Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- You know, one of the great culinary destinations in the entire world is Hong Kong.

It's just full of great cooking, including Cantonese cooking.

We brought back three recipes that we really, really love.

Sweet and sour pork, we've all had that.

Too sweet, it's too gummy, it's too rich, it's too heavy.

This is a very light version.

Then, in a food stall, we found a really interesting recipe-- black pepper beef and potato stir fry.

And finally, this is one of my favorite recipes of all time.

It's a flash cooked shrimp with garlic and ginger.

So please stay tuned as we take a fresh look at the cooking of Hong Kong.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - In the United States, we think of sweet and sour pork as thickly battered, deeply fried, and heavily sauced with DayGlo corn syrup.

Now, I figured there had to be a better way, so I went to Hong Kong.

Luckily, a couple of cooks introduced me to old school ways of making the dish-- recipes that brought it back to its lighter, brighter, and thankfully fruitier origins.

In Hong Kong, sweet and sour pork is a dish that most people leave to the pros.

So I was eager to learn its history from chef Wong Wing Keung.

- (speaking Cantonese) - The secret to that perfect balance is a light starch slurry.

Emphasis on light.

But the real secret was hidden in the sauce.

- (speaking Cantonese) - Chef Wong was right.

Every sauce I tried was different.

At Thai Dining Room, Chef Fung Wing Hung took a freewheeling approach with his signature ingredient, balsamic vinegar.

Then I visited Brother Seafood Restaurant, a family-run place anchored in old-school Hong Kong cooking.

They showed me their tradition-bound approach to the making of this dish, which included a sauce with really balanced sweetness.

I needed to know, how did they do it?

Soy sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire, sugar.

All the usual suspects.

So what is it that made this sauce the light and bright version I'd been searching for?

That's when I saw it.

Those are dried hawthorn berries, a crab apple-like fruit that was the traditional source of fruity sweetness in sweet and sour pork.

They're hard to find fresh, but they are the key ingredient.

- (speaking Cantonese) - The secret was hidden in the sauce.

Steeping the dried hawthorn berries and then straining them out creates a sauce with a sweet complexity and deep flavor.

Still, as I approached the end of my time in Hong Kong, I knew my mission wasn't quite over.

If this was going to be a recipe I could bring back to Milk Street, I'd have to match that hawthorn flavor with something we can find in the States.

I just didn't expect the solution to be quite so simple.

- Those hawthorn berries actually turned out to be a really important part of this recipe.

The thing about hawthorn berries is that even in Hong Kong, they can be hard to come by these days.

Generally, you're gonna find them as candy.

So I ate a lot of hawthorn berry-flavored foods while I was in Hong Kong-- I took one for the team here.

It was sour, it was tangy, and it was sweet.

And that's when I realized: apple jelly-- it's the same flavor as apple jelly and so that became the key to our replicating a true authentic Cantonese sweet and sour sauce back here.

We're gonna start with a little bit of white sugar, a little bit of soy sauce for those savory umami notes, some rice vinegar-- we use unseasoned because we like to control the sugar and salt levels.

And then look, ketchup is delicious, let's face it.

And even in Hong Kong, the cooks who use kind of the old school approach, they still use ketchup in it because it's delicious.

It's got all the things you're looking for in a sweet and sour sauce.

And then, of course, we're going to add our apple jelly.

We're also going to add just a little smidge of MSG.

Now, I know that this is a controversial ingredient.

You don't have to use it if you don't want to, but it is such an amazing flavor enhancer, and all the cooks in Hong Kong use it.

I really encourage you to do it.

With our sauce prep, we can move ahead to the pork.

and we're gonna start by seasoning it because we like to layer in flavor at every opportunity we can.

What we have here is about a pound, pound-and-a-quarter of boneless country-style pork spare ribs; now, the size actually matters less than consistency of size because we want them to cook at the same pace.

Now, to season them, we're gonna add a little bit of white sugar, a little bit more soy sauce, some salt and pepper, and again, sorry, a little bit more MSG.

It works wonders with meat.

Try it or leave it out.

Up to you.

So after our pork is seasoned for about 30 minutes, we're gonna borrow another really important lesson I learned in Hong Kong, and that's the battering or, frankly, the lack thereof.

Old school Cantonese-style sweet and sour pork uses instead a very light slurry based on starch-- sometimes potato starch, sometimes corn starch.

Now, this makes a huge difference, because when you fry the pork, it's gonna crisp up really light without soaking up all of that oil, and the resulting dish is much, much lighter.

We're gonna take about a quarter-cup of neutral oil and put it in a medium-hot wok.

And we're gonna cook our pork half at a time.

And we do that because we do not want to crowd the wok, because if we do, the pork will steam instead of sear.

