Simply Ming

MING: Hey, Ming Tsai here, welcome to Simply Ming at Home.

Got a great show, first and foremost-- boom, Henry Tsai is back in the house.

Welcome, sir.

Thank you so much, it's great to be here.

MING: It is good-- did you do your chores?

Yes, of course-- don't check.

MING: You did?

No, he didn't; no, he didn't.

Great show today!

Sausage and peppers, I know you like it.

At Fenway we used to have the traditional sausage and peppers, locally made sausage, and then we're gonna do a... Vegan sausage and peppers.

MING: Using a plant-based awesome Italian sausage, the same caramelized onions and peppers.

But first we start with two cocktails, one for the big boy, moi, a Thai basil smash with awesome Kentucky bourbon, and then a version without the booze.

Sorry-- but it also has Thai basil and lemon.

It's gonna be an awesome show.

It's all coming up right here on... Simply Ming... MING: At Home.

Simply Ming is brought to you by Subaru of New England, proudly celebrating 50 years of love.

Authorized retailers at SubaruOfNewEngland.com.

Here's to the next 50 years and beyond.

MING: Henry, my favorite thing, we're doing a Thai basil smash.

But a little bit different, we're actually gonna add a little bit of lemon, so Henry, just give me like two nice lemon slices, please.

Okay, heard that.

Rounds or wedges?

MING: Just rounds because we're gonna muddle it.

Here I have some Thai basil guys, right?

Love Thai basil.

If you can't get Thai basil, you can use regular basil.

Give it a spank, that's what it's called, and what that does is it releases the oils.

People think it's really funny, but... it works.

There you go.

MING: Yeah, get those seeds out.

Seeds are out.

MING: Those are thin?

Okay, you want a bit thinner?

MING: That's gonna-- it'll work, I'm mudding it...

I'm muddling it, so a couple of lemons, couple basil, little bit of sugar, right?

Henry, you can do this, get in here.

- Sure thing.

MING: And just really get muddied, just muddle that, it's called-- right?

And what happens is that the basil gets smashed, the lemons get smashed, it's becoming a great flavor.

So keep doing that.

I'm going to get another one so we can do this twice.

This probably helps get the oil out of the lemon peel too, right?

MING: It does, exactly, it gets all the lemons out.

All right, is that enough?

MING: That's perfect.

So, now what we're gonna do, to this we're going to add some ice.

So now we have very fragrant basil.

We have nice tart lemon.

We're gonna have some good old Kentucky bourbon.

About two ounces.

All right, then, to this, we're gonna get in the shaker.

You want to shake this, Henry?

Let's see it.

Uh... MING: Let's go-- shake it hard.

(ice rattling) Expert bartender, MING: Notice the rhythm!

Dun dun dun dun... Dun dun dun dun... MING: And how long do you shake it till?

Until your hand gets cold, which is about, about right now.

MING: All right now, you remember how to knock it out?

You get the mid, mid distance.

MING: Low, there you go.

Harder-- there you go.

There we go.

MING: Wow, not bad.

Not bad, not bad.

MING: Not bad, Henry.

All right, then, use a strainer.

Okay, will do.

MING: Voila.

Okay, fair enough, but this way, let go.

Okay.

MING: Take the strainer.

Oh!

That makes more sense.

MING: There you go.

(chuckles) MING: There you go.

There you go.

MING: Perfect.

Put a Thai basil leaf.

That's beautiful, nice, strong drink.

And we'll put a lemon.

And I have a little sparkling water that I am going to then spritz it with.

Henry is going to get a very similar cocktail.

Just without the booze.

All right, let's give this a quick try.

Let's see, let's see how Henry Tsai did.

Oh, Henry, that's awesome.

That is really good.

Let's go!

MING: So, let's do it one more time.

This time we're gonna use same glass.

Yes, I know, there's a little bourbon residual, but it's gonna be okay for Henry.

It's not-- not gonna be anything.

Same thing, Thai basil, smash.

Some sugar-- the sugar, by the way, is not just for sweetness, right?

It provides the abrasiveness, so then it really gets muddied-- keep it on the thing.

There you go.

Then Henry gets that lemon juice with the sugar and we're gonna add a little bit because it's obviously there's no bourbon in here, so, I'm gonna add you a little bit of sparkling, you're muddied, all right.

