(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Today on
America's Test Kitchen, Lan makes Bridget
stir-fried beef and gai lan. Adam reveals his top
picks for bamboo steamers, and Dan makes Julia congee. It's all coming up right here
on America's Test Kitchen. (upbeat music) - We all know the Chinese
American menu item stir-fried beef and broccoli. I happen to love it, but I'm really excited because Lan's here and she's come with a much earlier version that features gai lan or Chinese broccoli. Really wanna find out
more about this recipe, but I know you had a pretty
amazing conversation. - I did. I was looking for an expert to talk to, to learn how to make this dish, and I put out a call to one of
my childhood cooking heroes, Martin Yan. - Amazing. - I grew up, yeah. I grew up watching Yan Can Cook. We chatted. He was super generous and
I can't wait to show you what he taught me. So we're gonna start with the beef. And when you look at
the more modern recipes, they're calling for a pound,
maybe 12 ounces of flank steak. I'm going back to a
more veg heavy version. - Great. - We're only using eight
ounces of beef here. We're using an eight ounce
center cut, filet mignon. And I'm going to start by
cutting it into quarters. It's such a soft and tender
cut that it's really hard to slice thinly. - [Bridget] Yes. - So we're gonna pop it in the
freezer just to firm it up. It'll take about 20 to 25 minutes. - [Bridget] Okay. - All right. Now that the beef is in the freezer, let's prep our gai lan. - Okay. - We're gonna start by cutting
the leaves from the stalk, and I'm just gonna cut the
leaves into one and a half inch wide pieces. If there are any bits of stem or floret, they'll all go into that same bowl. - [Bridget] Great. - The stalks, I am going to cut on the bias into quarter inch thick pieces, and I like to use kind of a steep angle. I think you just get larger
pieces that are more fun to eat. So now we just need to wait
for that beef to firm up and then we'll continue. Alright, Bridget. It's been 20 minutes,
this is nice and firm. - [Bridget] Sure is. - Now I'm gonna set these
on one of the cut sides. It doesn't really matter which one, and I'm looking for
quarter inch thick slices. I've got pretty good knife skills, but I would not try to do
this without par-freezing the meat. - [Bridget] Right. - Some of these are a
little bit wider or narrower than others, but the cook time is really
dependent on how thick they are. So we just wanna make sure
they're quarter of an inch thick. To marinate this beef I've
got three ingredients. It's really simple. I've got a teaspoon of soy sauce, a teaspoon of corn starch, and a teaspoon of a Chinese
rice wine called Shaoxing. The two liquids are seasoning
the beef and the cornstarch is kind of helping that liquid
to clinging to the meat. It'll offer some protection
when we go to cook this, and it's really just a matter
of mixing until everything is well coated. Last up, because it's a stir-fry, we have to prep all the other ingredients. Once we start cooking, there is no stopping and running around. - Okay. - I've got four teaspoons
of vegetable oil here, and I'm going to add one and
a half teaspoons of grated ginger and a quarter
teaspoon of minced garlic. This oil is gonna flavor
the beef later on, and I just wanna have it ready
so that we're not waiting on it. Last up is our sauce. It starts with a half
a cup of chicken broth. To that, I'm adding one of
the most important ingredients to beef and broccoli,
and that's oyster sauce. I've got two tablespoons of it. Next up, I've got four
teaspoons of Shaoxing. So more of that wine. It's kind of a little bit like mirin, not as sweet, little funkier,
two teaspoons soy sauce, one teaspoon of corn starch. That's gonna thicken our sauce. And half a teaspoon of sesame oil just for a little pop of flavor. - I love toasted sesame oil. - Quick whisk. We're ready to cook. All right, Bridget, I've got a 14 inch flat
bottom carbon steel wok here. I'll crank the heat to high. And unlike some of the Western
recipes we do where we start with some oil in the pan
and we wait for it to smoke or shimmer, when you're
working with a traditional wok, there's already a film of oil
in there because we're not washing it with a ton of soap and water. - [Bridget] Right. - And so the pan itself will
start smoking when it's ready. We don't have to start with any oil. You can actually see some
smoke coming up from the wok right now. Let's start. - [Bridget] Okay. I've got a teaspoon of oil here, and I'm going to add our stalks first. I'm looking for these to
get tender, spotty brown, but not soft. I wanna keep the food moving
in the wok because it's super hot at the bottom and it won't cook evenly if it's just sitting still. Can you smell this? - Absolutely. - What is happening right now is we're generating a little bit of wok hei. It is super important in Cantonese