After about a minute, now we can start moving our pork around to get some even browning.

And this is the point where you can really use the wok to your advantage.

If you find that some pieces are browning a little bit too quickly, move them to the sides of the wok, which are a little bit cooler.

That's the whole point of a wok, actually, is to give you lots of surface area to work with, and that lets you control the cooking a little bit better.

The reason we cook in stages like this is that in stir frying, each ingredient often should be treated separately so that you can cook each one perfectly.

If we cooked the pork and the produce together, one would be overcooked, one would be undercooked, and so we want to be able to give them each their due.

The other nice part about this stage is that the vegetables are going to release a little bit of moisture, and that's going to help deglaze the pan and pull off all that flavor that's stuck on the bottom of the wok.

Now it is time for the star of the dish-- the sweet and sour sauce itself.

Now, the thing you need to know about wok-style cooking across Asia is that it's done over incredibly intense heat.

And that's really important because that's actually part of the flavor profile of a lot of the dishes.

It's called wok hei, which is kind of an ethereal, smoky richness that gets imparted to the food.

I worked with a chef in Bangkok who explained to me that if you can't replicate wok hei, what you can do is build additional flavor into the sauce itself.

And that's what we're gonna do here.

So we're gonna heat our wok over medium-high, and we're gonna add our sauce directly to the wok by itself.

So after like, five, seven minutes, the sauce is reduced.

That means all those flavors are concentrated.

The sugars in it are caramelized.

It's a lot of rich flavor in there.

Now, part of what happens here, too, is that cornstarch that we used to slurry and fry the pork, it's gonna leach out a little bit into the sauce, and that's gonna help thicken the sauce so that it really does coat the meat.

All right, let's dig in.

Mmm.

The cornstarch crisps up so nice and light.

It's not heavy.

And the sauce itself isn't gloopy and overly sweet.

It's a balanced sauce.

That's what I love about this.

This is sweet and sour pork, brought back to its Cantonese origins.

In Hong Kong.

I was also introduced to a kind of eatery called the dai pai dong, an open air food stall with massive kerosene-fueled burners that erupt like jet engines.

The flames are so intense, so all-consuming, that the burners have to live street side.

These eateries are facing extinction as regulations force them off the streets.

The locals I spoke to feel this loss.

And I have to admit, there's something about the ambiance of this style of cooking that you really can only appreciate outdoors.

It was here at Oi Man Sang Kitchen that I ate one of the best things on my trip-- a stir fry that is essentially Hong Kong's version of meat and potatoes.

- This Cantonese beef and potato stir fry that we learned in Hong Kong presents itself as a humble dish.

But like your bashful next door neighbor who you thought was an accountant, but actually turns out to be an aerospace engineer at NASA, this dish contains three really cool science tricks that you can use far beyond this recipe.

But what we're going to start with is a slurry mixture that will be applied to the beef.

And this is sometimes called velveting.

Now, there are a lot of different ways to do velveting with meat, and the reason for velveting is it creates a very tender structure.

What we're using today for our velveting mixture is a little bit of egg white, some shaoxing sherry wine, soy sauce, of course, little bit of sugar, and some baking soda.

Now, the baking soda and the egg white both combine to create that velveting effect that we're looking for.

Both egg white and baking soda are alkaline.

Alkaline is very high up there on the pH scale.

So when this slurry comes in contact with the beef, it raises the pH on the surface of the beef, and that inhibits the bonding of the proteins as the meat cooks, allowing the meat to remain tender.

Now, with flank steak, you can see that there's a clearly delineated grain to the meat.

We're going to cut this into one-inch cubes.

So we'll begin by cutting with the grain, which is a little bit unusual, but then we're going to cut across the grain.

You want all the surfaces of the meat to get really well coated with the slurry.

And there's where the velveting effect takes place.

Our science trick number one, sitting here in the bowl, ready to go.

So the next thing we do with almost every stir fry is we make the sauce.

You want to make that in advance 'cause even though it goes in last in the stir fry, it's nice to have it all mixed together so you don't have to pause at that point.

We'll stir this together to melt the sugar, and we'll just set this aside and let it wait until we're ready to stir fry.

Now we need to prep the potatoes a little bit.

We're going to parboil them until they're about al dente.

You know, in Hong Kong, they basically deep fry the potatoes from a raw state.

We found we really loved the fluffy texture that we can get when we parboil the potatoes in acidulated water.

And what this does is it helps prevent that pectin from breaking down completely, and the potato can hold its shape for a little bit longer.

And that is cool science lesson number two.

(chuckles) Okay, the potatoes cooked for about six minutes, then we drained them, and now we are going to transfer them to a bowl.

