 Hi everybody, welcome folks to our virtual our virtual live cooking event with Chef Martin Yan. We're so lucky to have this superstar chef here with us at the library today. I'm Michelle Jeffers with San Francisco Public Library and I'll be joined here as your moderator with our own Biblio Bistro chef and librarian Leah Hillman. Before we get started today, I just want to make a few announcements. First, I want to welcome you to the unceded land of the Ohlone Tribal people. We acknowledge the many Romitush Ohlone Tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards of the lands on which we reside. San Francisco Public Library is committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members from these nations with whom we live together. Please share in the chat if you'd like where you're from and what lands you reside on. I'd also like to read a brief statement from our racial equity committee. As it is Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, we want it noted that we do condemn the violence against Asians and Asian Americans in our communities, our state, and our nation, both the reported and the invisible crimes that have occurred. The library stands in solidarity with our Asian communities, neighbors, and colleagues distressed and hurt by these attacks. We acknowledge that these events are complicated by the entanglement of anti-Black and anti-Asian stereotypes in the reporting of these violence, and we believe everyone has a stake in dismantling white supremacy in favor of a true multiracial democracy. I hope you use the resources of the library to learn more about our racial equity statements and about racial equity in general. Finally, I also hope you'll join us all month long for our Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month activities. We have a range of author talks, presentations, musical performances, and more. You can find the whole list at SAPL.org, AAPI. Now to get back to our show today, Chef Yan of course needs no introduction. Many of us got our first exposure to Chinese cooking thanks to his legendary PBS show, Yan Can Cook. Born in Guangzhou, Chef Yan is technically a second-generation culinaryan who was first inspired by his mother in the tiny kitchen of their family restaurant. He has recognized around the world for promoting and teaching Chinese cuisine and I would say we are all lucky that he became a chef instead of his original goal to become a librarian. For today's recipes, we'll be putting the links in the chat field and we have them shared on our website so you can follow along. I also encourage you to visit his website yancancook.com. The chef and his team will be answering your questions during the demonstration so please enter your questions in the Q&A field and watch the chat for other links and information. So here we go. If Yan can cook, so can you. Let's get started, Chef Yan. First of all, welcome, friends of the San Francisco Public Library. This year, every year in May, there's always the Asian, American, Islanders, Pacific Islanders heritage month. We're so lucky to reside in the Bay Area. The community is so rich and so diverse, it's such a wonderful, diverse mosaic. What better way for us to appreciate different type of culture where different people coming from all over the world through the cuisine and prepare them and enjoy them in our kitchen. I believe that all of these people around the Bay Area would enjoy knowing to each other, understanding or accepting each other through food. That's what we're doing. Food. We united. I united everybody in my dining table. As a chef, we love food. Food is a common threat among all of us. We all love food. We unite at the dining table. We sit down at the dining table. We share our dreams and aspirations. Today, I am going to show you how to do something that I have been enjoying. Even though I'm a Chinese chef, but I love to try out in Vietnamese restaurant, in the Greek restaurant, Cambodian restaurant, Japanese restaurant, Korean restaurant, and Peruvian restaurant, an Iranian restaurant, and French restaurant, Italian restaurant, and a lot of taco. And I'm going to show you this is my special seafood quesadilla. Because in Northern China, in many parts of the world, they actually have something similar, except they use different ingredients to make the tortilla, the flour, the pancake. This is made with flour and China, and also in Vietnamese restaurant, they use rice flour. Very, very similar. They put all kinds of stuff in. So the first thing I'm going to show you is the ingredient for my seafood. Now, this is a Michelin star quesadilla. We have flour tortilla. Homemade can be purchased in the store, okay? It's their homemaker in the center of the store, and I purchased from the store. This is approximately eight inches, okay? Eight inches right here. Six to eight inches, or about seven inches, okay? And then I have all the ingredient here to show you. I have scallop. I have scallop right here. I have shrimp. And I have fish, fresh fish, this tilapia. And then I have Chinese sausage. This is Chinese sausage. Look at that. They normally come in pairs. This is the liver sausage. It's a bit darker. But liver sausage, they always come in pairs. They're loving sausage. They always come in pairs. And that's as good because in the next few days is Mother's Day. We celebrate Mother's Day and cook something like this for your parent, for your mother to celebrate Mother's Day. And then I also have cheese, okay? Mozzarella