There you go.

MING: Do it a little bit more for me.

All right-- is that just to dissolve the sugar?

MING: Helps dissolve the sugar exactly-- there's no bourbon, so this helps dissolve the sugar.

Got you.

MING: Perfect, then we'll take this, and you can pour the sparkling, sir.

All right.

MING: Very concentrated lemon basil flavor, sparkling water.

Master pour, right there.

MING: Very good.

Still the same basil, still the same garnish because you know what, you're just as important as everyone else on this planet, Henry.

Aw, thanks, Dad.

(laughter) MING: Cheers.

Cheers.

MING: What do you think?

That's good.

MING: It's pretty good, right?

That's really good, yeah.

MING: Sausage and peppers.

You gotta have your buns.

So we have these great little mini baguettes, you got to have your pickles.

Now this is Chicago style.

So granted on Lansdowne Street, when we have the sausage and pepper, there's no pickles.

This is because I lived in Chicago.

Remember the Chicago dog?

They put a whole spear-- these are spicy garlic pickles, which I love, you love these things, right?

Yeah.

MING: There's actually pieces of garlic, there's pieces of jalapeno, that are like legit delicious.

So that's gonna be laid in, but first we gotta do some knife work.

You and I are gonna first... do a red pepper, a yellow... sorry, a red and a green bell pepper.

All right.

MING: And I'll show you how we do that.

Then we're gonna do some onions.

So, to take-- you know this trick, Henry.

Of course.

MING: Lay your knife flat, roll your bell pepper.

That's how you get all the insides out, right?

Mm-hm, absolutely-- could you do me a favor and say "Chickago" one more time?

MING: "Chickago" one more time.

"Chickago."

Okay, just checking.

MING: Why what do you say?

Well, most of us Americans pronounce it "Shih-cago."

MING: "Shih-cago?"

"Shih-cago" not "Chickago."

MING: Chicago... but it's not S-H-I, "Shih-cago" it's "Chickago."

Fair enough.

(laughs) MING: It's like, are you "Shinese"?

Yeah, I can't argue with that one.

(laughing) MING: You're shiny Chinese.

Shiny Chinese?

We're talking about skin's too oily or something?

MING: You know, no one's ever called me on that.

By the way, guys, you see I am using the ends, right?

You see we take the ends off, but you don't need to throw those away.

That's still really good bell pepper, all right?

So, I have my green one here, too.

Now don't cut a bell pepper this way-- or listen to this.

(loud clatter) See how hard that is?

If you flip it, you can slice through it.

So, use your knife to slice through.

All right, that's some nice julienne.

Let's pile it in here, Henry.

Sure thing.

MING: Then we're gonna get some onions.

Two large yellow onions.

You can't have sausage and peppers without peppers and onions, right?

So all right, Hen, you do one, I do one.

Can do.

MING: So just yellow onions.

Take your ends off.

Gotta take the skin off.

I like to go halfway-- how are you doing it now, Henry?

I cut them in half, take the skin off, and then do the, uh, I don't know, I call it, like, the moon technique just because you're going around it like that.

MING: Oh, the moon technique!

The moon technique.

That's what I was taught, okay?

(laughter) Forgive me!

MING: (laughing) Ah, the famous moon technique-- is that from the Tang dynasty?

(laughing) The floating moon, flowing water technique.

MING (laughs): Okay.

Perfect.

MING: So cut them in half this way, so we're gonna sliver, so go this way, right?

on an angle.

Because I want, I want the onions to kind of be the same size-- now when you get to here guys, you can just put the onion down and just go straight, right?

Not bad... very good.

Henry, your knife skills are getting so much better.

Thank you.

MING: Henry's been cooking professionally for four months and it's paying off, Henry.

So I hope you feel good.

You're welcome.

MING: Let's go cook, grab the sausages please, from the fridge.

So, we're going to take... cast iron.

I'm gonna add a little grapeseed oil to the cast iron.

Here you go.

MING: Okay.

Gonna add all the onions first.

I'm gonna let the onions get a little color and then I'll add the majority of the bell peppers, a couple of bells are going in now, it doesn't bother me.

And we'll really get these onions going, and then the bells will go in after that.

Just a little bit of salt and a little bit of black pepper.

