Hey, so let us know what vegetables you're usually working with around where you live. Asparagus? Kale? If it's a green that's common in China we can shoot you a brief recipe, and if not we should still be able to give some ideas :)
Regarding some questions out there, here are my answers: 1. Yes, we blanch the morning glory and we add sugar to the water. I first tried it at a Hakka friend's home, then it was reaffirmed by an old Cantonese chef. Try it before disaproving it. I was really suprised by the balance of flavor when I first tried stir frying morning glory this way. Do a quick 10 secs blanching and stir fry it with shrimp paste afterwards, it'll bring you a nicely and evenly cook yet still very crunchy morning glory. In the video the veggie stayed out for too long after blanching because of the timing of filming, it lost the vibrant green. So when you're doing it in your kitchen, remember to do it real quick. 2. Yes, we throw away the gailan stems. I seriously don't know what all that fuss is about. To some of you out there: your family's way of doing something doesn't mean that's the only way of doing it. I also asked around my friends, who are all Cantonese from around PRD, many of them just cut off the bottom part too, BECAUSE IT GETS DRY AFTER SITTING IN THE MARKET THE WHOLE DAY! Gailan is cheap here, some people would throw away all the leaves on gailan and only eat the stems 'cuz they like it. There's a classic Cantonese dish that kinda stir fry and quickly "roast" the gailan stems (啫芥兰), not my favorite. Personally I don't like stems that much, so I throw some part away. Feel free to keep them and peel them or just slice them if you prefer the stems. It's totally a personal preference. But I'd still suggest you cut off the very bottom part (1cm) of the stem, that part's usually dried out after sitting out for a while. In my family we usually eat a lot of vegetables, so nobody got the patience to peel each stem of the gailan. Also, the veggies we got from the wet market often has a slightly dry bottom, it's common practice to snap off (or cut off) the very bottom part and throw it away. If you're buying a 3 dolloar/pound of gailan, sure you should savor every bit of it. 3. Yes, we use MSG. We're not buying into the non-scientific nonsense of anti-MSG. Here're some good read about MSG: ruclips.net/video/ji74pUeMayg/видео.html fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-msg-got-a-bad-rap-flawed-science-and-xenophobia/ www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/aug/12/msg-allergy-chinese-restaurant-syndrome-myth And a personal note on MSG: I think almost every Cantonese family has a long culinary tradition, so is mine. My family don't use MSG either. We love using umami rich ingredients and "extracting flavours out of natural aromatics". I love the way they cook, I appreciate the tradition and try to keep them and introduce the knowledge as much as I can. But a long time ago, I tried to add a tiny touch of MSG to some big batch of stock and it's amazingly good. It can compliment and round up the taste in a very subtle way if you're not over using it. And since then, you know what, I'm on the MSG train. I talked to old chefs, they use MSG too and they also emphasize on NOT OVERUSING it. It's like salt, it's a seasoning ingredient. Culinary culture and tradition is everchanging. We didn't have chili or many other spices before, and now we have them and they're awesome. Some of the best and most delicate dry seafood in Cantonese food is from Mexico and Japan, which we also didn't have before and now they're an important partof the cuisine. So, why stop the process of improving due to pure prejudice?
Veggies you get from normal supermarket. All you needs from Asian market are soy sauce, sesame oil and black bean sauce for flavor. Don't bother shrimp paste and the cooking wine.
yes, where i live there arent any asian markets that i can get to :( so what i have on hand is eggplant, zucchini, kale, a green cabbage which looks more like a bokchoy than a white cabbage, spinach and carrots, and peppers? any recommendations of which sauces would go (im vegetarian too so assuming only the first 2 would be alright) thanks!
I want to thank you for making my appetite return. . I am currently going through my Fourth stage of chemotherapy and eating is a Challenge. I stumbled on your channel and tried and succeeded in making one of your dishes and my hunger has returned. There are so many benefits to a Chinese diet. My strength is slowly returning and this diet may be a lifelong change. Thank you for making this train wreck of a cook into something rewarding.
God bless and all strength to you...I have found that Black Seed Oil supplement, and keeping away from white carbs has improved my health substantially by lowering inflammation and improving the immune system. Peace to you and yours...
When I was younger I would never eat vegetables, except for corn on the cob. Then I started eating Chinese cuisine. The way they cooked vegetables just changed my whole mind about eating vegetables. So from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you, thank you and one more thank you. Food and eating are Love.
Chinese greens leafy vegetables are also mostly very mild in taste compared to Western green leafy vegetables. In general most have no bitterness and leaves are usually very tender. (Having said that the Gai Lan tends to have a slight bitterness). I think the reason why most Chinese kids don't have any problems eating their leafy greens.
Agreed, nbrace5715. My mother, bless her heart, boiled every vegetable victim to death that she touched. I hated broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and everything because it was a mushy, water-logged pile of nasty. I thought that's what vegetables "where." Fast forward to being an adult, I found I liked roasted and steamed veggies. Quick blanching and quick stir fry is also great and it gives me more options for tasty veggies than just steaming alone. It's all in how a food is cooked, and sadly, Americans don't have a clue. My favorite vegetable is Bok Choy, when it's cooked right, OMG, and it's fairly easy to find in the US. Yay!
I think it is important to point out that the morning glory used in this video is actually Ipomoea aquatica (空心菜/通心菜), which has many other English names such as "water spinach" and "water morning glory." Not all species of genus Ipomoea (番薯属, aka. morning glories) are edible; in fact, many of them contain psychoactive or neurotoxic substances like ergolines (e.g. LSA) and pharbitin. A common poisonous example would be I.nil, aka. Japanese morning glory (牵牛花/喇叭花). Two well-known edible plants in the genus Ipomoea are I. aquatica, aka. water morning glory featured in this video and I. batatas, aka. sweet potatoes. On a side note, I really enjoy watching your videos! I like how you break down and reduce all the technicalities into well-explained underlying principles. As a Chinese, I learn something new about Chinese cuisine from your videos every time. Well done!
@Jack Blade "Regular" is the same everywhere, unfortunately. My suggestion: don't guess. Figure out the exact species with a local expert and do some research on its edibility.
We picked up the translation of "morning glory" a long time ago in Thailand and kinda stick with it in this video. But after seeing so many people got confused, I think we'll call it water spinach in the future~ :)
@@pedrochin2385 I’ve been home cooking for years now and it’s still a thrill when I achieve a meal where the natural flavours are front and centre but elevated perfectly by flavourful additions. That’s always the aim. You can’t beat that freshness.
This broccoli recipe is what I've been looking for! I've been watching all kinds of videos trying to find a really great recipe for stir fried broccoli. They all used lots of soy sauce, hoisin, oyster sauce, etc. Some of them were good, but so full of sodium. I made the broccoli yesterday and it was fantastic! The garlic, ginger, and broccoli really shine, rather than trying to rely on some kind of sauce for flavor. Thanks!
Can you make more videos like this! Always just one Chinese vegetable at a time with different flavor profiles (fermented bean curd etc.). This video was so helpful in many aspects. For one, it shows you how to deal with the vegetables that you see in asia stores without normally daring to buy them. Second, you learn those basic but awesome sauce bases!
We don't throw away the stems either. Never knew Tong Xin Chai was called morning glory since I've only seen it at Chinese restaurants. One of the variations on stirfry is that we never blanche, instead after light stirfry we pour in about a quarter bowl of water and cover to steam. Saves the blanching step and tastes great. For Gai Lan we usually do oyster sauce
yeah the throw away stems bit was a little bit painful vegetables are so expensive I personally eat everything the stems aren't even very tough usually I find they taste quite nice.
