Simply Ming

MING: Hey, Ming Tsai here with Simply Ming.

I have an incredibly special guest today.

Kristen Kish is in the house.

You know her from Top Chef.

Cookbook author, chef-owner of a fantastic restaurant in Austin, Texas, called Arlo Grey.

She has amazing pedigree, she worked for Michelin star chef Guy Martin, she worked for Barbara Lynch here in Boston at Menton.

She can cook, and she's going to make a sushi rice cake crisp up with surf and turf: bacon and crab.

I need all the help I can get when I'm trying to cook rice.

MING: I am so giving you one of my rice cookers.

(both laugh) I'm going to take my version of her sushi rice cake and top it with a little tuna poke and avocado lime puree.

Fire in the hole.

MING: Whatever you do, don't ever panic.

(laughs) Mmm.

MING: So simple.

We're cooking sushi rice cakes right here, right now, on Simply Ming.

MING: K.K., nice to have you back.

Thank you for having me.

MING: Welcome back in Boston.

Thank you, it feels like home.

MING: It does, right?

You have so many friends here, right?

I do.

And you.

MING: Yes, thank you.

We're so happy to have Kristen back in the house.

We're doing a cocktail to start, to get us in the mood.

I'm making a tequila daiquiri.

Right, so tequila and rum.

Do me a favor, can you dump this out?

We're chilling with club soda, because it helps chill it faster, the bubbles, and then two lime wheels.

Sure.

MING: If you don't mind.

I'm going to go ahead and get this started.

And the reason, of course, you do that, guys, is you make a cocktail.

The cocktail comes at probably 33, 34 degrees.

If you put them in room temp, you just got the cocktail an extra 20 degrees.

So chill your glasses.

So, just make sure you use 100% agave tequila.

Don't use the tequila as you know, that's made with sugar cane.

Because those are the tequilas that, not that you would ever wake up with a headache, but I have, if you drink that tequila.

Many times.

MING: Yes, it's not good.

And a little bit of rum in this tequila daiquiri.

We're just going to do a half ounce of rum.

That's three ounces of tequila.

Just a little flavoring.

Then, of course, we need lime juice.

So we need an ounce of lime juice.

Freshly squeezed.

And then just a touch of simple syrup.

Half-ounce.

Delicious.

MING: That's it.

Pretty simple.

Nice lime wheels.

Thank you very much.

MING: So how's Austin?

Austin is good.

It's just, it's hot there, I'm not going to lie.

So I do drink a lot of chilled tequila.

MING (laughing): Do you?

Like, it's my thing.

MING: That's good.

And the restaurant seems pretty solid.

The restaurant is doing really well.

MING: Got a lot of people now going.

Here we go.

Boom.

All right, perfect.

So, just a little bit here.

Like when it's nice and foamy like that.

Delicious.

MING: Right?

And this is a coupe glass; it's not really meant to be filled to the top, 'cause you'll spill it everywhere.

All right.

You going to garnish me up?

Sure.

MING: There we go.

Beautiful.

Here we go.

The first of many, I hope.

Thank you very much.

MING: Cheers.

Cheers to you.

Cheers.

Are you chugging it?

MING: Mm-mmm.

(laughing): "Am I chugging it," what a great comment.

No, we'll chug it later.

(laughing): You almost chugged it!

I love her, no wonder she won Top Chef.

You want to make some sushi rice cakes?

Yes, let's do it.

MING: You like it?

I love it.

Oh, well, clearly.

MING: Clearly.

That's how I start every morning.

MING (laughing): Perfect.

Not as good, though.

MING: Let's go.

Come on, you don't have a bartender?

MING: All right.

Kristen, what is your dish, please?

We are going to do basically my mash-up of crab fried rice, bibimbap, and a Persian crispy rice.

MING: Love it.

And then I... and then a New England, like, crab roll.

MING: That's it.

Yeah.

MING: Sounds simple.

So, what kind of prep work can I do for you?

Yeah, so, we're going to start off with a little bit of knife work.

We're going to cut these into like one-inch pieces.

