- [Yia] My mom's also
micromanaging my dad right now. - That's good. That's good. - Saying, "You wanna
put that over there." So it's funny, right?
- Yeah. - He is the person grilling, but then, it's like
any family, right? - Yeah.
(both laughing) (upbeat rock music) (gentle music) Minneapolis is home to a
rich tapestry of cultures, one of which is the
Hmong community, a Southeast Asian group with a distinct language,
heritage, and cuisine. - When you have
a group of people that does not have a land of
their own, a home of their own, or a country of their own,
or an anthem of their own, when war determines where
your next location's gonna be, no matter where you
are in the world, if there's another Hmong
person there, that's home. - [Bryan] Escaping years
of war and persecution, many Hmong people immigrated
to the United States, establishing vibrant communities like the one here
in Minneapolis. - Our cultural DNA
is intricately woven into the foods that we eat. If you wanna know our people,
you gotta know our food 'cause our food is
actually our story. - Yia Vang is a Hmong chef who has made a name from
himself in Minneapolis for his delicious
interpretations of the food he grew up eating. When you were designing
this menu here, what was your inspiration? - For me, it was digging
into these dishes that we grew up eating. So literally, it was Hmong
sausage that my dad made. It was the way that
he grilled pork or the way that he
grilled chicken. A lot of the side
dishes were stuff that was inspired by mom. Our very basic hot sauce,
which our word is kua txob, which literally translates to
pepper sauce, is from my mom. - [Bryan] At its core,
the essential components of a Hmong meal are meat,
vegetables, rice, and hot sauce. But as Yia explains, there's
so much more to it than that. - If you really want to
experience Hmong food, you have to be invited,
or you get to be invited, into a Hmong household. And that's where
you see everything. - I'm so excited because
we've been invited to Yia's parents' house where they're gonna prepare a
traditional Hmong meal for us. As Yia said, "The best way
to understand the culture is to sit around the
dinner table with them." When we arrived,
Yia's mom, Pang, was already hard at
work in the kitchen. (water splashing) Her first dish was a
turkey and pork sausage, flavored with
scallions and cilantro. She mixes the
ingredients by hand before blending them
in a food processor. (food processor whirring) Meanwhile, Yia and I joined
his father, Nhia, out back. (birds chirping) (grill sizzling) We started by grilling
up some Hmong sausages, seasoned with lemongrass,
ginger, garlic, and fish sauce, that Yia had brought with
him from the restaurant. - I mean, that's one
thing I really love about the way that
Hmong food is done, even the way that my
mom and dad does food, it's just you can put whatever
you want on the grill. - Yeah. - And what's really cool in the way that dad
loves his grill, he always says that
he loves his grill because the coals are
so low on the bottom so then if you wanna
get it really hot, you can get it high
and still grill it and you get that hard sear
on it, as you can see. And it's all about
controlling the ember. That's the technique. That's kind of
what he looks for. - Well, who taught
you how to grill? (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (grill sizzling) (Nhia speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Nhia speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Nhia speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) - [Bryan] Pang arrives with
the turkey sausage mixture and shapes the sausages by hand before putting
them on the grill. (Pang speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Pang speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Pang speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Pang speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Pang speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Pang speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Pang speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) (Pang speaking in
foreign language) (Yia speaking in
foreign language) - So what's really
funny about this is mom was just
saying to me like, "Oh, yeah, I had a
turkey in the freezer. I knew you guys were coming by, so we just took the turkey out." And they just chopped it up.
- To serve it. - And again, you can
see the turkey scraps in the back there, the wings,
and the butt and the back. - [Bryan] Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, we don't waste it. You grill it off
and you pick at it. - And so, cooking over fire is a big piece of Hmong
culture, is it not? - Yeah, and I love it because I think that
when you cook over fire, it makes you really
involved with the food, man. You grill all the
time, you get it. You can't just set it,
forget it, and walk away. - Yeah. - It is a all day
immerse experience. And that's what I think that
really gets you involved with the food you're making. And yeah, we might have this
little fancy grill here, but in the mountains of Laos, it's literally a
fire on the ground. And then you just
kind of makeshift some kind of little grill
or rack on top of it, and then you just go. - [Bryan] Back in the kitchen,
Pang was putting together a side dish of mustard greens
braised in chicken broth. - So she's just gonna
make some braise here of the home mustard green. This is from her garden. Yeah, so this is very iconic. - Almost all of the
produce used for the feast comes from a large garden nearby that Nhia and Pang own
and cultivate themselves. A staple at the
Vang family table is a chilled salad made from
scraped Hmong cucumbers. - Ah, man, that smells so good. - Yeah. This is one of the
most iconic Hmong dish. - [Bryan] Oh, yeah? - [Yia] Literally, it's like
gazpacho. That's what it is. - [Bryan] Really?