Here is how I know I watch too many of these videos and procrastinate when it comes to actually making the dish. I was cooking recently and under my breath I reminded myself to "Longyau, get that wok piping hot" while I waited for my flying pan to heat up. I was making cabbage rolls.
It is a mistake to throw away the fibrous bottom part of the Gailan... because that is the BEST part of the Gailan. What I suggest (which I normally do) is to cut that thick stem diagonally into thin slices (the way you slice thick ginger root...say, about 2 or 3 or 4 mm thick, depending upon your preference) and then blanch that first before the thin leaves. Eat that fibrous bottom part, NEVER throw them away.... what a waste of the most delicious part of the vegetable. Gailan stem is crunchy and nice to eat.
One more suggestion. If the Gailan is older, peel away the outer skin of the stem before diagonal cutting. The stem part is the best part of Gailan. We eat Gailan mainly for the stem, not the leaves.
Just made some broccoli and WOW IT TASTE SO GOOD!! This is the first time I actually enjoyed and wanted to eat more vegetables lol. I usually just tolerate veggies but this was amazing. I cooked mine in an iron skillet and followed all the instructions. When I served myself I also put some sesame oil on it which was so good! I can’t wait to try more recipes from your channel because so far they have not disappointed!
@@cyzcyt every country has a veggie kids seem to hate. Broccoli for Americans, green pepper in Japan... broccoli is such a plain veggie though, you'd think we'd have chosen a more "gross" veggie to hate as kids lol!
@@MinttMeringue I hate stir fried lettuce when I was young, but somehow I become a fan of it. check out lettuce with oyster sauce, which is popular in southern China. btw 99.99% Chinese kids hate bitter mellon but are forced to eat by parents :P
Thank you for making this video! My boyfriend left his family to start a new life in a different city. This helped me cook his favorite vegtables and reminded him of home :)
I love how your technique of cook - out. Cook, same. Then finish on high heat. I use that for veg pickling and dehydrating technichally. So it is awesome and not overbearing to make meals even when you feel lazy.
Haha I was totally gunna find that comment and let you know. We were thinking on 'rules for stir fry' for a bit and there just seemed to be way too many categories of dishes to generalize. Stir-fried greens on the other hand cluster pretty neatly... there's also a few other flavor profiles we briefly discuss in the note in the reddit post if you're interested :)
such informative recipe! As a Cantonese Native, I had all the Michelin - Starred Cantonese Restaurants in Shanghai but I never saw a video teaching people how to cook Cantonese Veggie properly until now. Some of your video really make me want to ask YOutube to have a "Download video" button so that I can bring these video back to China where RUclips cannot be easily accessed.
Thanks for these videos! Been living in Guangdong for a year now, and going to the supermarket and actually being able to cook something good with what I can find there is actually really satisfying.
Here in Florida we grow most of our own Chinese/Asian veggies, I'm a retired chef and my exwife is Asian so I'm pretty up on all the technique and flavor profiles here, mainly just want to say kudos on such an awesome channel.
Thank you so much for your videos. I’ve grown up eating Cantonese food every day when going out to eat. But I’ve never been able to cook it myself. Thanks you for teaching me.
I remember one chinese restaurant in my town sells broccoli and mushroom stir fry, with that garlicky sauce. Best serve with cuts of duck and rice. Now the restaurant is closed and the building was demolished Miss that old days
We shouldn't be too hard on folk who throw away gailan stems. Many westerners are similarly prodigal. I peel the nutty-tasting 'trunk' of cabbage or brocolli, slice thinly, then either toss in a salad-delish!- or add to the other leaves to stir-fry. Ditto the perfectly edible outer leaves that just look a bit ragged-washed, and sliced pretty finely, they stir fry beautifully or bulk out a good veggie soup, and taste great. I'm not mean, honest-I just hate waste.
Anything that fibrous, just needs longer blanching/cooking time. I like eating the whole vegetative: Is supposed to have a balance of Ying (leafy part) and Yang (dense roots etc.)
I find it interesting that none of these sauces used soy sauce or toasted sesame oil. I always tend to automatically add soy sauce to all my Chinese stir-fry sauces. Thanks for this video.
Just explain this in my opinion. For stir-frying veggies, you want the greens look clear, crisp and true to the original colour(to the Chinese aesthetic I guess) so usually in authentic restaurant they don’t put soy sauce. But home cooking is definitely of personal preference, for myself I like putting lit tile bit sesame oil at the finish:)
Non-Chinese people are a bit misinformed due to how soy sauce and sesame oil are used in traditional Chinese cooking. These are seasonings, not necessarily ingredients generally speaking. Many traditional ingredients, such as fermented black bean, are already high in salt content so adding soy sauce will make it overly salty and ruin the flavor of the dish. So you season with it to taste unless you're marinating. Sesame oil is a very strong flavor, more so if it's spoiled which is actually pretty common as it only lasts around 6 months, so you only add drops in the final minutes of a stir fry to infuse the flavor. American Chinese food over uses soy sauce and sesame oil because Americans seem to like it but it's not traditional whatsoever. Real traditional food is more balanced and focuses on the freshness and individual flavors. At least Cantonese food is that way.
@@Iampatrix My roommate often uses upwards of 10 or more TBSP of toasted sesame oil when cooking (not to mention that hot sesame oil he uses too!). It's not very pleasant when there's that much oil in a dish.
@@ganondorfdragmire7886 gross, I made that mistake when learning to cook. You can't taste any other ingredients and it coats your mouth and it's all you smell for days. I don't really use it in dishes other than a little splash in fried rice or maybe some black bean steamed or braised rib tips. A little bit is good for marinades too. But to cook in? I personally haven't found a way I'd use that much.
I love Morning Glory. One of my favorite vegetables. We do almost the same thing, except we put dry prawns in with the garlic, ginger and chilli paste. We use a lot of it in Burmese cooking as well.
Here in southern china, we put fermented shrimp paste to stir-fry the Morning Glory. The smell, either you love it or hate it. The smell is too intense that all neighbor around know that you are cooking the dish.
The cooking video that changed my life. I've started blanching various vegetables. It eliminates the overcooked and undercooked dynamic of pan fried veggies. Then I save the water for soup stock - which works great without having to take a lot of extra time. Also my husband said it's used for eggplant dishes. Which is big for me. I've tried repeatedly to mimic restaurant style eggplant, that's soft with bright purple skin and savory sauce. It never works in all the years I've tried and all the video recipes I've watched. Whenever I've tried it if the skin is still purple the flesh is way undercooked. Or if the flesh is cooked everything is brown grey and ugly. And still the mouth texture isn't nearly as soft as in the restaurant.
When I went to China as a kid, we would always have Gai Lan with I believe garlic and I just didn’t know what it was called but I loved it so much and now I’m so glad, I found this and definitely am gonna try it. Thank you!
A recommendation for people who don’t like to use shrimp paste is to use fermented tofu or fu yui, I’ve grown up with that version more as it is from the Guangdong province while shrimp paste is like Taiwan or lower Asia.
I love this. Pls do more of this everyday cooking tips. There's already plenty of recipes of general xyz, typical of this or that region. Sometimes I just want to clean out my fridge.
I am chinese and I never put MSG, salt or sugar when I cook vegetables. Just some garlic cloves and a dash of soya sauce are good enough. You'll enjoy the natural taste of the vegetables.
I'm not embarassed to say that I look forward with anticipation for the next video. I learn something with every single one. I apply the techniques to my own creations. It brings everything up to a new level. South Florida has an abundance of good asian grocers. Keep up the good work. Your efforts have positively impacted lives.