All right, then this next pan, Henry Tsai, We also add a little bit of grapeseed oil.

And we'll take these awesome-- these are spicy Italian, made locally-- love these.

We only have two buns, but we have a shooter, so we might as well do three.

All right, these are going to take, you gotta roll them, sausages, right?

I like them grilled, I like them grilled and griddled, griddles are really good.

So, I gotta go medium temp on this, guys, because there's pork, so you gotta cook it all the way through.

If you go high, you can end up burning.

Which I don't want to do.

These onions are also going to take about, oh, a good probably eight, ten minutes.

We just want to get them soft, I'm not going for dark caramelization, I just want to get them soft to go in the onions and peppers.

all right?

Okay, that looks pretty good, Hen.

We're gonna have to get these buns going.

So I'm gonna go... These are sausages, so.

MING: They're our sausages, but what I do want to do is get a good color on them.

So, we're gonna open them.

But I want to get them on another pan and get it nice and crunchy, right?

So we do like, what, olive oil maybe?

Could be butter or olive oil or mayonnaise, what do you prefer?

You usually seem to go mayonnaise.

You think it's a lot better than the others, why?

MING: You know, grab some mayonnaise, I do like that.

The reason I like mayonnaise and I actually learned this shooting Simply Ming with-- at the, what was that, they were called, this grilled cheese food truck, what were they called?

Uh, Roxy's.

MING: What was it?

MING: Roxy's, it was Roxy's.

They have a location in... MING: So I give credit to Roxy's.

I've seen them, and trying their grilled cheese, they were so awesome.

But they used, instead of butter, they actually used mayonnaise and I asked why, because this is why-- mayonnaise spreads so easily and, and coats it so well and it'll get this... What I'm looking for is a nice golden colored bun, right?

What do you think about that, Henry?

Whatever gets the best taste, honestly.

MING: Good answer.

Oh, this is, this is the vegan mayonnaise, it looks like.

MING: This is the vegan mayonnaise, which is-- reacts the same-- mayonnaise is primarily oil that's been emulsified, right?

Mm-hm.

MING: Right, so vegan, they just took out the emulsification of an egg yolk and they used another natural emulsifier.

Awesome.

MING: All right.

That can go back in the fridge, sir.

Let's go check out... take our buns.

See how our things are doing back here.

Very nice... see all that liquid coming out?

Yeah, that's good, that'll get going good.

All right, how are these sausages, give the sausages a little flip Henry, turn them once, turn them like three times.

Nice, oh, that looks good.

It's hard getting a grip on them.

MING: Oh yes, So slippery...

Here you go, oh, good, lean, no, yeah, perfect, nice.

All right, then here guys, just low, I'm just gonna put it mayonnaise or butter side down, right?

Get a nice color on these and... push them down.

Wow, MING: Like that, beautiful.

Okay, Henry those are cooking.

Let's go ahead and start the second dish.

Grab the plant-based Italian sausage, please.

Will do.

MING: So here we have we have lumpia wrappers, guys.

So, to make a vegan sausage pepper, we have this, this is made from soy isolate, it's a soy protein.

What we're going to add to it, though-- let me grab a bowl.

We're gonna mix it with a little bit of the two mustards.

Right?

All right.

MING: Henry, grab a wooden spoon for me, please.

Okay.

MING: So, we're going to mix both Dijon and whole grain mustard in with the sausage and peppers.

All right, go ahead, because we want to flavor this.

And what it's gonna be missing are the onions that we're cooking.

All right.

Good amount of mustard, I'm liking it.

We add a little bit of red pepper flake.

I like extra heat in this.

So a little bit of toasted red pepper flake.

(utensils clanging) Very nice.

Get that all nice and homogeneous.

MING: Nice and homogeneous.

Big word.

MING: Big word.

Big word.

(laughter) MING: Homogeneity.

That's a high score right there.

MING: That's a good school, high school you went to.

All right, I'm going to check the sausage and pepper.

Amazing.

(sizzling) MING: Okay.

These are looking good.

(sizzling) Sausage and peppers, all right.

I just want to get these sausage and pepper cooked a little faster.

I'm gonna take half of them out, get them in this wok, just to spread it out.

This is now nice and soft, so I can take these and we can get these into the bings.

Okay.