cheese. And I have, I want to have some color and spices here. So I have chili, okay? Jalapeno and the red bell pepper. So I want to show you, first I want to show you how to do this, all right? I want to give some nice color contrast, okay? So I would remove the seeds from the bell pepper, okay? Sea salt. Let me show you how. I'm using my sharp knife. This is the knife, the Martinian sharp knife, okay? I always, I'll show you how to use the knife and sharpen the knife later, okay? You hold this, you see saw, see saw, see saw. Why are you rotating this? In no time. The seed is all gone. See, see saw, see saw, see saw, see saw, see saw, see saw, done. Okay, look at that. And then I want to show you how to make this quesadilla nice and colorful. I'm going to cut this in half. Let me show you. Remove the white part like this. Look at that. You don't want it. And then I'm going to cut this in half because I want to have really small dice. I cut this in half. This call will call parallel cutting technique, okay? Parallel cutting technique. And I put it right here. And then I go one, two, three, four, five. You see this? One, two, three. And I keep on cutting. What I'm doing is I put my knife against my knuckle when I cut. Look at that. I put my knife against my knuckle. See that? You close up. You can see that right here. Look at that. See? Y two, three. This is my knuckle. You roll it out and you put your knife here and you put it like this, okay? And then I will dice this one, two. You see that? Look how beautiful uniform dice like this is. Amazing. I am telling you. This is really, you can do all of these ahead of time. You don't have to do it in the last minute, okay? Look at that. Nice and dice that you use it to sprinkle it in. This will add texture, color, and sweetness to your quesadilla, okay? Cooking should be a free form. You look at the recipe, you do whatever you like, okay? Cooking is very personal. Just use your imagination and common sense. A few basic skill and basic guideline. You can create your own masterpiece. That's the reason why there are so many different restaurants using chicken, everybody doing differently. You use duck, everybody doing differently, okay? You use pork, you do it differently. So you're vegetarian, you can have all kinds of vegetarian dishes. So this is how we do it. I'm going to marinate all of these seafood. All of these seafood. Now, shrimp. I'm going to show you how to do it. Shrimp. I want to show you how fast you can cut this in half, okay? If you want to take out the vein, you use a toothpick, you put it right here. You just poke it, okay? Maybe we should have a show you how to use to poke it. Look at that. There's a vein here. You poke it and you see the vein. Look at that. Can you see the vein? And this is it. And you poke this right here. Okay, look at this. You see the vein? You see that vein? And then you just pull it out like this. And you just pull it out like this. Very, very simple, okay? And then I clean this up and then you do it together. I'm going to show you. You do this. Instead of doing it one by one, you put them, line them more up and you do it two or four at the same time. I cut this in half by lining them up one, two, three, four, five. And you go one, two, three, four, five. Look at that. Okay? That's how you do it. And then when this is done, you put over here and then you marinate this. All of these, you do it together to save time. All of these, you can do it ahead of time. One, all of these marinated, marinated together, okay? Basic marinate with salt and pepper, salt and pepper, okay? Do not use soy sauce, okay? Salt and pepper, salt, sea salt and then pepper. That's basic seasoning. But I also add a tiny bit. If you don't mind, you can add a tiny, tiny bit of wine. If you don't like wine, if you don't use wine, you're cooking. You go to French restaurant, Italian restaurant, your camera always cook with wine, okay? And then, but this is Chinese, tiny bit of cornstarch. You know why? It helps to seal in the juice. Seal in the juice. That's very important. So when you cook, it's nice and moist. The cornstarch seal in the juice. Look at that. This is it. You let it sit just for a few minutes. And then in the meantime, we're going to cook, okay? If you want, you can also put a tiny, tiny bit off. Now, this is the trick. I put a tiny bit of Chinese five spice powder. And this is with star anise, you see this Chinese five spice powder, okay? And when you use this, this is star anise, clove, cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorn, okay? This is all give that little very, very unique Asian flavor profile. No, because this is right. I don't want to use soy sauce in this particular dish, okay? And then you stir fry this. Now, when you do stir fry, people always ask me, Martin, what kind of oil do you use? You know, in my kitchen, I have cooking oil. I also have olive oil, too, because olive oil is a little bit expensive and the smoking point is very low. So I normally use it for dipping my bread, making Italian food, and also making my salad dressing. I use that. But normally, when I do stir fry, when I do all kinds of high temperature cooking, I use the quesad oil, okay? Let me show you this because this one, you know what? You can buy them in the store. And a lot of people love it because it's 285 degrees smoking point. I put this about only half a teaspoon to two spoons here, okay? And then I put these right here. Stir fry. Now, you know that everybody around the world