Cheers! I think that when gets lost sometimes in many English language sources are the *techniques* of Chinese cooking. There's lots of awesome ingredients too of course, but so much of what goes into these cuisines are technique driven. Ingredients might be local, but techniques are universal - it's awesome to hear you apply them to your creations, because I enjoy doing the same! About to start filming the next vid in the next hour (three types of dumplings, made in the northern/Beijing style).
This big pot is mostly used in restaurants. Few family kitchen use this because the pot is quite heavy and it takes years of practice to master. Also the restaurants use this kind of pot to gain efficiency: to be able to cook several serving of one dish in one setting is a must to minimize waiting time. The pot also goes better with one of those blazing burner that use pumped air to maximize fuel efficiency. 30s in one of those pots is the equivalent of 2-3 minutes in a family kitchen pot that uses regular burner.
lol, i am Chinese speaking Chinese but learning Chinese cooking from an English Speaking person, great tips ! now I can make them better than what i have been doing.
Holy Cow !!! I just finished making the Morning Glory dish for dinner and must stay I've "NEVER" tasted anything with as perfect of a blend of flavors as this. Bought two bunches of the greens and placed one alongside our beach shoreline for a year-round supply. Only thing I'll do different next time is .... I'll cook the dish with the Shrimp Paste in the "Summer Kitchen" .... the smell didn't sit well in the main house LOL. Thanks for sharing such an amazing recipe. Wish I had a recipe to return the favor, but, just can't top this one.
Awesome to hear! Yeah that vegetable dish is one of my absolutely favorites. The Morning Glory's got this great texture and taste... then paired with the sweetness of the sugar, the umami and funk of the shrimp paste, the slight heat from the chili? Awesome. Careful growing it if you're US based, apparently USDA classifies it as a noxious weed as it grows perhaps a little *too* prolifically in hot, wet climates.
Already have it growing in the lake here for about 2 years... I promise you it won't be able to get out of control now that I have this recipe ;-) Can't wait to try the other two recipes in this post to see how they taste. Sincerely can't thank you enough for the effort you put forth with these original recipes. I do know how to cook and am rarely surprised with results as I've found with your recipes. Hope you keep the surprises coming. Michael in Florida
The botanical name is Ipomoea aquatica. It also goes by the name of water convolvulus or water spinach. It's not actually Morning Glory because that is a creeper with purple flowers, and this one is grown in semi-aquatic conditions.
I never blanched my veggies. Stirfry garlic and ginger first, add veggies and stirfry further for a minute or two, and then add some water and put the lid on for a couple of minutes to steam till the veggies are done to your liking. Then add the sauces and sesame oil, done.
I always avoid to cover the veggies though, it makes it get yellow a lot faster. When I'm lazy, I'll just stir-fry them directly till they're done, but still won't cover it. :)
@@nusaibahibraheem8183 I used to feel the same. And then I started blanching. I find that it makes a surprisingly worthwhile difference in flavor, texture, and appearance. So much of Cantonese cooking is about timing and sequence subtleties. In this form of cooking, 20 seconds of high heat at any stage in your process can make a WORLD of difference to your outcome. I highly recommend following the cooking instructions provided here precisely and seeing if you notice a difference ;)
I used to feel the same. And then I started blanching. I find that it makes a surprisingly worthwhile difference in flavor, texture, and appearance. So much of Cantonese cooking is about timing and sequence subtleties. In this form of cooking, 20 seconds of high heat at any stage in your process can make a WORLD of difference in your outcome. I highly recommend following the cooking instructions provided here precisely and seeing if you notice a difference ;)
Hi Chris, hi Steph, thanks for sharing. I've always fried my veges as you have, but never with the cornstarch, sugar etc. solution. Was always wondering what was missing to get the sauce to stick. Thanks for sharing again!
American consume more MSG than Asian. It's in most snaks: Potato chips, Dorito, cheeto, can soup, chicken broth, frozen food... Fries. There are more than 10 names for MSG. One common one is natural flavors! Food manufacturers don't want you to know.
MSG is NOT listed under different names other than it's full name, Mono-Sodium Glutamate. Sugar on the other hand has many other names. Also, MSG has an undeserved bad rap. It has been claimed to cause cancer. It doesn't. It's been tested and retested numerous times. Many people claim to be allergic, however a few double blind tests showed that the vast majority of people claiming to be allergic to MSG, aren't. MSG is a salt(Hence the sodium in it's name) and is derived from Glutamic acid. Glutamic acid is found in many, many foods naturally. The MSG hype is just that. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Actually there is no need for blanching. We use gas stove that is hot enough so that you can stir-fry the vegetables all the way. Add some water during the stir-fry if the vegetable dry up too much. As for broccoli, we can still stir-fry it without blanching. Near the end of stir-frying, just add some water and put the cover of the wok on. Let the water to form steam to soften the broccoli. Some people like me do not like hard broccoli and need the steaming step.
Blanching really helps to tenderize hearty stem, and the fry up deliciously. Especially for broccoli stems, I cut them off, and blanch them for 30sec-1min by themselves. That makes them delicious. Blanching seems to take the bitterness away.
Gong Xi Fa Chai. A big thank you to you and your team who have put this channel together. It's my go to site for Chinese cooking now and hopefully 2020 is the year when I understand the basics. The veggies in my area are - Spinach, Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower and Cabbage. Please let me know how best to stir fry these. I will be searching your list of vids for more such basic techniques. Thanks again.
I love this recipe. Its the exact flavor I always get when i eat Asian veggies and wonder 'wtf do they put in this to make it so delicious??" Awesome. Will become my go to when making veggies.
Yes, we here in Southern California have ALL the chinese leafy greens+more in Chinese markets. Gailan, gaichoy, yaochoy, choysum, ongchoy, siuchoy, etc etc etc. Huge asian markets!!
Could you explain why when prepping the wok you turn off the heat after getting it hot, then turn it back on. Why not just take it off the heat source?
The wok is seated in the wok holder. It won’t balance without some type of base. When you’re doing classic wok cooking the fire is controlled and the wok stays in place. Good wok chefs using a restaurant wok burner can control the flame with their knee.
They explained in a comment I saw that taking it off the heat source is the "correct" way to do it, but since they are cooking on a singular burner on a tiny table on a balcony, it's easier to just turn it off
My family (and me) only use garlic and salt for the garlic based recipe, it’s yum already! You can cook any veg with that Oyster sauce is a popular option too, and sesame oil is saved for special dishes cause it’s expensive
2:29 being raised in a traditional Chinese family; my soul died a little hearing and seeing that. NEVER WASTE ANY FOOD! Just cut the fibrous skin off the stalk and slice it. It's actually pretty delicious stir fried with garlic and salted fish flakes.
That "fibrous part" of the gai lan I do not throw away. That is crunchy and the best part! I slice that in half so that it cooks evenly along with the other stems. Nothing goes to waste.
You threw away the stem of the gailan? What a waste. Chinese restaurants in Southern California charges $9.99 for stir fry gailan stems with fermented bean curd.
Really, $10? Craziness, haha. We're lucky that Gailan's cheap where we are... all of that was $0.58 in USD terms :) Fermented bean curd with chili's a nice flavor profile for gailan, if you wanna keep the fibrous stems by all means go ahead! Not very common in Guangdong to eat stems, so we're unfortunately not totally sure what'd be the correct timing to cook those to the right texture.