Green on the bias of the scallion, thinly sliced chives, and sliced cucumber.

MING: Okay.

And then, meanwhile, kind of while all that's happening, we're going to cook rice.

MING: Okay.

The best way I know how to cook rice.

MING: Let's hear it.

So, for me, it's water, rice, heat, a little bit of salt, and then hopefully it turns out right.

MING (laughing): Okay.

Crossed fingers.

Basically what it is.

So, sushi rice.

MING: Right.

I know the whole rinsing process.

We don't do that.

MING: You don't do it?

I think it's a waste of time.

For this purpose.

And then it's one part rice to one-and-a-half parts water.

And what we're going to do is bring this up to a simmer.

MING: Cover for you.

We're going to actually put a little bit of foil.

MING: Foil?

So we used, we used plastic to kind of make sure it's all sealed in, and then the foil to kind of reinforce, and then the lid to re-reinforce.

I need all the help I can get when I'm trying to cook rice (laughing): is what it is... MING: I am so giving you one of my rice cookers.

(both laugh) Okay, that's good.

You'll have to teach me how to open it first.

MING: Yes, exactly.

All right, I'll do some knife work.

And what else... So... kind of like what's happening now is we're taking, like, crab, bacon, for me, like that New England hot buttered crab roll.

MING: Yep, love it.

And then your haricots verts, and, really, you can swap it out with any kind of vegetables.

And then, in any great lobster roll, crab roll, you have a mayonnaise of sorts.

MING: Yes.

So for me, what we're going to do is we're going to make a homemade saffron aioli.

And that starts with your egg yolks.

And then we have a little bit of saffron, which we take a little bit of our lemon juice and bloom it, so it kind of starts to pull out that color and flavor softens it a touch.

MING: Love it.

We'll add a little bit of lemon juice.

MING: I love the old school using a whisk, not a plug-in.

Yeah.

The thing for me is... these appliances take time to pull out, and then they're bulky.

Like, if you're just doing a small amount, I feel like it's unnecessary.

MING: I'm with you, 100%.

So, the egg yolks-- this is lemon juice, a little pinch of salt, and then we're going to start to add our oil.

So, fun little fact.

MING: Yep, let's hear it.

Each egg yolk can hold two ounces of fat before it breaks, but if you incorporate a drop of water, lemon juice, liquid, it can hold more, so.

MING: You can tell she's drizzling it slowly.

You have to make sure the little bits oil combine before you add more oil, right?

And it's-- you can already tell, it's already emulsifying nicely.

I mean, if you want to use a blender, like hand blender, it's totally fine.

There also is this, like, weird point of pride.

I'm sure you've had these moments where you're just like "No, I'm going to do it the old school way... MING: 100%.

"...by hand, and I'm going to show everyone," and then meanwhile you're kind of regretting it as you do it.

MING: Especially if you're on stage, in front of an audience... Exactly.

You know, you're sweating.

Yep.

MING: That all right?

Perfect.

MING: That what you're looking for?

Perfect.

So, essentially, these are just kind of like some green, bright garnishes.

MING: Okay.

And then we're also going to take some lemon.

We're just going to do some lemon wedges to squeeze over for garnish.

MING: Lemon wedges.

Yep.

MING: Got it.

And so with aioli, too, you can do different oils.

I prefer a neutral... MING: Neutral, canola, right.

...flavor-wise and color-wise.

MING: Because you want to taste the saffron.

Exactly.

Yep.

MING: Yep.

And here you want to taste the bacon and crab, I presume.

And so, kind of what we're gonna... we're starting over here with some bacon lardons.

MING: Right.

And we're starting to pull out some of that fat to crisp it up.

And this is kind of the base in which we're going to kind of heat up the haricots verts and the crab meat.

MING: Awesome.

So you're actually going to cook in the bacon fat?

Exactly, so it's all one pot.

So you have your rice one pot, you have your garnish one pot, and then we're going to sear our rice cakes in one pot.

So, theoretically, doesn't really take that much space.

MING: So, I see a little steam coming out.

Mm-hmm, so now it's probably a great time.

We can take this-- now, it's started to simmer a touch.