love to use garlic, right? And ginger and garlic is very, very important to use. Look at that. Stir, stir. Amazing. Look at how the shrimp curls up. Beautiful. Now, there's cool things to do. And then in the meantime, I want to show you how easy you want garlic and ginger. I have garlic and I have ginger here. First, I mince the ginger. Mince the ginger. Look at that. When you do a close up, I actually have minced the ginger. Look at that. I mince the ginger like this. And then I peel the garlic by little whack, little whack like that. And I hold onto this, the whole thing comes out like that, okay? And then I will mince the garlic too. The garlic is here. Mince the garlic. Okay. Now I have minced ginger and minced garlic with my seafood, okay? And this is good. When this is done, beautiful. And I put a tiny, tiny bit of oil to make it nice and hot. A tiny bit of fish sauce, okay? Fish sauce is widely used in Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, restaurants. Put a tiny bit of fish sauce. And you like hot and spicy food? Hey, chili sauce, chili garlic sauce. You put a tiny bit of chili garlic sauce. So this is already very flavorful. Everything is already here, okay? Everything is already here. And then this, you can actually wrap it up with taco, with the lettuce wrap. This is already beautiful. Very, very nice. Look at that. This is already beautiful. It's about 80% done already, okay? And then in the meantime, I will set it aside here. I'm going to make the quesadilla. Here, flour, tortilla. And then I put it, when it heats up, you put it right here, okay? When you put it right here, then in the meantime, I'm going to show you also we will put all of these things here. You have this here. You have this here. We mix this up here. I don't want to overcook them. That's the reason why, okay? Look at how beautiful, okay? Very nice. And then I also put a tiny bit of, when I'm cooking this, I'm also going to put the Chinese sausage here. The Chinese sausage optional. You put it right here, okay? And this is done. You're going to love it, okay? I'm not kidding. It's beautiful. Very, very nice. I'm going to transfer these in a bowl. So this way, mix it easier for everybody's to see. Look at that. Beautiful. Anybody have any questions so far? Anybody have a question? Anybody have any questions so far? Yeah, Chef Yan, there's a question from Ava. She says, she's asking why you, if you're love for Julia Child, she read an article about your love for Julia Child. Why didn't you actually cook for her in your career? Yeah. Yeah. I went to her house with Jacques Pepin. One year. Now, look at that. Look how beautiful this is. Look at that. Okay. Okay. Look how beautiful. And then, when this is all both done, I put it here and I will set it aside. Put it right over here. And this sausage already done. Now, this is how I want to show you how to do this, okay? First, you have one tortilla, which is lightly brown. I lay them all out like this. And then I use a spoon. Now, this is my version of the quesadilla. And then I put a tiny bit of hoisin sauce, just like you eat picking that. Look at that. I put a tiny bit of hoisin sauce right here. If you put in too early, they will burn because of the sugar. Okay. So I put the hoisin sauce, just like you eat musubok. And then I add these things right on top. Look how beautiful. Right on top. That's my quesadilla. This is the Michelin Star quesadilla. Look at that. All kinds of seafood. I sometimes even use lobster. Okay. And then when this is done, I wrap another one right on top of here and sprinkle this wonderful mozzarella cheese around. Look at that. This is going to be so beautiful. Nice and good. And then if you want, I can also put some cilantro right in between. You get that nice color contrast and flavor. Then I cover this up like that. Look at that. And then I will brown this. I will brown this. Look at how beautiful brown. I will brown this. So this is a tapu saiding quesadilla. When this is done, it's going to be beautiful. Amazing. And then I want to make it nice and hot. So I serve these ring one and two and three and four and serve these along with my sauce. And that is going to be beautiful and delicious. Okay. Look at that. Beautiful. I want to make sure if you want to make sure this is melt. Anybody else having a question? Because I'm melting the cheese in a wok, just like baking in a wok. So wok is a very, very functional, cooking utensil. We can steam. We can fry. We can bake. Okay. Just like a wok. Just like a stir-fry pan. Even this is just a frying pan. Anybody have any questions so far? Yeah. Just one other question, Chef. Can you tell us again the kind of oil that you're using? I'm using this very unique oil. This one is basically have a smoking pot of 485 degree. That's a 252 degree centigrade. 