Chinese DO NOT throw away the stems. The new generation of urban fake communist chinese probably do because they dont know what hunger means. Ive never known a single overseas chinese that would discard the stems. The gaylan stems are sliced and cooked along with the leaves. Or they are blanched whole with garlic and some oil. Pour oyster sauce on top. That's how many chinese restaurants do it, too. I dont know where this dude's girlfriend got the idea that gailan's stems are fibrous. Google gailan recipe. NO ONE throws away the stem. In the US, gailan can cost around $3-$4/lb. Throwing stems away is a waste!!!
Damn, I dig the intensity of opinion. First off, a point of clarity just in case there's a misunderstanding here - it's only the *very* bottom portion of the gailan that's snapped off. Very common to get rid of that portion in China - if you wanna use it, you'd have to peel it... which would be a bunch of work for just that ~1 inch piece. But regardless, obviously Steph grew up in the 90s in a middle class family in Guangzhou and (luckily) never knew real hunger. But I don't necessarily think her family's way of doing thing's totally crazy - this ain't exactly an expensive veg here in the PRD... it's about as pricey as cabbage. People toss the tough fibrous part of the stems of asparagus, no? In any event, if you like them, obviously use them!
1. Don't throw away the stems (gailan or morning glory). Cut into small pieces and stir fry first for 20-30 seconds, followed by the leafy parts. 2. The morning glory (aka kangkong in Sg and Msia) is way over-cooked. Should not have blanched them.
Sigh... you're not alone in that comment. Who knew people were so into the tough fibrous stem of the gailan? I'm like half convinced that we're talking about different things - sometimes in supermarkets in the USA I see the Gailan sold without that tough bottom part. The stem you're referring to is roughly 1-2 inches long and you need to peel it, slice it, and cook it for longer, yeah?
I feel it's kinda a waste of time especially if you're just making a quick work day dinner. We always just snap it off and done, and we usually have a way larger portion for stir fry gailan than the one shown in the video. If you buy veggies here, they don't come in bags, the bottom part is often a bit dry and tough since they've been sitting out for a while in the market. Besides, it's not so much a waste, gailan is cheap here.
+Chinese Cooking Demystified Just a throwback to hard times where frugality thrived. In my household they end up in the bin or a better place the compost bin.
+SuperChansy Haha thanks, started to feel like we were the crazy ones there ;) I think going that route definitely makes sense if you're abroad and Gailan is sorta a luxury (heard some people had to pay $4+/lb for it). Honestly, here in the PRD it's almost as cheap as cabbage, so it never really occurred to us that some would take offense to not using the fibrous part.
Hey, so let us know what vegetables you're usually working with around where you live. Asparagus? Kale? If it's a green that's common in China we can shoot you a brief recipe, and if not we should still be able to give some ideas :)
Chinese2 Cooking DemystiRESTRICTEDfied
Regarding some questions out there, here are my answers:
1. Yes, we blanch the morning glory and we add sugar to the water. I first tried it at a Hakka friend's home, then it was reaffirmed by an old Cantonese chef. Try it before disaproving it. I was really suprised by the balance of flavor when I first tried stir frying morning glory this way.
Do a quick 10 secs blanching and stir fry it with shrimp paste afterwards, it'll bring you a nicely and evenly cook yet still very crunchy morning glory. In the video the veggie stayed out for too long after blanching because of the timing of filming, it lost the vibrant green.
So when you're doing it in your kitchen, remember to do it real quick.
2. Yes, we throw away the gailan stems. I seriously don't know what all that fuss is about.
To some of you out there: your family's way of doing something doesn't mean that's the only way of doing it. I also asked around my friends, who are all Cantonese from around PRD, many of them just cut off the bottom part too, BECAUSE IT GETS DRY AFTER SITTING IN THE MARKET THE WHOLE DAY!
Gailan is cheap here, some people would throw away all the leaves on gailan and only eat the stems 'cuz they like it. There's a classic Cantonese dish that kinda stir fry and quickly "roast" the gailan stems (啫芥兰), not my favorite. Personally I don't like stems that much, so I throw some part away.
Feel free to keep them and peel them or just slice them if you prefer the stems. It's totally a personal preference. But I'd still suggest you cut off the very bottom part (1cm) of the stem, that part's usually dried out after sitting out for a while.
In my family we usually eat a lot of vegetables, so nobody got the patience to peel each stem of the gailan. Also, the veggies we got from the wet market often has a slightly dry bottom, it's common practice to snap off (or cut off) the very bottom part and throw it away.
If you're buying a 3 dolloar/pound of gailan, sure you should savor every bit of it.
3. Yes, we use MSG. We're not buying into the non-scientific nonsense of anti-MSG.
Here're some good read about MSG:
ruclips.net/video/ji74pUeMayg/видео.html
fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-msg-got-a-bad-rap-flawed-science-and-xenophobia/
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/aug/12/msg-allergy-chinese-restaurant-syndrome-myth
And a personal note on MSG: I think almost every Cantonese family has a long culinary tradition, so is mine. My family don't use MSG either. We love using umami rich ingredients and "extracting flavours out of natural aromatics". I love the way they cook, I appreciate the tradition and try to keep them and introduce the knowledge as much as I can.
But a long time ago, I tried to add a tiny touch of MSG to some big batch of stock and it's amazingly good. It can compliment and round up the taste in a very subtle way if you're not over using it. And since then, you know what, I'm on the MSG train. I talked to old chefs, they use MSG too and they also emphasize on NOT OVERUSING it. It's like salt, it's a seasoning ingredient.
Culinary culture and tradition is everchanging. We didn't have chili or many other spices before, and now we have them and they're awesome. Some of the best and most delicate dry seafood in Cantonese food is from Mexico and Japan, which we also didn't have before and now they're an important partof the cuisine.
So, why stop the process of improving due to pure prejudice?
thank you so very much i shop at asian markets where i live'' you can't find much chinese items in other grocery stores
Veggies you get from normal supermarket. All you needs from Asian market are soy sauce, sesame oil and black bean sauce for flavor. Don't bother shrimp paste and the cooking wine.
yes, where i live there arent any asian markets that i can get to :(
so what i have on hand is eggplant, zucchini, kale, a green cabbage which looks more like a bokchoy than a white cabbage, spinach and carrots, and peppers? any recommendations of which sauces would go (im vegetarian too so assuming only the first 2 would be alright) thanks!
I want to thank you for making my appetite return. . I am currently going through my Fourth stage of chemotherapy and eating is a Challenge. I stumbled on your channel and tried and succeeded in making one of your dishes and my hunger has returned. There are so many benefits to a Chinese diet. My strength is slowly returning and this diet may be a lifelong change. Thank you for making this train wreck of a cook into something rewarding.
Wish you the best and get well soon!
Get we soon. Wishes coming from India.
Get well and eat lots. If your appetite returns from eating Chinese food carry on!
God bless and all strength to you...I have found that Black Seed Oil supplement, and keeping away from white carbs has improved my health substantially by lowering inflammation and improving the immune system.
Peace to you and yours...
Glad this helped. Gods healing on your body ..Amen
When I was younger I would never eat vegetables, except for corn on the cob. Then I started eating Chinese cuisine. The way they cooked vegetables just changed my whole mind about eating vegetables. So from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you, thank you and one more thank you. Food and eating are Love.
Chinese greens leafy vegetables are also mostly very mild in taste compared to Western green leafy vegetables. In general most have no bitterness and leaves are usually very tender. (Having said that the Gai Lan tends to have a slight bitterness). I think the reason why most Chinese kids don't have any problems eating their leafy greens.