MING: Yeah.

And then, we're going to throw it right in a 350 oven.

Takes about ten minutes, and, basically, the job is to forget about it.

And, again, it's just like hoping that it all works.

MING: So, ten minutes.

Totally gonna work.

MING: This is what we have.

I'm fascinated to see this.

This is my foolproof way.

(laughs) MING: This is your-- hold on, this handle's hot.

...with lots of trial and error.

I had to come up with a way that it didn't mess up.

MING: Look at that.

Perfect.

Yep.

So I mean, this is also a really good way, too, to incorporate and use up any, like, leftover rice.

MING: The aioli's good.

Awesome.

So, in the restaurant, this is a kind of a staple on our menu.

We take our deli containers, which you find so often in restaurants, and we do a light little greasing on the outside or on the inside.

MING: Right, just canola, again.

Little spoon.

So you're basically going to take your rice... ...and then you pack it in.

MING: Interesting.

Yep.

And so as it cools, those starches kind of cool, and it starts to kind of glue together, essentially.

A little bit more.

MING: Okay.

I like that.

Yep.

MING: So that it cools, it'll come together, I like that.

Yep.

So, we've tried a different... a bunch of methods.

Ring molding, putting it on sheet trays.

But at the end of the day, these things are accessible, there are always, you know, takeout containers, different things that, you know, you ordered food the night before.

MING: Right.

Leftover rice, if you have it after dinner, after takeout, do the same thing, put it in the fridge.

And so we actually like to cool it, because it really helps it set.

MING: Okay.

Let me grab that.

Check your lardon... Cool.

MING: So, just explain how you did that.

Yeah, so the bacon, we just kind of cut it into lardons, which are a little, kind of matched, like, batons of sorts.

And we're just low and slow, really rendering out all that fat.

And as that fat comes out, the bacon's starting to crisp.

So once it starts to get nice and crispy, what we can do... MING: Here, I'll give you those.

Okay.

MING: Want these out?

Yep.

MING: You want it a little bit crisper?

We can take them out because then they're going to start to cook with everything else.

MING: Okay.

And what we're going to do, instead of using oil now, we've used it in a couple of different places.

Now we're going to use the bacon fat and clarified butter.

MING: Got it.

So, keeping the bacon fat in for you.

Exactly.

MING: All right, so... And then your perfectly cut haricots verts, we're just going to go right into the pot.

MING: Okay.

There we go.

All right, for you... put that on high.

(blowing) Fire in the hole.

MING: (blowing) Whatever you do, don't ever panic.

(laughing) MING: Because if you panic, you're out.

(blowing) It's just fire.

It's really great.

MING: I turned that off.

I love it.

Okay.

MING: Okay.

So, with the bacon fat, it does have a little bit of salt, so once we have the haricots verts, we just want to add a tiny bit of salt.

Just to kind of reinforce our flavor.

MING: Okay, got it.

And as they're starting to saut, we just kind of let them hang out.

MING: And here you have clarified butter.

Yep.

MING: Can you explain why and how you do clarifying?

Yep.

So, why we do clarified butter is that the milk solids is actually what burns in butter.

So, essentially the clarified butter... MING: Kind of like a paper towel.

Exactly, precisely.

So you get the flavor of the butter, but you don't get the browning bits.

So you're going to take a little bit of clarified butter.

We're going to do a nice, healthy layer.

Throw these in, and just do a nice little light sear on them.

(sizzling) Our rice cakes.

MING: That is a beautiful sushi rice cake, but it is paramount that you actually chill the rice cake, right?

Yeah.

So, otherwise, if we didn't chill it, we would take it out like this and it would fall apart.

MING: Which would ruin it.

So we're only searing one side.

MING: Just one side?

Just one side.

Like crme brle.

And this is essentially the bun to our lobster roll now.

MING: Awesome.

Right?

And we're creating that crisp.

MING: So how long does this cook for?

Couple minutes on one side.

MING: All right, you know what?

We're going to take a quick two-minute break.

When we come back, we get to plate up surf and turf sushi rice cakes.

That's right.