So now, Henry.

Yes.

MING: We have our sausage and peppers... and what we can do... is we just lay them on this board.

All right, like that.

Let them chill out.

(clattering) And then we will be able to... you can cut those up, Henry.

Okay.

MING: Give them a nice dice.

Here's a few more cooked peppers.

All right.

MING: So dice these up, be careful.

Will do.

(sizzling) MING: ...Just dice, just some small dice.

Okay.

MING: And then that, we're going to mix in-- are they hot?

Yeah, just a little hot, little hard to handle.

MING: You're good.

Perfect.

Don't burn yourself.

Not planning on it.

MING: There you go.

(chopping) Awesome.

That's all we need.

So now, they get added to our plant based.

Keep going.

Is that how that... MING: Yeah.

That's a nice mix.

Keep in mind we have all the mustard and stuff in here too.

All right, that looks really good, Hen.

Let's clean up the board.

Clean off that.

So, we're going to make and wrap up some of these big... big bings.

Just clean this up, please.

Big bings?

Long bings?

MING: Long bings, I guess we'd call them.

Would it be biiiings?

MING: It would be a spring roll.

(laughing): That's so bad.

MING: What did you say?

(laughing): Biiiings.

MING: What?

If it's a long bing, then it's a "biiiing."

MING: No.

Hey, give those onions and peppers a quick stir for me, sir.

Can do.

MING: So, we're going to make kind of a flat spring roll.

All right, I'm gonna take this mix like this.

Okay.

And I'm gonna do a spring roll almost like a blintz.

Folded over, and then using just water-- which is fine-- you wet the side, you wet this side, too, and you bring it over, you bring it over again.

And then I like to, to seal it, like, to push down on it.

All right.

So, it's kind of like a flat spring roll, if you would.

All right, so, do that again.

Like this.

So, again, we're kind of doing like, blintzes.

I'm gonna go across like this, we're going to use water, bring it over, bring it over, then use more water and then close it once and then close again.

And then I kind of flatten.

And the reason I want these flattened is when you cook it in the pan, it could be, it could be shallow fry, meaning just a quarter to half inch of oil.

I don't need to deep fry these, right?

But I want to have them, because the skin gets so nice and crispy.

I want to make sure... A little more than that?

MING: No, that's, that's actually probably... yeah, that's the max.

Okay, that's the max.

Got you.

MING: We got some good-looking bread here.

We got our sausages cooking.

Oh, that looks good, that looks good.

These are getting nice and colored now.

Oh yeah, now we can co-mingle, we can bring it all back now.

Oh yeah.

Nice char.

There we go.

That's looking good.

Like a little bit of char on your sausage and peppers, right?

Absolutely.

I mean, if we're going to go with real meat, then you might as well add a bit of the char, right?

MING: Okay, so, to this pan, Hen, we're gonna add just... heavily coat the pan, so it's like a quarter inch.

Okay, go ahead.

(sizzling) Huh.

This one is a little bit wet, too.

You know, that one's not going to work, Hen; we're gonna do these two.

There's two, let's re-roll two more, please.

Can do.

MING: Good.

All right, so, it's important you get a tight roll.

So this is on medium-high heat, guys.

We're going to get it nice and crisp.

Plant-based, you're supposed to cook all the way through as well, guys.

Right, there are some plant-based cook-- this one, you gotta cook it to 160, which is fine.

Henry, we're looking pretty good.

I need about three more minutes on these.

You can't-- you can't undercook, obviously, your pork sausages, right?

These are spicy Italian.

I can tell they just need a little bit longer.

Just a touch longer here.

Beautiful.

And then this looks like it needs just a little flip.

Oh yeah, look at that, guys.

Oh yeah, that's looking good.

Thanks, Henry.

You're welcome, you're welcome.

MING: Not bad.

All right, okay.

Henry wipe that counter down, get that thing in there.

All right.

MING: All right.

Okay, Hen.

Give those a flip, please.

That one you just put in, give that a little flip.

(sizzling) Little splatter there.

MING: Yeah, you may want to use-- yeah, tongs are good too for that, Hen.

And-- catch it.

MING: So how are we doing?

Oh yeah, that one's looking awesome.

That one's so close to being ready.

Oh yeah.

Nice.