100% organic. And also it's cold pressed. A lot of vitamin A and antioxidant. Zero cholesterol. So that's why I use this particularly when I do high temperature and short time cooking. You can buy it at amazon.com anyway. But anyway, this is wonderful. I let it big. I want to melt the cheese. Okay. Then when this is done, I will show you how I do it. Ah, look at that. Beautiful. Hey, sir, dear. And I'm going to move this out. I'm going to take this out. Look at that. Ah, look at that. Beautiful. Look at that. I will cut this up. I want to make sure that you can see this and you can serve these right over here. Now look at this. I use this knife. Okay. I use this knife. I use a new knife. A clean knife. Okay. Just make sure. I use a clean knife. I cut this up. And I pull onto this. Turn this side down. And I use this knife. Now look how beautiful this is. Okay. One piece. Look how beautiful. Wow. It melts in your mouth. Okay. And quesadilla. Look at that. Wonderful. And then quesadilla. This is my version of quesadilla. Okay. You can tell how beautiful this is. Look at that. Look at that. It melts. The cheese is melted. Everything is melted. And then I serve it like that. Now look at this. Now this is how I would do it. I like to show you. You can also serve with the salsa here. So give me the salsa. You can serve the salsa with my noodle. You can salsa with this. So I'm going to show you what I'm going to do. I have a big bowl here. This is going to be so unique that you'll never see anything like this. I have tomato. Diced tomato, which I have cut up. Okay. Peeled it. Diced tomato right here. And then I have onion. Purple onion. I have yellow onion. I have cilantro. I have chili pepper. Jalapeno chili pepper. And then I have plum sauce. Ah, look at that. Plum sauce. This is the plum sauce. You can use plum chutney. Okay. I'm going to save this for the dan dan noodle. But in the meantime, I also use a tiny bit of sesame seed oil. That's the Asian twist. This is Asian heritage. Man, a little touch of soy sauce or fish sauce. This way, I mix them all up. This is my salsa. Okay. I sometimes even put mangoes in there. Look at that. I even put papaya here. Now, when this is done, I'm going to show you, I put it in a beautiful glass like this. Okay. This quesadilla is going to be out of this world. You have never tasted anything like this before. I've never done anything like this before, except for the friends of the San Francisco Library. I sacrifice. I share my secret with everybody. And then when this is done, look at that. How beautiful. This is my quesadilla. Something that everybody can do at home. Okay. Look at that. Everybody can see extra. One, if you want, you can literally put a tiny bit of extra hoisin sauce, a splash, a splash, a splash, and a splash right here. You know what? This is Martinian's quesadilla with a seafood trill. And I put this right over here so everybody can see. In the meantime, I would like to ask you some more questions. Anybody else have any questions? Yes, Chef Yan. What kind of wok are you using? I normally use a stir-fry pan. And I have all kind of wok. I have a cast iron wok. I have a soft iron wok. I have all kind of wok because I'm a cooking teacher. But you can just buy a cast iron wok or just a stir-fry pan. Okay. You can do a stir-fry pan too. So in the meantime, if you do not have any questions, now let me show you the wok I have. Okay. Here I have it. All right. I have this stir-fry pan much deeper, much bigger and deeper. It's still very curved, a very smooth curve like this. So this way, when you toss the food, when you toss the food, the food tumble back and forth, back and forth, you won't fly all over the place. But normally a frying pan like this, they're really flat. Look at the difference. Okay. Look at that. Look at the size. Okay. That's the difference. Okay. Much deeper a wok. So you can do all the walks are much deeper, deeper. So this way you can stir-fry. Okay. And I also have a cast iron wok like this. A cast iron wok like this. A cast iron wok. And I also have a soft iron wok. Can you see that? A soft iron wok here. So I walk every day at least 12,000 to 15,000 steps. But basically, food and diet is the most important combination for good well-being and good health. You have good diet, but you got to exercise. Okay. So I during the pandemic, I keep myself very active. I work in my garden. I walk around the neighborhood. I walk my dog, social distancing, put on my mask. That's the reason why I look okay. I look good. I just have my two shots about a month and a half ago. So I encourage all of you to take the shot. Okay. Now in the meantime, the next one I want to show you is the dan dan noodle with the salsa like that. Okay. Because this way you can serve that. And it's a one dish meal. You've got protein. You've got starch. You've got all kinds of stuff. Now this is a classic dish. Dan dan noodle is a classic dish and a lot of Chinese restaurants. You go to Taiwan, the dan dan noodle. You go to Sichuan, the dan dan noodle. Very, very easy to do. Here I want to show you the first thing I will do is look at that. I have lettuce. I have carrot. I have cucumber. I want to show you I shredded all of these. Okay. I shredded this. I always hold the knife like this. This is how you hold the knife. Index finger. Thumb. Three finger. Okay. And then you go one, two, three, four, five. Look at that. Very, very thinly sliced. Very thin slices like this. Look at, I am not kidding. I have cut off something. This thing, very, very thin slices like this. Look at that. Look at that. See that? Everybody can do it. If Yan, my slogan is, if Yan can cut, so can you. Now when this is done, I put that right over here. Right over here. This is the lettuce because I want to make a one dish meal. Okay. Thinly sliced. Very, very thin shredded. And then I have carrot. I also cut up the carrot. I cut the carrot into thin slices like this. Look at that. Thin slices like this. And I lined them all up like this. And then I go one, two, three. Look at that. Look at that. Very, very thin slices. Okay. And then I put them all up. The good thing about this knife is this knife is also a spatula. Okay. I put this