MING: Stick around.

MING: All right.

Close.

So what we're going to do, our beans are nice and al dente.

We're going to add a little bit of our crab meat.

MING: And you pick it, right?

Correct.

MING: Crab comes from the ocean.

We have people that-- the fishermen, whatever, they process it, they pick it out.

But there's going to be, sometimes, some shells.

It's just-- so, go through your crab meat.

Exactly.

MING: And it's been about three minutes on the sushi rice.

Correct.

MING: We're going to use, looking for, just a little... Nice little sear, just how you would sear a piece of meat or a piece of fish.

MING: Awesome.

Great.

So now, we're just kind of warming it through.

The crab meat is already cooked, the bacon's already cooked, the beans.

So now, it's just kind of tossing it all together and making sure that it's all nice seasoned... MING: Any pepper?

We're going to garnish with lots of-- like, a ton of black pepper.

So once this is kind of all warmed through, we're going to take it...

Thank you.

We're going to kind of load it in the bottom of the bowl.

MING: Interesting.

So the hero's really the (speaking French)-- the crispness of the... Exactly.

MING: ...of the rice.

Crab fried rice of sorts.

MING: Crab fried rice.

I love it.

And then our rice cakes... MING: I love this.

...are nice and-- kind of bring it over.

You got a nice little crisp layer.

MING: Oh look at that.

Awesome.

Oh wait, I need to do cucumbers.

I'm slacking as your sous chef!

(Kristen laughs) By the time you get to there this will all be ready to go.

So now we're just kind of garnishing the whole thing.

So our beautiful aioli-- lemony saffron-- kind of nice, healthy dollop, right kind of over the top.

MING: Perfect unbroken aioli done by hand.

Duly noted, culinary students.

Tons of freshly ground pepper.

MING: Tons.

Yes.

And then now we garnished with all these lovely green things.

So we have our cucumbers...

It's basically a lovely kind of rice bowl.

MING: It is a rice bowl, composed.

Then you have all of your cilantro.

MING: Love it.

All of your oniony bites of scallion and chive.

And then a little lemon wedge right on the side.

MING: Awesome.

Can I show you my sushi rice cake?

I would love to see it.

MING: All right.

Teach me how to cook rice properly.

MING: I use something genius, it's called a rice cooker.

Check it out.

MING: That dish looks awesome.

Thank you.

MING: I cannot wait to dig into that surf and turf rice cake-- all right, I'm doing a tuna poke with an avocado lime puree with a different version of a sushi rice cake.

So if you don't mind sashimi grade tuna, as you know, (sniffing): ...smell it, it should smell like the see.

We'll take that off.

That we cook and do it later, but if you could just could this way give me, like, what's that?

Half an inch or not quite?

Three-quarters?

MING: Yeah, maybe half inch dice, if you don't mind.

Got it.

MING: All right, I'm going to start with the sushi rice first.

What you need to make the su.

So when you make sushi rice you have... Teach me, rice master.

(laughs) MING: You have vinegar, this is rice vinegar.

I usually do four parts rice vinegar to one part of mirin.

This is sweet sake, right?

And then a couple pinches of sugar.

I use much less sugar than I've been trained because I just don't need it that sweet.

All right, so this you just need to bring to a simmer to melt the sugar.

All right?

And the key here is then when that comes to a simmer I will mix it with hot sushi rice.

So this is called a rice cooker, right?

(Kristen laughs) How do I know that?

Just by its shape.

Here, do me a favor, push this button, pick it up.

Is this how you open it?

MING: This is how you open it-- push that.

(Ming gasps) Oh, my gosh.

MING: And look, rice.

(Kristen laughs) It's amazing right?

And it's perfectly cooked.

MING: And it's perfectly cooked.

So I do, as I showed you, I just filled water, I washed the rice, I fill water up to the first knuckle, you're done.

So then you take this rice, which you can see is fluffy and cooked.

Do you add seasoning or that's all afterwards?

MING: I add the su afterwards.

Okay.

MING: The key to making sushi rice, good sushi rice, this is the exact same sushi dress I would use to make maki sushi or to make nigiri.