And now science lesson number three.

This is cornstarch.

One of the purposes of cornstarch in this application is as it coats the potatoes, it draws out excess moisture, and that is what allows the potato to maintain its fluffy structure.

What cornstarch also does in this application, because it doesn't allow more moisture to get in, it allows the starches of the potato to caramelize faster, so the potato gets browner faster, and it maintains a little bit of crispiness as well.

And it does not stick to your stainless steel pan or your wok.

These are looking really good.

I'm going to let them continue to brown, and we'll start adding the vegetables; we have the onions and some chopped Fresno chilies for a little bit of heat.

We're going to transfer it to a plate.

Good, put this back on the burner, add a little more oil, and this will be for the beef.

The nice thing about cubes is it allows some of the beef in the center to remain a little pink.

The beef is going to be tender and delicious no matter what degree you cook it to.

Going to add this back in.

The moisture from the onions will also help release some of that brownness on the bottom of the pan.

Now, as soon as those vegetables get hot again, we'll be ready to add the sauce.

Oh, darn it, I got so excited by the stir fry, I forgot one of the most important ingredients, black pepper.

This is a black pepper beef stir fry, after all, and we're going to make a full teaspoon of black pepper on this.

Now, in a lot of Asian cultures, black pepper is a lot more than just an accent seasoning.

It's actually a flavor addition as well.

Sauce is always the last thing, and you need everything to be hot so that sauce will thicken and glaze immediately.

Do make sure the sauce reaches a good, nice sizzle, because that's what activates the cornstarch to thicken it and allows it to give that glossy, glazy coating on the meat and vegetables.

It's just enough to really glaze all the ingredients.

Okay, obviously, with stir fry, you want to cook it right before you serve it.

You want to serve it hot, and then you want to watch and enjoy as everyone tucks in and eats.

I am always amazed at how tender flank steak can be with this velveting process.

And these potatoes are beautifully fluffy inside.

Firm, holding their shape still, but not soggy in any way.

This is our Cantonese stir fried black pepper beef and potatoes.

This is one stealthy recipe with some amazing science tricks in there that you can use well beyond this recipe.

It's a great example of the ingenuity in cooking from around the world.

- Understanding the science of slurry will definitely change the way you cook, and it's going to take your stir fries to the next level.

So what is a slurry?

Let's break this down.

You may be familiar with a slurry that you use to thicken gravy, which is generally usually cornstarch or flour whisked into a little milk or cream or chicken stock that you slowly add to bubbling liquid.

That heat activates the thickening agents in the cornstarch and thickens your soup or thickens your gravy.

Well, we use that cornstarch in a lot of other ways in the kitchen, and one of them is in slurries or stir fries.

This can be used in a saut for a stir fry, just dry like it is.

Take, for instance, our delicious stir fried cumin tofu.

We soak tofu slabs in a delicious rich sauce, pat them dry, and then coat the edges with cornstarch.

This immediately dries the surface of the tofu, so when they hit the pan, they're going to get nice and crisp around the edges while retaining moisture in the interior.

Now, if we move on to other proteins, like meat, we would make a liquid slurry.

If you were to dredge a lean cut of meat in just plain cornstarch and throw that into a skillet, that cornstarch can clump up and burn before you get to the point where the meat is cooked.

So we like to make a liquid slurry in that case.

So what this will do with the steak is the same thing it does for this tofu.

The moment this hits the pan, the starch on the exterior will seal up that meat.

The meat will stay moist inside while it will develop a little bit of a crisp crust on the outside.

So we'll take our slurry to the next level and use it to also tenderize meat.

So we take cornstarch, water, and egg white, like we did for the Cantonese stir fried beef and whisk it together so you will get that telltale crisp first bite, but nice soft, velvety texture in the interior of the meat using this type of slurry.

Finally, here at Milk Street, we go another step beyond that.

We love to flavor our slurries.

So take, for instance, our stir fried orange chicken.

We make a typical slurry, but then we add a little white miso, whisk that into the slurry, and add the chicken.

Not only does the slurry do its job, protecting that meat from drying out and crisping the edges, but then it releases even more flavor into the sauce.

- One of the real benefits of doing on-the-ground research for recipe development are all the techniques, flavors, and recipes you weren't expecting to learn.

So while we went to Brother Seafood Restaurant to explicitly learn sweet and sour pork, we learned so many other things we got excited about.

The most exciting is this shrimp.

It's really two techniques that I think, as a cooking instructor, are fundamental and you must have in your repertoire.

One, it solves the problem of rubbery shrimp.

Thank you.

And two, it uses one of our favorite techniques from Cantonese cooking-- hot oil flashing.

Let's start with the shrimp.