knife over here, and I transfer the food, and I go like this. Look at that. I can literally do it like this. And then I have cucumber. I have cucumber. I put it right here. Look at that. I put the cucumber right here. And then I have some diced cucumber. Okay. Right here. So this way, give you different texture. Okay. Different contrast of texture. And I also have some chopped chili. Chopped chili. I have chopped chili. And I put it right on top of here. So I can put the shredded meat over there. Now this is chopped chili. I put the chopped chili right here. This is the jalapeno. Chopped jalapeno right here. And then the next thing I want to show you is how to do this. Anybody else have any question? Now I have to make it exotic. I'm going to show you this. I serve with Sichuan pickle. This is Sichuan pickle. Can you see that? You can buy them in a store. And then I also put the Sichuan pickle right here. Let me show you the Sichuan pickle right here. You can purchase it like this. This is the package, the Sichuan pickle. Okay. They pickle. You can also pickle it yourself. But it takes about a year to do it. Okay. And then I put the pickle along with my diced cucumber. This will give texture, color as well. Now this is very unique dan dan noodle. And I guarantee you will love it. This particularly serve it to your friends and neighbors. And they will love it. Dan dan noodle. Look at already beautiful. It's already very, very nice and beautiful. The dish. In the meantime, I'm going to show you how to cut up this thin piece of chicken. I'm going to do shredded chicken. To save time, this is how you do it. You cut this in half. And then you stack them all up like this. And then you stack them all up like this. And then you, Julian, this one, two, three. You see that? You see this? Slice, slice, slice. When you cut, you always slice and slice. Okay. Let me show you all these things that I have cut up. Cut up like this. Okay. Julian pieces. And then I marinate the chicken. You can use pork. You can use beef. You can use fish. Doesn't matter. I use chicken. Okay. Chicken is one of the most popular meat. And then some people don't eat beef. Some people don't eat chicken. And somebody don't eat pork. So that's why we do it. And then I marinate this with a tiny, tiny bit of soy sauce. A tiny bit of soy sauce. Beautiful. And a tiny, tiny bit of wine, as usual. And then a tiny, tiny bit of corn starch. Always. Okay. And then we'll mix them all up. And then we're going to make a meat sauce. You can use ground meat too. Sometimes they use ground meat, but I think it looks nicer because everything is shredded. So I use shredded thinly sliced thinly shredded chicken. You can do Julian. It doesn't matter. But I shred it. Okay. And I turn this upside down and I put this right here and let it stir. Chopstick is also a very, very functional cooking utensil. Okay. Now you look at that. Because I use, this camellia piece at all. It doesn't smoke that much at all because I use high heat. Look at that. It's nice and done. Wow. Look at that. It's beautiful. Anybody have any questions so far? Oh, friends of ours. Chef, somebody would like to know what kind of pickle you're using. I use a Sichuan pickle. I just show you the Sichuan pickle package. I'll show you again. You can purchase it. Okay. You can purchase this. This is a Sichuan pickle that you can purchase. Okay. You can buy it in a lot of stores. There are a lot of Asian stores. You don't have to go to Chinatown. But if you go to Chinatown, you can definitely find it. Now, when this, look at, look at, look at all the wonderful julienne chicken. Look at that. Can you see that? All of these are cut into julienne like this. So now when this is done, I'm going to show you this is the trick. I'll make a special peanut sauce. Okay. The chicken is right here. And I put this right over here. I'm going to use a tong. I'm going to use a tong and put this right over here, the chicken. Okay. Look at this. I put the chicken right in the middle. This is going to be a fancy, fancy, downtown noodle. Look how beautiful. Okay. Beautiful. Okay. And then when this is done, I'm going to make a simple sauce. I make a simple sauce right in the same spot. I use sesame seed paste because a lot of people are allergic to peanut butter. You go to Korean store. You go to Chinese store and you go to a lot of stores. You can buy the peanut paste. Okay. I mean sesame seed paste. I have sesame seed paste and I put this over here. Sesame seed paste, one tablespoon or so, one big heaping tablespoon. Okay. And then a tiny bit of soy sauce, tiny bit of soy sauce, and a tiny, tiny bit of water or broth. Okay. Look at that. Broth. Beautiful. I'm making a sauce. And then I put a tiny bit of chili sauce because, hey, single demand. I would use chili garlic sauce. Okay. I'll show you. And then a tiny bit of oyster flavor sauce. Okay. And hence the favor. Give that umami taste. Oyster flavor sauce. Very popular in Asian sauce. And then I will make this and I'll put a tiny, tiny bit of vinegar if you want. Tiny bit of vinegar because I want to give the flavor contrast. Okay. Tiny bit of vinegar. Not much sauce. A tiny bit. Okay. That's it. And then I will thicken this or you can just use it. This is really beautiful. The sauce. This is the sesame seed paste sauce. And this is the dan dan noodle sauce. Okay. Nice and hot and spicy. And then when this is done, you put this right over here. Look at how beautiful this is. Put that right on top of here. This is a