There's actually... this is screeching hot, right?

You need to let this come down a little bit because this is way over 212 degrees, right, because the latent heat.

So once this su comes to a simmer, I combine them together when they're both hot.

Ah... MING: Because if I added cold vinegar and stuff, you would get a glutinous mess, right?

So I'm just waiting for that come to a simmer.

So that's coming together.

I'll go ahead and make my avocado lime puree, which is going to be a level in this cake.

And nowadays you have to be a little careful because some of these avocadoes, the pit is so small.

Yeah.

MING: Right?

That you do the knife thing and you're like, "Oh, my God.

What?

What happened to the pit?"

And you can actually get yourself.

And you guys all know this trick, right, knife and just twist it, it comes out.

Right, so now, we're going to take some avocado, and this we're just going to... mash it up with fresh lime juice.

You have to acidulate your avocado.

Not within ten seconds, but within two minutes, I think.

It starts to noircir, starts to get black, which you don't want.

All right, so this we'll take some salt and pepper.

Nice tuna, that's perfect.

Thank you.

MING: If you could do the same, chopped chives, that would be great.

Yes.

MING: And just a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

Just a touch.

And this we'll mash.

And then we'll add a little bit of lime juice before it starts to noircir.

All right.

Here's some chives for you, if you don't mind.

Of course.

MING: I like this...

I want this really tart so I'm going to do a whole lime juice because the tuna is going to be nice and rich.

So mash this up.

Just waiting for the su to come to a simmer.

So does... when you're using a rice cooker one: does it work faster, and two: do you use the same water-rice ratio?

MING: Um... so, full disclosure, I've never measured water to rice.

This is a discussion I had with my wife and lots of people.

They're like, "It's always two to one."

Well, it's not always two to one you just did one and a half to one.

But I always use the sushi rice... the Mount Fuji, right?

You touch the rice, water to here.

If you can get your whole hand in, it's touch the rice so the water comes there.

That's called Mount Fuji.

Ah...

I do add just a little bit more for sushi rice, because sushi rice takes a little bit more water than regular long grain rice.

So there we have our avocado.

Then with this tartare, this is the most classic kind of tartare poke.

A little bit of hot sauce-- couple of drops.

I love this particular hot sauce.

It's very spicy and vinegary.

Extra virgin.

I'll take half of those beautifully chopped chives, please.

Awesome.

Salt and pepper.

Pretty simple.

All right, so this is now tartare.

(cutlery clanging) Let's try this.

Really simple.

Mm.

MING: I want to taste the tuna, right?

Just enough oil to cover it and glisten it.

Beautiful.

MING: Just like that.

All right, I think this is good here.

Chef, give it a try.

Make sure we're seasoned.

We go through so many spoons during service.

Taste, taste, taste, taste.

Good, no?

Delicious, delicious.

MING: All right, you lovin' Austin.

I love Austin.

It's been a really warm, super welcoming city, which, you know, that's all I really could have asked for at the end of the day.

MING: And I love your... okay look, guys, this steam just started.

That's what I'm looking for, right?

So now, while this is warm and the sushi rice is still warm, you actually put it off your spoon a little bit.

And it has to be wooden spoon?

Or is the best?

MING: It is the best.

And honestly, Kobayashi, my sushi master in Japan, like, "Why are you using a glass bowl?"

See how it's condensating?

That's actually not great for sushi rice.

You need to use those white pine bowls, because those bows absorb the steam, and it doesn't condensate on the rice.

Doesn't matter quite as much here 'cause I'm frying the sushi rice cake.

So it's not about making nigiri or maki sushi, but if I was, I would totally be using the bowls.

All right.

And all I'm going is to just get... see how it gets nice and shiny?

That's on the... You can smell it, right?

That smells amazing, it really does MING: And this vinegar just makes everything taste better.

So I'm going to flavor with furikake, that has togarashi, seaweed, sesame seeds, and we make our own, and we actually add some fried garlic chips.

Mm... MING: Like that.

So this is just a flavored rice cake.

Just a touch more.

Oh, that looks amazing.

