sure the oil is hard enough.

How can you tell the all is hard enough?

Use this chopstick.

Look at that.

Nice bubble coming out.

The oil is hot enough.

Don't use this thermometer.

Use long cooking chopstick.

Why you're deep frying it, look at that.

Deep fry this.

Don't slam dunk.

Make sure you do it very, very cautiously.

Do it one by one.

Move them around with the chopstick.

This is how you do things.

And use medium, low to medium heat.

Once the oil is hot enough, you don't wanna deep fry it to a point that it browns and it burns.

While you're doing that we gonna make a simple, simple dipping sauce.

Right here.

Oh, you actually, you do not even have the use a dipping sauce.

You know why?

You can serve it with sweet and sour sauce or Worcestershire sauce.

Look at this.

very simple.

This is our cooking chopstick.

Long cooking chopstick.

When it's done, you shut it off and you use this to pick it up and then, you are ready to serve.

Can you hear the sizzling sound?

Everything comes out.

That's why it is wonderful to deep fry it in a wok because you can get everything out.

You don't have to use that much oil.

And also the great thing about deep frying appetizers, they are so tiny and so small.

That means if you are a diet conscious, you do not have to worry about using a lot of oil.

Look at this.

So you can line them all up like th.. lined them all up and you can have one look a little bit different.

You can have another one look very different.

And another one look absolutely ridiculously, out of place.

(audience clapping) As I said earlier, deep frying is great because you cut everything into little small pieces.

Even though they absorb a ton of oil, it does not absorb that much oil.

Also, you gonna make sure the oil is always hot enough.

And this is still deep frying.

I wanna get rid of these.

Deep frying on wok.

You can do it.

Save the oil don't throw the oil away.

You know why?

Because you can skim it, or run it through a nice skimmer.

A Scolandar or cheesecloth and put it in a jar and you keep the oil in the fridge and you can use it again for other dishes.

The next dish I'm gonna show you is another very wonderful, delicious, crispy appetizer that really wake up your taste bud.

I call this fire and ice squid with a Thai dipping sauce.

Very interesting.

First of all, I'm gonna show you how to clean up the squid first.

A lot of people say, "Mm-mm, I do not like squid."

But they like Color Molly.

Oh, what the heck is the difference?

Color Molly, I love squid and I do not like Color Molly.

(audience laughing) This is how you clean it up.

Look at that.

You put in water on running tap water and your hone to this and just remove the black skin.

If you don't like this you just pulled it out like this.

Look at that.

Very simple.

Just pulled it out.

Very easy to clean up.

Remove these, you know why I do it in water?

The reason why I do it in water because it's easy for me to clean it up.

And a lot of people don't even bother to clean it up.

If you're doing it for yourself, you know what?

You don't even have to worry about.

You see how it take the whole thing out.

Look at that.

The whole thing comes out like this.

Look at that.

Is not as slippery if you do it right here in running water or in water.

And after that, I remove these and I put it right here and then clean up and I pulled this out.

Look at this.

Pull the whole thing out like that.

And then pull the backbone.

This is a little backbone right here.

You see this, pull the whole thing out and then pull the whole thing out.

After you put it out, You know what you can do?

Cut it right in half.

Cut it in half and then you know what?

You can clean up the whole thing again.

Clean this up, clean this up and we don't want any of these.

I wanna show you.

You can clean up the whole thing, do it in water much easier.

Just make sure you do not want to break the ink bag.

Because once you break the ink bag, you gotta catch it so you can make more squid, in pasta, black pasta.

Now this is interesting.

The ink bag is right here and you want to avoid that.

So when you cut it, you have the cut at this angle.

So remove this and you say, "Goodbye."

And then you have this whole thing right here.

And then this is what makes it unique.

Everybody, look.

This is what makes it unique.

The Chinese chef do this, you score the inside, not outside but the inside.

You go at an angle, 45 degree, 45, 45, 45 degree.

Look at that.

Very, very fast.

When you do this, particularly, when you're using a .. don't let anybody rush you at all.

Just take your time.

Because it can be danger.

Once you make a mistake, is gone.

Cut it and three pieces like that.

Done.

I wanna show you once again, score at an angle.

One, two, three, four, score.

I don't know why.

I always like to count because this way I don't fall to sleep.

One, two, three.

Some people don't like to count.

But when you're in your kitchen, who cares?

You count.

One two, three, four.

You'll continue to score like that.

One, and you put it all together.

You see?

You do, I do it right in front of you.

Of course you, you don't have this.

No problem.

Use a little knife.

Who cares?

You can do it like this.

And then you can do it like this.

You can use a small paring knives, no problem.

Now, when this is done, I'm gonna have two simple things.

One, is fire another is ice.

The one is ice, I'm gonna just poach it.

In this very unique sauce I have green onion and ginger in this water.

And I put this right in here.

Put this right in here.

And I poached this.

Only takes approximately 30 seconds to a minute.

Do not over cook.

Everybody know, when you over cook your squid, you know what happen?

It chew your jaws off.

(audience laughing) So that's why you don't want to, take this out.

Take this out, take this out.

Doesn't take too long.

And you notice that the scoring make it really look nice.

And then I'm gonna take it over there and drain it right here.

And this is a draining bow.

Very cute.

Look that.

I take the time to punch a hole in this bowl.

And you better appreciate this.

It costs me a fortune, to buy a bowl.

It will pile over here.

You see, the water comes out like this.

And then in the meantime, we're gonna deep fry this.

Now this is very easy.

First, you gotta marinate your squid.

Squid, oh, don't say squid.

Color Molly.

Marinate with a tiny bit of salt, tiny bit of cornstarch, mixed them all up.