Agreed, nbrace5715. My mother, bless her heart, boiled every vegetable victim to death that she touched. I hated broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and everything because it was a mushy, water-logged pile of nasty. I thought that's what vegetables "where." Fast forward to being an adult, I found I liked roasted and steamed veggies. Quick blanching and quick stir fry is also great and it gives me more options for tasty veggies than just steaming alone. It's all in how a food is cooked, and sadly, Americans don't have a clue. My favorite vegetable is Bok Choy, when it's cooked right, OMG, and it's fairly easy to find in the US. Yay!
@@DK-zu6tt In Britain most people just boil all their vegetables, it's tragic.
are you eating more vegetables now?
@@Finn959 - Yes, quite a bit more.
As a Chinese, I can’t believe I’m learning Chinese cooking from an English Channel on RUclips with VPN.
Using Netflix and s vpn is neat.
Riko Saikawa wait can u teach me how to do that wth my netflix detects my vpn
Oh well believe it or not, you are!
他们在知乎以前也有节目，但是完全没人看
That's illegal, CPC want to know your location.
I think it is important to point out that the morning glory used in this video is actually Ipomoea aquatica (空心菜/通心菜), which has many other English names such as "water spinach" and "water morning glory." Not all species of genus Ipomoea (番薯属, aka. morning glories) are edible; in fact, many of them contain psychoactive or neurotoxic substances like ergolines (e.g. LSA) and pharbitin. A common poisonous example would be I.nil, aka. Japanese morning glory (牵牛花/喇叭花). Two well-known edible plants in the genus Ipomoea are I. aquatica, aka. water morning glory featured in this video and I. batatas, aka. sweet potatoes.
On a side note, I really enjoy watching your videos! I like how you break down and reduce all the technicalities into well-explained underlying principles. As a Chinese, I learn something new about Chinese cuisine from your videos every time. Well done!
@Jack Blade "Regular" is the same everywhere, unfortunately. My suggestion: don't guess. Figure out the exact species with a local expert and do some research on its edibility.
Michaiah Li hey maaaan blue morning glories are great for LSA bro basically precursor to LSD
We picked up the translation of "morning glory" a long time ago in Thailand and kinda stick with it in this video. But after seeing so many people got confused, I think we'll call it water spinach in the future~ :)
Most of it comes from the seeds and will not actually do anything harmful except opening ur mind a little
It is also known as water convolvulus
Just tried your broccoli recipe (with a bit of chilli), one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten. Thanks!
Yes its really delicious😋
I love broccoli
Same here. Normally I would use a veg stir fry sauce but I kept to his ingredients and the clean taste that resulted was amazing.
@@pedrochin2385 I’ve been home cooking for years now and it’s still a thrill when I achieve a meal where the natural flavours are front and centre but elevated perfectly by flavourful additions. That’s always the aim. You can’t beat that freshness.
Basic veg source:
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp corn starch
1 Tbsp of water
Lara Land
The 1st video uses 1/4 tsp sugar?
Sauce?
>tbsp
go metric or go home
@@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus it works here and is much more convenient, but metric is perfect for baking
@@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus neither is metric, and a teaspoon is just a third of a table spoon
This broccoli recipe is what I've been looking for! I've been watching all kinds of videos trying to find a really great recipe for stir fried broccoli. They all used lots of soy sauce, hoisin, oyster sauce, etc. Some of them were good, but so full of sodium. I made the broccoli yesterday and it was fantastic! The garlic, ginger, and broccoli really shine, rather than trying to rely on some kind of sauce for flavor. Thanks!
Can you make more videos like this! Always just one Chinese vegetable at a time with different flavor profiles (fermented bean curd etc.). This video was so helpful in many aspects. For one, it shows you how to deal with the vegetables that you see in asia stores without normally daring to buy them. Second, you learn those basic but awesome sauce bases!
Yeah, you can totally play with these three flavor profiles and explore more veggies~
We don't throw away the stems either.
Never knew Tong Xin Chai was called morning glory since I've only seen it at Chinese restaurants. One of the variations on stirfry is that we never blanche, instead after light stirfry we pour in about a quarter bowl of water and cover to steam. Saves the blanching step and tastes great.
For Gai Lan we usually do oyster sauce
Kong xin chai
yeah the throw away stems bit was a little bit painful vegetables are so expensive I personally eat everything the stems aren't even very tough usually I find they taste quite nice.
Here is how I know I watch too many of these videos and procrastinate when it comes to actually making the dish.
I was cooking recently and under my breath I reminded myself to "Longyau, get that wok piping hot" while I waited for my flying pan to heat up.
I was making cabbage rolls.
My favorite thing about stir fried vegetables is how easy it makes including veggies in my diet. Always an easy side dish. Great vid x
This is probably the most understandable introductory tutorial video to the basic Chinese vegetables cooking.
It is a mistake to throw away the fibrous bottom part of the Gailan... because that is the BEST part of the Gailan. What I suggest (which I normally do) is to cut that thick stem diagonally into thin slices (the way you slice thick ginger root...say, about 2 or 3 or 4 mm thick, depending upon your preference) and then blanch that first before the thin leaves. Eat that fibrous bottom part, NEVER throw them away.... what a waste of the most delicious part of the vegetable. Gailan stem is crunchy and nice to eat.
I was thinking that was my favorite part!
One more suggestion. If the Gailan is older, peel away the outer skin of the stem before diagonal cutting. The stem part is the best part of Gailan. We eat Gailan mainly for the stem, not the leaves.
@@catchnkill Thank you, the Stems are so important.
Agreed. I was like what are you doing?!
I try to eat the whole vegetable, minus the little roots.
Just made some broccoli and WOW IT TASTE SO GOOD!! This is the first time I actually enjoyed and wanted to eat more vegetables lol. I usually just tolerate veggies but this was amazing. I cooked mine in an iron skillet and followed all the instructions. When I served myself I also put some sesame oil on it which was so good! I can’t wait to try more recipes from your channel because so far they have not disappointed!
A balanced diet starts with deliciousness. Welcome to eating healthy with none of the diet pain!
Welcome to the delicious veggie world. Vegetables are actually the first thing I go to in a meal~
@@cyzcyt every country has a veggie kids seem to hate. Broccoli for Americans, green pepper in Japan... broccoli is such a plain veggie though, you'd think we'd have chosen a more "gross" veggie to hate as kids lol!
@@cyzcyt ... stir fried lettuce? I must agree with you on that, I prefer my lettuce raw. I mean, stir fried cabbage is amazing, but lettuce...?
@@MinttMeringue I hate stir fried lettuce when I was young, but somehow I become a fan of it. check out lettuce with oyster sauce, which is popular in southern China. btw 99.99% Chinese kids hate bitter mellon but are forced to eat by parents :P
Thank you for making this video! My boyfriend left his family to start a new life in a different city. This helped me cook his favorite vegtables and reminded him of home :)
You're welcome, hope he enjoys it!
I love how your technique of cook - out. Cook, same. Then finish on high heat. I use that for veg pickling and dehydrating technichally. So it is awesome and not overbearing to make meals even when you feel lazy.
Dude, you just pimped my broccoli FOR LIFE 👊🏼
Super. So helpful and I've learned a lot. Smashing the stems a bit. Adding sugar and salt to the cornstarch slurry. From Johannesburg. Thank you⚘
This channel is marvelous and an instant new favorite. Well done.
You've gone and done it! (i'm the guy who asked for stir-fry flavour profiles a few weeks ago). Great video!
Haha I was totally gunna find that comment and let you know. We were thinking on 'rules for stir fry' for a bit and there just seemed to be way too many categories of dishes to generalize. Stir-fried greens on the other hand cluster pretty neatly... there's also a few other flavor profiles we briefly discuss in the note in the reddit post if you're interested :)
I'D LOVE more stir fry vids 😍
Wow!!! My broccoli with garlic tasted amazing. Thank you. This is a favorite.