MING: All right, there we go.

So now what we do is we make a couple of sushi rice cakes.

So I'm going to take this... and we've got to take a little bit of the sushi rice... place it in....

So really not too dissimilar to what you were doing.

I'm just going to dip it into some liquid.

Oh wow.

MING: Keep it flat, okay?

Like that.

So, really, and we use... used deli cups-- Stunning, yeah.

MING: I'm using this.

It becomes basically the same result.

Yeah.

MING: It's quite funny.

We do two techniques.

And... pack it pretty good, right?

All right, so now we're going to take this.

and we're actually going to shallow fry it.

See here, we have oil.

Nice and warm.

Lay it in.

(sizzles loudly) Oh... Love that sound.

MING: Right?

Yeah.

MING: This is going to take, I don't know, about 30 seconds a side?

We're going to take a quick break, we're going to flip these, and then we're going to plate up our tuna poke.

Stick around.

MING: All right, so about three minutes, right, a minute and a half a side.

That's we're looking for, right?

Look at that.

Mm... GB and D. Beautiful.

MING: All right.

Now, to build these... we take an O-ring, a little bit of oil...

Believe it or not I put this back in.

You kind of... you lose a little bit, which is fine.

Then we build.

Take some avocado.

Put the avocado down first.

Take my tartare...

Put that on top... It's so beautiful.

MING: Okay.

Then we take anything that can fit in.

Push it down a little bit.

Oh!

MING: Okay.

Stunning.

MING: There's one.

Let's do another one while we're here.

All right, O-ring.

You're going to lose a bit.

And by the way, if you can't, if you don't have an O-ring, don't despair.

Get a tuna fish can.

(Kristen laughs) Cut the second end off, wash it really well, it's the perfect O-ring.

And those are free, plus you get high protein.

(Kristen laughs) Right?

Little avocado... ...like that.

Tuna tartare...

So this recipe's good for four, right.

Perfect amount of tuna for four people.

Again push it down.

Like that.

Mm.

Put those in there.

I just do a little bit of more chives, chives on the plate like that, and then a little bit more of this... this is straight togarashi.

So this is the chili spice of Japan.

Here we go.

Oh my gosh.

MING: Let's eat some sushi rice cakes.

Let's do it.

MING: Come on.

Time to mangia.

MING: Cheers.

Cheers.

MING: A little Napa Valley sauvignon blanc.

Thank you.

MING: Actually, 40% of these grapes see a little bit of oak.

So it has a little bit more velvetiness... which should go with this.

All right.

MING: Oh, I can't wait to eat this.

All right, so a little lemon on top, I guess?

Yes, please, squeeze it, get the acid, kind of mash it all together.

There's no... no rules except for make it messy.

And then the goal is just to get all the layers on this one, right?

MING: Crab... Oh my God, this looks delicious.

Mmm... MING: Oh, my God.

Oh.

My.

God.

The textures... MING: It's so good!

Oh my God.

MING: Crunchy.

That... that's even crispier.

This... ...this is so balanced.

The smokiness is just on top.

But the richness of the fantastic aioli with the crab, and the bacon, and then the crispiness of the cucumber and the freshness of all the herbs.

Thank you.

MING: That's been the...

It's just so smart to do that many herbs.

You know how like texturally pleasing things are just, like, throws it right over the edge?

MING: Yeah.

Like for me, I love having different layers because then you have, like, creamy, hearty tuna, and then creamy, soft avocado.

MING: Like this, right?

And then like that crack of rice.

MING: Yeah, the crack of the rice.

Beautiful.

MING: All right, let's try this.

See if we did okay.

I will honestly say your dish...

Your dish is better, I'll say that.

You want to keep fighting on camera?

Because I'll tell you yours is better and then you're... MING: Okay, I could say one thing.

She's much prettier, and much younger, and much lighter.

You have better hair.

(laughing) MING: I love you.

Cheers.

MING: Thank you, welcome back to Boston.

Thank you very much.

MING: Check out Arlo Grey in Austin next time you're in Texas and, as always, peace and good eating.

Cheers.