(sizzling) MING: Cool.

All right, these two are ready.

Look at those.

Oh yeah.

All right, Henry, take those to the board.

Will do.

MING: And these... the plant-based cooks a lot faster, right?

So we're gonna... that's good.

This is off, that's off.

All right.

We're gonna plate this one first, Henry, and then you and I will plate the sausage and peppers.

So we're going to just do a couple... We're fancy like that.

We're gonna take one Dijon, go like that.

I'm gonna take one Pommery, go the other way.

Okay.

Perfect.

MING: Okay, not bad.

(laughs) MING: Try that, do it the other way.

All right.

Okay.

MING: On this half of the plate.

(laughs) MING: Mm-hmm.

Yes, of course, of course.

That's okay.

Anyway, all right, Henry, we're gonna cut these in half like this.

I like pickles, so we're gonna do a pickle garnish... because we can.

All right?

All right.

MING: And we're gonna go like this... and like that.

Would you like me to take the others off the stove?

MING: Um... Yeah, if they're ready.

Are they ready, you think?

I... MING: Don't know if they're ready yet, Hen.

So there is our... give it, give it a little more time, Hen.

Okay.

MING: So here is our vegan sausage and peppers, made into a flat spring roll.

All right, Hen, give it a try here.

Come here.

All right.

MING: No-- okay, yeah.

I mean... MING: Yeah, that's a good idea.

Hey, we'll share.

That's good, we need... anyway.

Extra mustard.

First time eating.

I've never eaten.

Ever.

MING: It's hot.

Wow.

Oh, wow.

MING: Pretty good, right?

We were supposed to taste the real one first and then eat the vegan one to compare, but, all I know is... This is pretty good.

MING: Wow.

Now for the real, the real deal.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Henry, that's for you.

Okay.

MING: Oh yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Here we go.

Now, Henry.

Now it's time.

MING: Now we get to build.

I want definitely both mustards.

Absolutely.

MING: I don't know about you.

Nah, I'm with you on that one.

MING: I'll give you Dijon on this side.

Grazie.

I'll give you some whole grain.

MING: Thank you.

Now, this, this is how peppers and onions should look for a proper sausage and peppers, right?

It looks so good.

MING: So you can add a pickle, like the Chicago dog.

"Chickago."

MING: The "Chickago" dog.

I have to ask, we have to ask Eric Siegel, my "Chickago" friend.

Hm.

MING: Yeah.

That's it.

Oh.. A masterpiece.

MING: I'm gonna put, the pep... Now you see, ladies and gents, this is what you eat after you "pahk ya cah in the Hahvahd Yahd."

(snorts) You get yourself some-- some Fenway franks.

MING: (chuckles) It's beautiful.

MING: That's his "Chickago" accent.

(laughter) "Chickago" accent.

MING: Bon appetit.

I'm Chicago American.

MING: Mm.

Look how juicy those dogs are.

They're fat.

MING: I'm telling you, this guy knows how to make sausages, right?

It's got a bounce, right, they talk about the bounce of a good hot dog.

It's a snap.

MING: The snap has-- it's an amazing snap for a sausage.

(mouth full): Yeah.

That's pretty good too, Henry.

I mean, honestly, I would eat both.

Depending on the mood.

And, you know, for those who have been watching all season, I'm not trying to convert anyone.

Eat meat if you want to eat meat, eat fish if you want to eat fish, it's all about balance and moderation.

Maybe you don't have to eat... sausage five times a week.

Maybe you can go vegan once or twice a week.

So that's all.

Sounds good to me.

MING: Anything else, Henry?

I think you did pretty good.

Yeah, that's... that's really good.

MING: Let me try yours.

I'm not trying yours.

(laughs) MING: You can't try mine, sorry.

(laughs) MING: All right, that's how you do sausage and pepper, guys.

Henry, nice to have you back.

(glasses clink) Nice to be back.

MING: We are going on the road, surprise location next week, so please tune in.

And as always, peace... And good eating.

MING: See you soon, cheers.

For more information on Simply Ming, including upcoming guests and more, visit us online at ming.com/simplyming.

Simply Ming is brought to you by Subaru of New England, proudly celebrating 50 years of love.

Authorized retailers at SubaruOfNewEngland.com Here's to the next 50 years and beyond.