very unique noodle dish that you can enjoy. This is the dan dan noodle. And I'm going to show you how to, this, when you eat it, you toss the noodle around. And the noodle and everything is done right later. Ring. Chili's ring. And then I will show you how to garnish it a little bit. And then with the tiny bit, I have some beautiful mint from my garden. This is the mint in my garden. Lemon mint. And then I garnish this with a little ring. Now I'm not kidding. This is something that you have never seen before. Okay. Look at that. Sometimes we all, most of us eat with our eye. Before you taste, you always see how the dish looks. Look at that. This is a one dish meal. You got starch. You got vegetable. You got protein. Everything is right in front of you. So that's the reason why this is so wonderful. And also I serve with salsa. So I'll show you how to use a salsa. Again, that means we can serve a tiny bit of salsa here and a salsa there. And that's the reason why when you cook, you should all be creative. Okay. Because the noodle goes really well with a combination of salsa because it gives that freshness. And so salsa is, I love this. I make this all the time. My children love it. And I love it. Always the same thing. Okay. Thumb sauce, cilantro, chopped cilantro. I will show you how easy the chopped cilantro. I put it over here and I hold onto the knife and I go one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. And then go. And then this is all done. When this is all done, I use my knife as a spatula. I transfer the food. I put it right here. See? Look at that. And then look at that. This is a salsa. So this is a very unique combination. So this means cooking about imagination. You know, all the Asian Pacific Islander folks living in the Bay Area, we share our food. Food is culture. Food is history. Food is heritage. Food is anthropology. You understand food. You understand a lot about people. And I put it right over here, the salsa. So this way, I'm telling you something that you have not seen. And this is going to be so beautiful. And I am telling you, look at that. This is some tam-tam noodle you have never seen before. Look at that. This is beautiful. I have never done anything like this before. I just so inspired by our team at the San Francisco Public Library. They challenged me, Shavien, we're going to do it. We want you to do something unique and different. That's what I'm doing. Very different thing. Now, anybody have any questions so far? Yes, Chef. Somebody would like to know your recommendations for grocery markets in Chinatown. Grocery market in Chinatown? There are quite a few of them. They used to have a few on Grand Avenue, and now most of them, the bigger ones, are in Stockton between Washington all the way to Broadway in that hope of three or four blocks. Washington, Jackson, Pacific, and Broadway. You have a lot of those wonderful places that you can purchase first produce. In fact, my good friend, a lot of my good friends like China Life, Chef George Chan, and Brendan Jue, they buy a lot of things. Mr. Jue's, Michelin Starrest, my good friend, they actually shop in Chinatown, work hours, deal with some of the produce, and seafood vendors, produce vendor, they buy the tofu, they buy the noodle and everything there. You get a chance to go to Chinatown, you can say hello to George Chan and Brendan Jue, you mentioned. I am Martin Yen's cousin, 20% off, okay? I'm just joking. Now, in the meantime, if you want to make it hot and spicy, no big deal. Let me show you. Sprinkle a tiny bit of crushed pepper, crushed pepper right here. That's how you create things, okay? And even in the salsa, you can put a tiny bit of crushed pepper. Use imagination, no problem at all. Anybody else have any questions so far? Yes, Chef Yan. The recipe says egg noodles, but are you using egg noodles or rice noodles? I use egg noodles, but you can use rice noodles, but traditionally, this is used egg noodle and use a flour noodle, make with noodles. So this is the noodle that I use. Let me show you. Very, very like angel hair pasta. Look at this. Look at that. See that? Very skinny. This is like angel hair pasta. This is dry. You can buy them. One of this package can serve about eight people. Okay, one little package, eight people. So I just have enough over here, but you can also buy the Cantonese style egg noodle. You go to the Chinatown, you go to Asian market. Asian market is all over the place, but Chinatown also carry all of these things, okay? So so far, this one is, I'm going to put this over here and put this over here so you can see better. So the quesadilla in the front, okay? And then then here is this. And then the next one I want to show you is, I'm going to do grandma Yan's beef taco. Another wonderful thing. Grandma Yan's beef taco. And it's very, very simple. We serve with a pickled vegetable. Now I have a serving plate like this. Look at that. I'm going to put my taco here. This is what we do at NY China. We put our taco here, okay? And the first thing we'll do is, we will heat up my taco. My taco is right here. Look at that. This is a huge taco. This one, I heat up a little bit, okay? And then I put it right over here. So one taco. Or I turn it upside down. And then I go one over here and one over here. Look at that. I have a huge taco, okay? And then first, I want to slightly make it a little bit crispier. So I use a tiny bit of oil. A tiny, tiny bit of oil, okay? And I just warm it up. This too taco, okay? This too flour