- Yep. So they'll take that little
spoon, you take the seeds out, and then you scrape the
whole cucumber in there and then you add a
little ice in there and you add a little
sugar in there, that's it. And then you just
eat that as part of- - Really? Oh, sounds so good. - Yeah, it's the most
refreshing thing ever. I mean, that's like my
childhood right there. So she wants you guys
to just try this. It's just straight up
the Hmong cucumbers. And again, like I said,
when you try, you can. (cucumbers crunching) - Oh, it's almost like a melon. - Yeah. But one thing I love about
eating it this way too is you can chop this up
and, you know papaya salad? - Mm-hmm.
- Use this instead of papaya. So you'll see a lot of, we
call it Hmong papaya salad, which basically,
it's just cucumbers. 'Cause it's so firm, right? - [Bryan] Next to Pang, Yia's aunt was making a
traditional Hmong hot sauce from Thai chilies,
fish sauce, and salt. - [Yia] I know I'm always
scared of doing this. (pestle thumping) - [Bryan] I'm scared to get
chilies in my eyes. (laughs) - I know, dude! You know what? That's why I use the
Vitamix all the time or the Robot-Coupe. - Yeah. Yeah.
- Come on, man. I'm like technology. - You can really smell the
chilies kicking in. It's spicy. - Oh, yeah.
- You do it? - Yeah, yeah.
- Try it. Try it. - Okay, you hold it like this.
- Okay. - And that's for
your hand, okay? - Yep, all right.
- Uh-huh, yeah. (pestle thumping) - And then, just take a
break and just smell it. - Oh, I can smell it. I don't
even have to lean in. (laughs) - Yeah, dude. (pestle thumping) (Yia and Pang speaking
in foreign language) - I'm trying not to
sneeze and cough. - So my mom was warning that the heat level
is high on this one. - [Bryan] Once everything
had come together, Nhia performed a blessing. (Nhia speaking in
foreign language) - Amen.
- Amen. Okay, thank you.
- Thank you. - [Bryan] With that,
the time had come to enjoy this wonderful meal. - [Yia] So, you know how
we were talking about how there's all those
four elements, right? You have your rice,
you have your protein, you have your vegetable,
and you have your hot sauce. - I love that. The complexity of this turkey with the cilantro
and the onions, I would never guess
that it was turkey. It's got so much flavor
and the texture's perfect. It's perfectly cooked through. And the sausages with the
lemongrass, ginger, garlic. The chili, this one's hot. - Yeah, that burns, yeah. - The fresh one is
chili. That's a hot one. And then these mustard greens. Oh, yeah, like you said, it's
almost like the lubricant that helps everything go
down, but fantastic flavor. - [Yia] Yep. - I wanna tiptoe
into this spicy one, this gazpacho of sorts. What do you call this? - Scraped cucumber,
that's what it's called. The name of it is
literally scraped cucumber. - Really? Wow. (gentle music) I mean, that goes so
well with the spiciness. - Yeah. It cools it down, right? - Yeah, totally.
- Yeah. - It's so good. (Pang speaking in
foreign language) - She said, "It's like
the Hmong favorite." - Yeah, it's so good. I love it. - You can't do this
in a restaurant. - Right, it's hard to
get this point across. - Yep. So that's why I was
saying the restaurant is kind of this
opener, you know? - I mean, everything has just
come together so beautifully here with the slightly
smokey, grilled meats, the mustard greens. I wish I could just
eat all day long. I love these chili sauces. It's really fantastic. I mean, the expertise your
dad shows on the grill. I can see it all come together
on the plate in theory, the whole way through. It's really pretty amazing, man. It's been a fantastic
day. I'll never forget it. - Yeah, dude, I'm
glad you came too. And just to be able to have
you at this table, bro, that's huge for us, you
know what I'm saying? And it makes sense now, right? - Absolutely. - So you've eaten at our
restaurant, that's great, but this is where
it starts from. - Yeah, I can see
it, and thank you. - Appreciate it, man. - What an incredible day we had. Loved meeting with
Yia at the restaurant and going to visit his family. They cooked that incredible
Hmong meal for us. Thank you so much to
them for hosting us and teaching us a little
bit about their culture. If you liked what you
saw, hit that like button, make sure you subscribe, and
throw a comment down below. You never know, I might
end up at your house eating all your leftovers. (gentle music)
(insects chirring)