Love what your doing !! I am learning to make what I have always loved ! Chinese cooking is Simply the best on the planet😀
I would eat it every day, if I didn't also love some others! In NYC, subletting with Taiwan family, I did eat it every day😁
such informative recipe! As a Cantonese Native, I had all the Michelin - Starred Cantonese Restaurants in Shanghai but I never saw a video teaching people how to cook Cantonese Veggie properly until now.
Some of your video really make me want to ask YOutube to have a "Download video" button so that I can bring these video back to China where RUclips cannot be easily accessed.
Cheers! Feel free to use this website www.onlinevideoconverter.com/video-converter to download them, I didn't block em or anything.
Thanks for these videos! Been living in Guangdong for a year now, and going to the supermarket and actually being able to cook something good with what I can find there is actually really satisfying.
Here in Florida we grow most of our own Chinese/Asian veggies, I'm a retired chef and my exwife is Asian so I'm pretty up on all the technique and flavor profiles here, mainly just want to say kudos on such an awesome channel.
Thx! :)
Ex Asian wife? Where from? Did she take you to the cleaners?
Cool,I live in n FL and want to start growing some Asian veggies. Can u suggest a few? Thx! Bee well :)
YESSSSSSSSSSS this video changed my life. Long yiao? Idk how to spell it. Best advice I ever got from a RUclips video.
2:17
“Pac Choi and spinach....Yeeeaahhhh.....”
Dunno y that part made me laugh
Thank you so much for your videos. I’ve grown up eating Cantonese food every day when going out to eat. But I’ve never been able to cook it myself. Thanks you for teaching me.
I remember one chinese restaurant in my town sells broccoli and mushroom stir fry, with that garlicky sauce. Best serve with cuts of duck and rice. Now the restaurant is closed and the building was demolished
Miss that old days
Damn i am sorry for your loss, its always those good places that have to leave us
I like your simplicity way of teaching. Awesome Video!!
We shouldn't be too hard on folk who throw away gailan stems. Many westerners are similarly prodigal. I peel the nutty-tasting 'trunk' of cabbage or brocolli, slice thinly, then either toss in a salad-delish!- or add to the other leaves to stir-fry. Ditto the perfectly edible outer leaves that just look a bit ragged-washed, and sliced pretty finely, they stir fry beautifully or bulk out a good veggie soup, and taste great. I'm not mean, honest-I just hate waste.
Humboles good ideas...thanks
I do the same, inspite we differentiate the organic waste.
i agree and feel the same, and find still another reason for adding items, fibre!!
Also you tend to chop the veggies into bite sized pieces.
Anything that fibrous, just needs longer blanching/cooking time.
I like eating the whole vegetative: Is supposed to have a balance of Ying (leafy part) and Yang (dense roots etc.)
Thanks for showing the secret of chinese cooking
I find it interesting that none of these sauces used soy sauce or toasted sesame oil. I always tend to automatically add soy sauce to all my Chinese stir-fry sauces. Thanks for this video.
Haha, soy sauce is definitely very versatile and used in quite some flavor profiles. But yeah, there're some combinations that don't use soy sauce.
Just explain this in my opinion. For stir-frying veggies, you want the greens look clear, crisp and true to the original colour(to the Chinese aesthetic I guess) so usually in authentic restaurant they don’t put soy sauce. But home cooking is definitely of personal preference, for myself I like putting lit tile bit sesame oil at the finish:)
Non-Chinese people are a bit misinformed due to how soy sauce and sesame oil are used in traditional Chinese cooking. These are seasonings, not necessarily ingredients generally speaking. Many traditional ingredients, such as fermented black bean, are already high in salt content so adding soy sauce will make it overly salty and ruin the flavor of the dish. So you season with it to taste unless you're marinating. Sesame oil is a very strong flavor, more so if it's spoiled which is actually pretty common as it only lasts around 6 months, so you only add drops in the final minutes of a stir fry to infuse the flavor. American Chinese food over uses soy sauce and sesame oil because Americans seem to like it but it's not traditional whatsoever. Real traditional food is more balanced and focuses on the freshness and individual flavors. At least Cantonese food is that way.
@@Iampatrix My roommate often uses upwards of 10 or more TBSP of toasted sesame oil when cooking (not to mention that hot sesame oil he uses too!). It's not very pleasant when there's that much oil in a dish.
@@ganondorfdragmire7886 gross, I made that mistake when learning to cook. You can't taste any other ingredients and it coats your mouth and it's all you smell for days. I don't really use it in dishes other than a little splash in fried rice or maybe some black bean steamed or braised rib tips. A little bit is good for marinades too. But to cook in? I personally haven't found a way I'd use that much.
That 'fibrous bottom part' is my favourite piece!
Just peel and slice it. That’s the tastiest part, not the leaves.
SAME! How can you throw that away
I love Morning Glory. One of my favorite vegetables. We do almost the same thing, except we put dry prawns in with the garlic, ginger and chilli paste. We use a lot of it in Burmese cooking as well.
Here in southern china, we put fermented shrimp paste to stir-fry the Morning Glory. The smell, either you love it or hate it. The smell is too intense that all neighbor around know that you are cooking the dish.
Morning glory with shrimp paste is one of my favourite ways to eat veggies - it always brings me back to my Dad's cooking.
"If you've not worked with morning glory before"
Don't worry I work with it all the time
The cooking video that changed my life. I've started blanching various vegetables. It eliminates the overcooked and undercooked dynamic of pan fried veggies. Then I save the water for soup stock - which works great without having to take a lot of extra time. Also my husband said it's used for eggplant dishes. Which is big for me. I've tried repeatedly to mimic restaurant style eggplant, that's soft with bright purple skin and savory sauce. It never works in all the years I've tried and all the video recipes I've watched. Whenever I've tried it if the skin is still purple the flesh is way undercooked. Or if the flesh is cooked everything is brown grey and ugly. And still the mouth texture isn't nearly as soft as in the restaurant.
Now I can cook my veggies. I am a Filipino but I love Chinese foods
I adore this channel. I always feel like a better person for watching.
Awesome that you got Richard Dreyfus to narrate your video.....
Can't unhear this!
When I went to China as a kid, we would always have Gai Lan with I believe garlic and I just didn’t know what it was called but I loved it so much and now I’m so glad, I found this and definitely am gonna try it. Thank you!
A recommendation for people who don’t like to use shrimp paste is to use fermented tofu or fu yui, I’ve grown up with that version more as it is from the Guangdong province while shrimp paste is like Taiwan or lower Asia.
Hahahaha lower asia
@@luikzwafeltje212 lower Asia as in south
Taiwanese here. We rarely use shrimp paste while cooking. I think it's mostly used in Southeast Asia like Thailand.
I love this channel. Very simple recipes still not so easy to master. Basic you need to know for cooking Asian food
Best cook video EVER, I finally can practice this one because it is easy enough.
I love this. Pls do more of this everyday cooking tips. There's already plenty of recipes of general xyz, typical of this or that region. Sometimes I just want to clean out my fridge.
I am chinese and I never put MSG, salt or sugar when I cook vegetables. Just some garlic cloves and a dash of soya sauce are good enough. You'll enjoy the natural taste of the vegetables.
Just for your infomation, soy sauce has a very high percentage of sodium chloride, which is salt.
Oh, btw, soy sauce also has a high content of monosodium glutamate, which is MSG. By putting in soy sauce, you put in all the stuff you "avoid" using.