tortilla, okay? I'm going to cover this up with a lid. I'm going to cover this up with a lid and with a tiny, tiny bit of moisture to let it steam a little bit. So you can do a lot of things in there. If you do it like that, you can actually use a wok, a stir-fry pan, as an oven. So I turn it upside down and I just let it cool down a little bit. I just let it really... And then the next thing I want to show you is this, look at it. I have some purple cabbage, okay? And then I'm going to slice the purple cabbage like this. I slice, I shred it. Look at how I slice. I slice everything like this, okay? And then I put them here and I pickle them. I put them here and I pickle this with brown sugar and vinegar, rice vinegar. I do the same thing with cucumber, okay? And then when this is done, I will put this. Take this out and get ready and we're going to get a tongue and then slice the beef and stir-fry the beef. Now, this is basically done. I don't want to do it too much, okay? This is nice and done. Nice and done, okay? Nice and moist. Look at that. You can steam them. Look at that. Beautiful. You can steam it or you can... This is nice. Okay, we're going to keep it warm. You can put it in your steamer or you can put it in your oven. Keep it warm like this. Nice and beautiful. In the meantime, I'm going to cut up the beef because I want to use beef. These are really good quality beef. You see the marbling. Look at that. This is USDA prime and I cut it into thin slices like this one. I stacked them up. One, two, three. Look at that. This is going to be so tender. Don't get the cheap beef, chew your jaws off. This is really good. And then I... Julian, Julian, Julian. You see how I use my knife? I go downward, forward, downward, forward, downward, forward, downward, forward, downward, forward, downward and everything is cut like this. Beautiful pieces like this, okay? Very, very good. And then in the meantime, once you cut up the beef, the Chinese always marinate the beef. So we marinate the beef. The Chinese chef knife has also worked as a spatula. Look at that. Look at that. I transfer it like this and then I marinate this. Again, typical simple marinate. Always use soy sauce, a tiny bit of pepper, okay? So these are the basics of... Oh, I turned it upside down. Beautiful. Now, look at how beautiful. Nice, nice, and beautiful. Oh, very nice, okay? And this is going to be so nice. That's it. This is done and this is done. I'm going to get a plate and then this is ready. I will set it aside. One beautiful flour tortilla to make taco, okay? And then two, we have two. And then a marinade. After marinate this, always use corn starch, okay? But for beef, after you put the corn starch, you know what you should do? You should use a tiny bit of oil, particularly your meat. The reason is because the corn starch stick with the meat. So you put a tiny, tiny bit of oil just like you add oil in your engine. Why Chinese chef like to use corn starch? Very few other cuisines, the chef use corn starch. You know, when you use corn starch, they help to seal in the juice, bind the moisture. So you go to good Chinese restaurant, the meat is always nice and tender because they don't overcook them, they marinate them, they keep on filling the juice, okay? So marinate, set aside so when they stir-fry, they won't have problem. And then I turn it to the other side. I use this side for chopstick to stir it. When you want to make it nice and clean, you turn this upside down and this another piece of taco. Look at that. I'm going to put the taco, one over here like this. Look at how beautiful. And then another taco, I put it right here to form it first, okay? So we have two taco right here, two giant taco right here. Look at that. This is a little nice, two giant taco. And then I'm going to stir-fry this with lots of garlic this time. I put a tiny bit of camellia tea seed oil and I put garlic, once again, garlic, I wreck it, remove the seed. And I, julienne, I thinly slice the garlic into 30 slices and I put it over here. No ginger this time, okay? And then in the meantime, I stir these. Look at that. This is my grandma Yang's taco. Look at how beautiful. Grandma Yang's taco. And then I have a green line. I wrote it, I wrote it, I wrote it, I wrote it, I wrote it, I wrote it, and I stir-fry my beef, okay? Look at that. Beautiful. Garlic flavor. Oh, beautiful. Never overcook the beef, okay? You can grill, you can pan fry, but never overcook. You like wine? By all means. Wine. Oh. Whoa! Amazing. Ah, let there be fire. You know what? Done. And I will show you how to make the sauce. Here, I have some mayonnaise here, okay? I have some mayonnaise. And then I'm going to use a small bowl and I scoop out some homemade mayonnaise in a jar you can buy, okay? Homemade mayonnaise. Mayonnaise. A tiny bit of hoisin sauce. I'm making it unique. Sesame seed oil. Asian chili garlic sauce. That's the key. Oh, this is a very unique. I'm not also put a tiny bit of chopped cilantro. Chopped cilantro. Look at that. Chopped cilantro for my garden, okay? And this is going to be so beautiful. Now, this is the sauce. We're going to use it as a dipping sauce, serving it. You just like you go to some hamburger places. They have them, they charge so much for hamburger. Secret sauce, okay? This is the secret sauce. And then in the meantime, I'm going to show you how to do this. I have the taco here. And I have a plate here. I'm going to show you how to make this, okay? Now, this is the, we serve with a tiny, tiny bit