So put your steamer basket in a wide pot.

We need the shrimp to be in one layer, so you want your steamer basket to be able to go out flat.

While your steamer basket is in the pot, you want to go ahead and add in enough water so it's almost reaching the bottom.

Take your steamer basket out, go ahead and turn it on high.

While that gets up to a nice strong boil, we get the rest of the recipe ready.

We're gonna start with our sauce.

This is for later, so this is two tablespoons of soy sauce.

Want to mix this together, and we're gonna save this for the end.

I want to take a minute to talk about shrimp.

See how this shrimp is like a J. We want it, when they're done, they're gonna be a soft C. You want to avoid this.

This is overcooked.

This is a rubbery shrimp that's not fun to eat.

A nice soft C like this, this is delicious.

So now we can just put these in a single layer on your steamer basket.

We're not trying to develop browning on this shrimp, so you don't need to worry about them being super patted dry.

We want to keep these nice and sweet and succulent, and a little bit of moisture is fine.

Again, this is a very simple weeknight recipe.

You don't need to be too particular.

All right, good vigorous boil.

So now you're going to do something that might make you nervous.

You're turning off the heat.

We're gonna quickly put our shrimp in here, put the top on and set a timer for three minutes.

While those are cooking off heat, let's talk about the second technique, hot oil flashing.

It's the easiest way to make your food fancy without doing much work.

So we're gonna put neutral oil in a pan.

We're gonna add the garlic to the oil-- you don't have to.

But for this dish, we like it because we get a little bit of a roasty flavor to complement the sweetness of the shrimp.

So what are you hot oil flashing?

You're cooking your aromatics, but just with a kiss of heat.

So we have raw ginger, raw scallions and raw Fresno chili.

Once the shrimp are done, we're just going to scatter them on top, and then we're going to pour on that hot oil.

And it takes out the raw bite, but doesn't overcook them.

It's a great way to finish simply cooked greens.

It's a nice way to dress up leftover rice.

Traditionally, it's used over a whole fish.

It sizzles, it's dramatic, and it's also delicious.

One note about your ingredient prep.

We want to be able to scatter things evenly.

If you mince your ginger, you're gonna actually be able to scatter it because it doesn't get as pulpy and wet.

All right, let's take a look.

Perfect.

Those are perfect!

A nice open, loose C. None of this.

Yay!

And my oil's heating.

It's been about a minute or so, and I can hear the garlic sizzling.

I want it just to get a little bit of color and then we can do the hot oil flash.

We're gonna scatter our aromatics.

So here's that minced ginger.

Chili-- the red just adds a really good pop.

And I like the fruitiness of Fresno, but definitely if you have serrano or jalapeno, it works really well.

And scallion.

So we have our hot oil and our beautifully golden garlic.

And now-- shh-- we get to hear the sizzle.

(sizzling) That was a sizzle.

The very last touch is our soy sauce.

So let's see what dinner looks like in ten to 15 minutes.

All right, let's try.

I'm gonna get one with plenty of hot oil flash deliciousness.

Hot oil flashing.

It's magic.

All those aromatics still have a little punch, but the aggressiveness has been kissed out of them with the hot oil and the shrimp, they are cooked perfectly.

There's nothing rubbery in this dish.

It's succulent and sweet with the nice kick of Fresno at the end.

This is why when you travel, you keep your mind open.

It's all the unexpected things that make the trip worth the journey.

We went for sweet and sour pork, but we came back with perfectly cooked shrimp.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

- Wonton noodle soup, if you order that in a restaurant, you're going to see it usually served in a pretty small bowl.

You'll see some bouncy yellow noodles, and you'll see some dumplings that are wrapped in the same colored wrapper, which is a yellow wrapper.

And they cook fast.

It's prawn.

Prawn doesn't take long.

And because the skin is so thin, you don't want to keep it in the boiling water for too long, which means that you want to put just a little bit teeny bit of filling inside.

The wontons, they don't take long to wrap.

They don't take a lot of skill.

Dumplings take actually more skill to wrap.

But the wontons, a lot of people just, they kind of do this.

They squeeze it shut.

And it's ready to go.

- I mean, I've seen the women in the shops forming those dumplings, and they go blindingly fast.

Is that the sort of thing that moms make their kids do and the kids hate?

- Do they ask the kids to partake in the wrapping?

You're in Hong Kong, the kids do nothing.

No.

The kids have no idea what's inside.

The kids have no idea how it's made.

- Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com, along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes, and step-by-step videos.

Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.

- The new Milk Street Cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.

From Vietnamese chicken salad and tiramisu, to easy-stretch pizza dough and Austrian apple strudel, the new Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $29.95, 40% less than the cover price.

Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.