MSG ON EVERYTHING IS NOT GOOD AT ALL.... IT IS MISLEADING AND RUIN THE CHINESE COOKING CULTURE.
A little bit of msg is ok.
Stephanie Li depends if you use chinese soy sauce. Use japanese soy sauce safer.
I'm not embarassed to say that I look forward with anticipation for the next video. I learn something with every single one. I apply the techniques to my own creations. It brings everything up to a new level. South Florida has an abundance of good asian grocers. Keep up the good work. Your efforts have positively impacted lives.
Cheers! I think that when gets lost sometimes in many English language sources are the *techniques* of Chinese cooking. There's lots of awesome ingredients too of course, but so much of what goes into these cuisines are technique driven. Ingredients might be local, but techniques are universal - it's awesome to hear you apply them to your creations, because I enjoy doing the same!
About to start filming the next vid in the next hour (three types of dumplings, made in the northern/Beijing style).
Love your channel. Would really appreciate a play-list for vegetarian recipes.
Just love this show and the person doing the VO does a fantastic job - first rate - thanks you!!
This big pot is mostly used in restaurants. Few family kitchen use this because the pot is quite heavy and it takes years of practice to master. Also the restaurants use this kind of pot to gain efficiency: to be able to cook several serving of one dish in one setting is a must to minimize waiting time. The pot also goes better with one of those blazing burner that use pumped air to maximize fuel efficiency. 30s in one of those pots is the equivalent of 2-3 minutes in a family kitchen pot that uses regular burner.
You mean a wok? I want to buy a wok, but now l'm not sure.
lol, i am Chinese speaking Chinese but learning Chinese cooking from an English Speaking person, great tips ! now I can make them better than what i have been doing.
Great video. Please do a "Three Basic Flavors and Recipes" style video on pork/beef/goat/lamb noodles soup. Thanks
Its so nice to learn to cook chinese foods..its exciting.
This is an easy start for stir frying, hope you can try other dishes we made after you nailed this one. :)
Holy Cow !!! I just finished making the Morning Glory dish for dinner and must stay I've "NEVER" tasted anything with as perfect of a blend of flavors as this. Bought two bunches of the greens and placed one alongside our beach shoreline for a year-round supply. Only thing I'll do different next time is .... I'll cook the dish with the Shrimp Paste in the "Summer Kitchen" .... the smell didn't sit well in the main house LOL. Thanks for sharing such an amazing recipe. Wish I had a recipe to return the favor, but, just can't top this one.
Awesome to hear! Yeah that vegetable dish is one of my absolutely favorites. The Morning Glory's got this great texture and taste... then paired with the sweetness of the sugar, the umami and funk of the shrimp paste, the slight heat from the chili? Awesome.
Careful growing it if you're US based, apparently USDA classifies it as a noxious weed as it grows perhaps a little *too* prolifically in hot, wet climates.
Already have it growing in the lake here for about 2 years... I promise you it won't be able to get out of control now that I have this recipe ;-) Can't wait to try the other two recipes in this post to see how they taste. Sincerely can't thank you enough for the effort you put forth with these original recipes. I do know how to cook and am rarely surprised with results as I've found with your recipes. Hope you keep the surprises coming. Michael in Florida
That shrimp paste recipe with Kangkung/Kangkong/Water Spinach is a must try, classic in Indonesian cooking
That last veggie called KangKung in my country
Is it in Thailand?
sefty kristihani ....same here too & i am from Malaysia.
Yea kangkung belachan singapore also have.yummy.
The botanical name is Ipomoea aquatica. It also goes by the name of water convolvulus or water spinach. It's not actually Morning Glory because that is a creeper with purple flowers, and this one is grown in semi-aquatic conditions.
www.medicalhealthguide.com/articles/kangkong.htm
These are all excellent. I made the garlic broccoli. It is now the only way to make broccoli in my household.
I never blanched my veggies. Stirfry garlic and ginger first, add veggies and stirfry further for a minute or two, and then add some water and put the lid on for a couple of minutes to steam till the veggies are done to your liking. Then add the sauces and sesame oil, done.
I always avoid to cover the veggies though, it makes it get yellow a lot faster. When I'm lazy, I'll just stir-fry them directly till they're done, but still won't cover it. :)
I do the same. Comes out just fine.
Exactly what I do, also will blanching for 20sec even cook the vege
@@nusaibahibraheem8183 I used to feel the same. And then I started blanching. I find that it makes a surprisingly worthwhile difference in flavor, texture, and appearance. So much of Cantonese cooking is about timing and sequence subtleties. In this form of cooking, 20 seconds of high heat at any stage in your process can make a WORLD of difference to your outcome. I highly recommend following the cooking instructions provided here precisely and seeing if you notice a difference ;)
I used to feel the same. And then I started blanching. I find that it makes a surprisingly worthwhile difference in flavor, texture, and appearance. So much of Cantonese cooking is about timing and sequence subtleties. In this form of cooking, 20 seconds of high heat at any stage in your process can make a WORLD of difference in your outcome. I highly recommend following the cooking instructions provided here precisely and seeing if you notice a difference ;)
I love Broculi..
I love this vegetables.
Thank you for sharing the recipe.
Hi Chris, hi Steph, thanks for sharing. I've always fried my veges as you have, but never with the cornstarch, sugar etc. solution. Was always wondering what was missing to get the sauce to stick. Thanks for sharing again!
Cheers! That cornstarch slurry really does help :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified I was wondering, which of these seasonings would you recommend for stir frying Chinese cabbage (大白菜/紹菜),
@@brandon3872 I think stewing Chinese cabbage into 白菜滷 (with shiitake, fried eggs, and dried shrimp/fish, etc) is the best
Why are there downvotes? Honest question. IMO, this is a great video. Thank you.
American consume more MSG than Asian. It's in most snaks: Potato chips, Dorito, cheeto, can soup, chicken broth, frozen food... Fries.
There are more than 10 names for MSG. One common one is natural flavors! Food manufacturers don't want you to know.
wrong, hes actually right. there are many sneaky names companies can call msg
MSG is NOT listed under different names other than it's full name, Mono-Sodium Glutamate. Sugar on the other hand has many other names.
Also, MSG has an undeserved bad rap. It has been claimed to cause cancer. It doesn't. It's been tested and retested numerous times. Many people claim to be allergic, however a few double blind tests showed that the vast majority of people claiming to be allergic to MSG, aren't.
MSG is a salt(Hence the sodium in it's name) and is derived from Glutamic acid. Glutamic acid is found in many, many foods naturally.
The MSG hype is just that. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Most of the time it is only listed as E621 in the ingredients list.
I love MSG. Glad I have some on hand to add to these sadly MSG-lacking sauces! Yum!
Agreed. Americans do consume way more MSG than they are aware of. Which is fine. There is NOTHING wrong with MSG.
Good english, good chinese accent , nice recipe , great video ! Thanks.. ☺
Amazing cooking Chinese food with good recipe thank you
The vegetables look delicious.
I like Chinese food so much it's a great 👍🏻 and a very good
Regarding
My stir fries are always so dry even when I use oil. blanching it makes SO MUCH SENSE! thank you!!!
Wow, i never thought that blanching is an important part of stir frying...
Actually there is no need for blanching. We use gas stove that is hot enough so that you can stir-fry the vegetables all the way. Add some water during the stir-fry if the vegetable dry up too much. As for broccoli, we can still stir-fry it without blanching. Near the end of stir-frying, just add some water and put the cover of the wok on. Let the water to form steam to soften the broccoli. Some people like me do not like hard broccoli and need the steaming step.