of pickled vegetable on the bottom. We put a tiny pickle of cucumber on the bottom to give that nice sweetness, okay? And a tiny bit of cilantro on the side. And then you put the beef taco, the taco right over here. Look at that. Look at this. It's so beautiful, okay? And then I put this beautiful taco right here, an extra cabbage right on top, extra cucumber right on top. And then I put my secret sauce, which I already gave you the recipe. And I put it right here. Look at this. Look at that. When you eat with this, this is going to be so beautiful. Another piece of beef right on top. Now, this is my taco. And I think you're going to love it. Anybody have any questions so far? Yes, chef. Why are your tacos called grandma Yan's taco? Oh, I'm just fooling around. Unfortunately, when I was growing up, my, I only saw my grandmother a little glimpse because she passed away when I was very, very young. So, but I always remember her smile, her kindness. That's the reason why I do this dish during Mother's Day in memory of my grandmother, okay? So that's the reason why I call it grandma. Because in many parts of China, they actually have something similar to this, but they're bigger. Bigger pancake like this, they fold it, okay? So that's the reason why I think food has no boundary. Food has no international and national boundary. Food brings all of us together. And that's the reason why during this wonderful Asian heritage month, that Asians, all of the Asian, not only want to share our food and culture among the Asians, but also share with all our friends around the country. Because this is a melting pot. We are coming from all over the world. And then, look at that. Beautiful. Now, look at that. And this is how unbelievable. Oh, look at that. I put some on the bottom too. This way, it's going to be so delicious. Let me taste it. Let me taste it. You know what? Exceptional. I'm not kidding. Exceptional. I'm going to put this taco right over here. Now, this is the three dishes I have presented to you. And all of these that you can do it at home. And then, when you want to do something even more interesting, I will cut this up. And I go one. And I go two. When you eat, you just squeeze a little bit of these in. Squeeze a little bit of these in. And that's it. So today, I am so excited to share my love and passion of food with all our friends in the Bay Area during the Asian American Heritage Month. Now, of course, the Islanders too. You know, the thing is, as an American, where I lived most of my life in America, and I want to make sure that everybody enjoyed the food, the culture, and we should be united on the dining table, share our dreams, our sorrow, our pressure, our aspiration with everybody. In the meantime, I would like to ask some of you to ask more questions. So many dishes I have presented to you. These are all very unique dishes. Most likely, you don't see it in any restaurant. The way that I do it. Now, I want to show you quickly why it's so important to get a sharp knife, okay? Here, I will show you. A sharp knife is a safe knife. How can you tell a knife is sharp? Very slimpy, very skimpy paper, soft tissue, paper towel. If your knife is not sharp enough, you can never do this. Look at that. One, another two, another three. One, two, three. Look at that. Look how sharp this is. Okay. Now, another two tests is if you can fold your paper towel, 10 folds, 10 folds, look at that, 10 folds, and you can still cut it and cut it precisely. A very, very clean cut. Look at that. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. Now, look at this. Chinese paper cutting or a sharp knife. Look at that. Look at that. Look at this. Look at that. So, if anybody would like to have more information about our cooking tips, recipes, and get a chance to have an autograph, cookbook, or this knife you can go to YanCanCook.com or scan this, then I'll be happy to answer your question. If anybody are interested in some of the autograph, cookbook and things, we'll make it available to all of you, 50% off from the knife set, and then we'll donate a portion of those to the San Francisco Public Libraries. Friends of the library, because I love to see people read more, spend more time, and the library, and also be curious, because knowledge, food brings all of us together. The more knowledge we have, the more we understand other people and accept other people, and to be more inclusive, and to be more respectful for each other. So, I am so honored again to work with great team in the San Francisco Public Library and also friends of the library of San Francisco Public Library. They have 28 branches, one of them in Chinatown, so I'm going to visit every single one of them, or 28 of them in the next few days if they open soon. And I want to thank you very much. If you have another opportunity, then I'm quite sure we will be working with the San Francisco Public Library again. And happy Mother's Day to all the mothers. You have been so wonderful raising your kids, mother, grandmother, and I wish you good health, and be safe, and Yan can cook, so can you. Thank you very much our friends at the Public Library and also friends and members and supporters of the San Francisco Public Library. And I want to thank you so much. I am Martin Yan of Yan Can Cook. Thank you, Chef, for being with us again today. We so enjoyed it as always. Remember, you can find these recipes on our website and go to Chef Yan's website, YanCanCook.com as well. Thanks, everybody, for being here with us.