Male: Hey everybody, welcome to the Ultimate. On today’s show, in San Francisco, we’ll be
cooking with a legendary Martin Yan.
Martin: It’s done.
Male: Martin’s got the record.
Martin: This is actually all shrimp and meat all together. You can use any meat, you can use
chicken, you can use pork, you can everything.
Male: Mix it together and then we’re going to put it into a bowl right? No one can make a
dumpling filling like Martin Yan can.
Martin: Water chestnut fresh, much better than canned water chestnut.
Male: These are fresh water chestnuts, most people think that water chestnuts grow in the
can. But they actually come fresh someplace right.
Martin: They grow and live in a pond.
Male: This, okay, peel like an apple.
Martin: You put it right here and you go, it’s already crushed, just like garlic. Chop it, this is
another way of doing this and you put it all in the same bowl. It adds texture. The other
thing I want to show everybody is how to get the shrimp. How do crush this, how do
you mince this? You go bam. It’s all done, you see, it’s all done. How about some
cilantro, it adds some texture contrast and flavor contrast. This is the easy way to do,
you cut it in half and you go. Most restaurants don’t use all these wonderful ingredients
the whole cilantro. How do you peel ginger, very simple, this is how my mom taught
me. So use a spoon, very fast.
Male: There’s one thing about using a spoon because you can clean the ginger and you can
kind of get into those little nooks and crannies and you don’t lose any of the ginger
right?
Martin: You just use the knife. Done. That’s how you do it.
Male: Real simple, pork, shrimp, ginger, fresh water chestnuts.
Martin: And Chinese celery.
Male: Chinese celery adds taste and texture but wait till you see what Martin does next.
Martin: Kind of salt, a little bit of cornstarch, about half a teaspoon to a teaspoon. A few drops
of sesame seed oil and a tiny bit of soy if you want and a bit of soy, just a tiny bit. How
about some rice wine? Beautiful. That’s all and then mix them all up and this is ready to
be used as a filling in a variety of dumplings.
Male: It smells incredible.
Martin: It smells-
Male: That’s fantastic.
Martin: Very simple. We have wonton wrappers here. Are you hungry? You are hungry so with
stuffing, fold it like this. Just snap it like this, you make a triangle. You see this, you
make a little triangle, then after that, this is the trick, you’ve got the corner and then
what you do is, you put a tiny bit of water, it washed right at the edge, at the corner,
right here and you hold onto this and you twist this and one overlaps the other. This
puts right on top and then you snap it. This is wonton then you squeeze so you have
beautiful wonton like this. Beautiful, this looks marvelous. I could not have done it
better. Even my mother would be very impressed.
Male: As we saw in the dimsum restaurant, there are many different dumpling shapes and one
of my favorites is the pot sticker which Martin is making now.
Martin: Then half moon, water right here and then this is the trick, you fold under just like that, -
-, you hold onto it use your finger, use full finger. Are you always that greedy?
Male: I’m not greedy, I’m just learning, is that too much?
Martin: It’s perfect yes. So first you snap and then you push, pleat, push, snap, push, snap and
then you have a wonderful dumpling like this very simple see. Push a little bit smaller.
This is the first year you worked on this dumpling. You have 85 more years to go.
Male: To catch up with you, it’s not bad it’s okay.
Martin: Actually, you know what, this is more creative. It looks much better than mine. First of
all a tiny bit of oil, not much and then let’s put all of them, line them all up. Pot sticker is
actually the Chinese name, also popular because dumpling sticks to the pot.
Male: The idea about pot stickers is actually you’re cooking them twice. First you’re going to
drop them into a pan and pan fry them until nice and crisp and then add a little bit of
water to them to let them steam.
Martin: Then cover up like that. Steam for about 6 or 7 minutes.
Male: So back to the wonton, which you can either boil or deep fry until golden and crispy.
Martin: Then the deep fried one is right here. Try the pot sticker. You can see whether you can
do a better job than the chef in the restaurant.
Male: These dumplings are fantastic. The legend Martin Yan.
Martin: This is the dumpling banquet.