Blanching really helps to tenderize hearty stem, and the fry up deliciously. Especially for broccoli stems, I cut them off, and blanch them for 30sec-1min by themselves. That makes them delicious. Blanching seems to take the bitterness away.
It's twoish in the morning, and I'm willing to do this,,, beautifully narrated,a bit too fast but right chosen words,I love food.
Gong Xi Fa Chai.
A big thank you to you and your team who have put this channel together. It's my go to site for Chinese cooking now and hopefully 2020 is the year when I understand the basics.
The veggies in my area are - Spinach, Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower and Cabbage. Please let me know how best to stir fry these.
I will be searching your list of vids for more such basic techniques. Thanks again.
Longyou has already become my second nature after watching this video
Should put that on a t shirt with a wok
Oil I think
I love this recipe. Its the exact flavor I always get when i eat Asian veggies and wonder 'wtf do they put in this to make it so delicious??" Awesome. Will become my go to when making veggies.
Yes, we here in Southern California have ALL the chinese leafy greens+more in Chinese markets. Gailan, gaichoy, yaochoy, choysum, ongchoy, siuchoy, etc etc etc. Huge asian markets!!
You lucky girl
pancake
lucky, here in Chile there's absolutely nothing.
Kale Girl
I
You are Lucky !!! We have nothing here in New Hampshire. Have to drive like 30+ minutes just to get few stuff ://.
I love how all the veggies are cooked very nice 😋😋😋
Or for easy cooking use garlic and oyster sauce. Love my brocolli and kai lan!!!
Those veggies look delicious
I. Love broccoli
I enjoy you fast and easy recipes that suit well with my bachelor life. Thanks!
Cheers~Glad you like it.
Just made the broccoli/garlic one for dinner, tasted like what I was going for all the times I did it wrong 😹
Nice and easy! Very good explanation and technique. Thank you soooo much!
Could you explain why when prepping the wok you turn off the heat after getting it hot, then turn it back on. Why not just take it off the heat source?
The wok is seated in the wok holder. It won’t balance without some type of base. When you’re doing classic wok cooking the fire is controlled and the wok stays in place. Good wok chefs using a restaurant wok burner can control the flame with their knee.
They explained in a comment I saw that taking it off the heat source is the "correct" way to do it, but since they are cooking on a singular burner on a tiny table on a balcony, it's easier to just turn it off
You guys rock!! Cauliflower please and cabbage ya.
Shrimp paste also goes well with eggplant and okra!
thank you omg! I'm a simple vegetarian in a small midwestern town so having other options is life saving. and omg okra!!!
Yeah, it's an awesome ingredient. It'll also make a great dip for crunchy veggies, like the Thai style.
My family (and me) only use garlic and salt for the garlic based recipe, it’s yum already! You can cook any veg with that
Oyster sauce is a popular option too, and sesame oil is saved for special dishes cause it’s expensive
2:29 being raised in a traditional Chinese family; my soul died a little hearing and seeing that. NEVER WASTE ANY FOOD! Just cut the fibrous skin off the stalk and slice it. It's actually pretty delicious stir fried with garlic and salted fish flakes.
That "fibrous part" of the gai lan I do not throw away. That is crunchy and the best part! I slice that in half so that it cooks evenly along with the other stems. Nothing goes to waste.
MSG is not bad guys as long as you dont put a lot. Its SAFE no worry
as with everything else, moderation is what makes it safe.
Hope that this channel will transform my life hehe...in the aspect of cooking..thank you so much sir for sharing...I love to eat these vegetables...
You threw away the stem of the gailan? What a waste. Chinese restaurants in Southern California charges $9.99 for stir fry gailan stems with fermented bean curd.
Really, $10? Craziness, haha. We're lucky that Gailan's cheap where we are... all of that was $0.58 in USD terms :)
Fermented bean curd with chili's a nice flavor profile for gailan, if you wanna keep the fibrous stems by all means go ahead! Not very common in Guangdong to eat stems, so we're unfortunately not totally sure what'd be the correct timing to cook those to the right texture.
My mum used to keep the stem too. She will peel the skin and cook it too
Chinese DO NOT throw away the stems. The new generation of urban fake communist chinese probably do because they dont know what hunger means. Ive never known a single overseas chinese that would discard the stems. The gaylan stems are sliced and cooked along with the leaves. Or they are blanched whole with garlic and some oil. Pour oyster sauce on top. That's how many chinese restaurants do it, too. I dont know where this dude's girlfriend got the idea that gailan's stems are fibrous. Google gailan recipe. NO ONE throws away the stem. In the US, gailan can cost around $3-$4/lb. Throwing stems away is a waste!!!
Damn, I dig the intensity of opinion. First off, a point of clarity just in case there's a misunderstanding here - it's only the *very* bottom portion of the gailan that's snapped off. Very common to get rid of that portion in China - if you wanna use it, you'd have to peel it... which would be a bunch of work for just that ~1 inch piece.
But regardless, obviously Steph grew up in the 90s in a middle class family in Guangzhou and (luckily) never knew real hunger. But I don't necessarily think her family's way of doing thing's totally crazy - this ain't exactly an expensive veg here in the PRD... it's about as pricey as cabbage. People toss the tough fibrous part of the stems of asparagus, no?
In any event, if you like them, obviously use them!
Overseas Chinese here, grew up in an affluent family, and can confirm that stems are never discarded. No judgement either way, just stating a fact.
Your channel is the best!
My wife handles my morning glory some days and it's glorious
It's an awesome veg. I'm sad morning glory season's over here :/
😂
hicky youch!
Does it have a nice glaze when she's finished with it?
Someone should tell her what WE mean by morning glory! ...it's not fair to not let her in on the joke :-)
Thanks to Kenji for turning me on to this channel - FANTASTIC!!!
ABC (American-born Chinese) here. I'm learning to cook Chinese from a white guy. How ironic.
MoonInSky nuh... maybe he is American born in China
@@WellsNicole he's not. Sorry.
Thanks for sharing your recipes
1. Don't throw away the stems (gailan or morning glory). Cut into small pieces and stir fry first for 20-30 seconds, followed by the leafy parts.
2. The morning glory (aka kangkong in Sg and Msia) is way over-cooked. Should not have blanched them.
Just made the first recipe. Yum!!
Thanks for posting.
Threw away the Gailan bottom part ?oh no way.......
Sigh... you're not alone in that comment. Who knew people were so into the tough fibrous stem of the gailan? I'm like half convinced that we're talking about different things - sometimes in supermarkets in the USA I see the Gailan sold without that tough bottom part. The stem you're referring to is roughly 1-2 inches long and you need to peel it, slice it, and cook it for longer, yeah?
Chinese Cooking Demystified All my concern is don't waste , besides, for me it's not too difficult to peel the hard skin for those 10 smthg pcs of veg
I feel it's kinda a waste of time especially if you're just making a quick work day dinner. We always just snap it off and done, and we usually have a way larger portion for stir fry gailan than the one shown in the video. If you buy veggies here, they don't come in bags, the bottom part is often a bit dry and tough since they've been sitting out for a while in the market. Besides, it's not so much a waste, gailan is cheap here.
+Chinese Cooking Demystified Just a throwback to hard times where frugality thrived. In my household they end up in the bin or a better place the compost bin.
+SuperChansy Haha thanks, started to feel like we were the crazy ones there ;) I think going that route definitely makes sense if you're abroad and Gailan is sorta a luxury (heard some people had to pay $4+/lb for it). Honestly, here in the PRD it's almost as cheap as cabbage, so it never really occurred to us that some would take offense to not using the fibrous part.
love your videos! traditional chinese cooking has a special place in my heart. thank you!
You're welcome~
josephine chen