Use your finger, much more efficient.

After that, you gonna use some egg white.

Or egg, whole egg wash. Bring it up and put it right over here, mix it more up, first, starch.

And then put it back here if you want.

Makes it easier.

And then you know what?

You are ready to coated it.

This is what was interesting.

Look at this, I have some bread crumb, Japanese bread crumb called panko.

I have some sesame seed and I have some black sesame seed, mixed them all up and when it's all ready, what I'm gonna do, is mix this.

Put it together and coat it, and bread it.

Look at that.

And then, you know what?

After I bread it, I am gonna deep fry it.

And it's very easy to do.

And everybody look, only takes about 30 seconds to cook the whole thing.

And it doesn't take too long.

And of course, you should always, always clean up.. take the time.

And then we'll deep fry this, doesn't take too long.

While you're deep frying this, you know why you have to coat it with con starch first?

This way, just in case some water, they don't splash.

If it does splash, stay away.

That's why you have long cooking chopsticks.

So you can stay away from the wok.

You don't have to get too close to your wok.

Look at that.

You can be as far as two and a half miles away.

(audience laughing) You don't have to go like that.

Why I'm deep frying this until the golden brown we're gonna make a simple sauce.

This sauce is very easy to do.

I have some dark soy, I have some light soy and I have some lime juice or you can use the lemon juice, and I have some sugar, sugar, some ginger and some chops cilantro.

And then also some chili pepper.

Mixed them all up, This gonna be a wonderful sauce.

When this sauce is ready, we are gonna get our squid out.

One side is the ice because it's cold.

Look at that.

One side is the ice.

And one side is, this is the dipping sauce.

Hot, very hot.

And this is done.

We will take this out.

See, I don't know how many, you know, in China and Japan when they serve food out of a communal plate, communal bowl, they always use a common chopstick or if you don't have a common chop stick all they have to do is to turn the chopstick around.

Let me show you before we close this.

If you have a chop stick to serve this you just wanna pick up food for your guests or for yourself, you serve it.

You turn it to the other side, this way, you're eating it, so is polite.

There's a polite way and sanitary way to do it.

You do not eat and serve the same plate.

And this is fire and ice squid with a dipping sauce.

(audience clapping) You know in Hong Kong, appetizer can be as simple as a plate of wonderful noodles or buns.

Hong Kong chef can turn basic those into all kinds of wonderful sensational starters.

Here, we have all different kinds of buns, noodles, dumplings for you to enjoy.

This is green onion pancake.

Look at this.

When you open this up, you see all the green onion inside.

Let me show you.

All the green onion inside.

Look at that.

Pan fry, green onion cake.

And this khao soi gai so you have steam or poach or popo pork dumpling.

And this is Chinese chive dumpling.

If I open this up, you can see there's actually chive inside.

Look at this.

Use chive, beautiful and also very delicious.

And then of course here we have some pan fry, hand stretched or handmade noodle with meat and pickle vegetable.

And here is my favorite, hand-make noodle in a delicious broth with St. John pickle and meat.

(audience clapping) Wow, there's so many wonderful appetizers.

I hardly have any appetite left for dinner.

For the last dish, we're gonna make one of the favorite appetizer of Indonesia, Thailand, and many other Asian country.

I call it chicken saute.

You can use pork, you can use beef, you can use all kinds of saute.

Very simple.

I have cut up filet of chicken breasts like t.. Long strips like this.

And I marinated in five spice powder, Chinese five spice powder.

Curry, curry powder, cumin and coriander, and also a touch of sugar.

And of course, a tiny bit of lemon juice and soy sauce and a teeny tiny bit of oil.

And after I do that, I'm gonna skewer this in a bamboo skewer, very easy to do.

Look at that.

Marinate for at least half an hour.

Count your time.

Half an hour already.

(audience laughing) And then you do it, you skewer like this, one, two.

You just keep going back and forth,.. back and forth.

And you can do two at a time.

It's very easy to do.

You just keep going like this so it would not pack together, that difficulty.

And after that, we'll grill this right here, put it right here.

It doesn't take too long to grill.

And you can see this on the street of Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, all over.

Saute vendors, running all over the street.

And you do it like this.

In the meantime, you quickly make a peanut sauce.

All I have to do is put some unsalted peanut, some lemon juice and some brown sugar.

Look at that.

Some coconut milk and a tiny bit of chili oil and a tiny bit of chili piece.

And then of course, a tiny bit of Indonesian thick soy sauce called Saute.

And then you mix them all together and then you go like that.

(grinding) Very easy.

When it's done, very simple.

This blended, no problem at all.

And then you're gonna make the sauce.

We're gonna take this out.

And we are going to cook the sauce right here very simply.

Tiny bit of oil, garlic and onion.

Stir this into it and cook the sauce.

Look at this.

Cook the sauce, and all you have to do is make this.

And after this is done, you just take it out and of course, you scoop this and transferred all of these already done.

It doesn't take too long to cook.

Make sure when it's done you take this out.

You take this out.

(audience laughing) Wow, amazing.

(blowing) I love this excitement.

That's what makes cooking exciting because unexpected thing happen every day.

Now this enhanced the flavor.

When this is done, you put the sauce right in here and you have a beautiful chicken saute.

(audience clapping) When you are hot, you are hot.

Well, it seems like we just started and already our show on starter has come to an end.

So I have show you how to make creative dishes.

Just use your imagination with appetizer.

After all, the star of the meal is when your guests are at the most adventurous and they are hungriest.

Till next time, there's a world of great beginnings.

So remember, if Yan can cook.

So can you.

“Goodbye!” (##!)

(audience clapping)