cooking to have that kind of smoky, grilly flavor. And it comes from the cooking
method and the wok itself and the term itself, wok hei
was coined by Grace Young. She was also super generous
in sharing her thoughts about this recipe. - [Bridget] So how long for this? - Three to four minutes. - Okay. As Lan mentioned, cooking food in a seasoned
hot wok imparts the legendary saver of wok hei, which means breath of the
wok or spirit of the wok. But what exactly is this
complex culinary phenomenon? The fragrance of wok hei
can be primarily attributed to numerous flavor compounds
that form when oil gets hot. When food containing moisture, like vegetables or noodles is
tossed in a hot walk set over a flame, the water rapidly evaporates, launching tiny particles
of oil into the air. As the oil passes through the
air over the edge of the wok, it breaks down and can even
ignite forming smoky metallic, briny complex aroma compounds
that flavor the food. With repeated use those compounds get embedded
in a seasoning layer. Now the wok itself contains
the wok hei flavor, and when that seasoning gets hot, a bit of that flavor transfers to food. The scientific quest to fully
understand wok hei is ongoing, but this recipe will ensure that you get a breath of it at home. (sizzling) - [Lan] How great does that look? I wanna get them outta here
so they don't keep cooking. - [Bridget] Lovely bit of color there. - Yeah, now that the stalks are done, let's move on to the leaves. I've got a teaspoon of vegetable oil, and to that I'm adding
one teaspoon of sesame oil just to flavor it. And a half a teaspoon of minced garlic. Now this is gonna go fast. It's only gonna take 15 seconds
before the garlic is toasty. And I want to keep moving it around. - [Bridget] Oh yeah. - I'm just looking for
it to pick up some color and smell good. Now we'll add our leaves. I'm not looking to fully cook this. I'm looking for the leaves to
get kind of a dark jade green. This will take about 45
seconds for all of these leaves to wilt down. Alright, so this color is looking great, and you can see the
waxiness has gone away. But to finish cooking it, I'm gonna add a quarter
cup of chicken broth. Now what I want is to cook
all of that liquid off. I don't want that broth to
kind of dilute our sauce and thin it out. So this'll take two to three
minutes to kind of dry it out. You can see this is
really dry and the leaves have really collapsed down. Now I'm gonna land these
on our serving platter. This was another one of those
things that Martin mentioned. He said he'd had a couple
of versions of this dish where instead of tossing all
of the ingredients together, people would make a bed from the leaves and then pour the sauce
and the beef on top. - Hmm. - And not only does it look great, the dish actually eats better
when you do it this way. What happens is the leaves
are kind of folded up and scrunched up right now. When we pour the sauce on top, you get the perfect amount
of sauce in the leaves. When you toss those leaves in the sauce, they kind of become sponges and they're coated in too much sauce. And every bite is a little squidgy. - A little sloppy. - Yeah.
- Okay. - So last up, we're gonna cook our beef and I've got that flavoring oil we made earlier with
the ginger and garlic. It's just gonna go right in. It'll take about 20 seconds
for this to become fragrant 'cause there's a little bit more stuff. And I'm just gonna add our beef and we'll just move this around. It's only gonna take maybe
90 seconds for this to cook, so I really wanna move it
around and break it up. So we're getting close here. You'll notice that most
of the pink is gone, and I'm really just looking for
all of that pink to go away. That oyster sauce is
bringing so much savoriness and it's hard to see in this dark wok, but there's some fond
building up in there, and that's gonna flavor the sauce. And that's really what we're after. So this looks great, I'm gonna
return our stalks to this. Add our sauce. - Yes. - Give it a quick stir
to get that corn starch off the bottom - [Bridget] Right. (laughing) - I know it looks kind of soupy right now, but this is enough sauce
for the beef and the leaves. So it's gonna look a little soupy here, but it's the right amount. And I just want that
corn starch to thicken, that usually takes just 30 to 60 seconds. You can see how it's
already picked up a gloss. It's not as fluid anymore. We're done. - [Bridget] That's it. - All right, here we go. So ready to eat. - [Bridget] I'm so ready to eat. Look at this. This is stunning. - [Lan] You know what the
best part about stir-fries is? You have to serve them immediately. - [Bridget] Yes. - [Lan] Can I serve you? - [Bridget] Please. - [Lan] Now, I grew up eating
this with jasmine rice, and it is kind of my
preferred rice for stir-fries. - This looks spectacular. I'm going in. Mm. Crisp and crunchy, but
definitely cooked, not raw. What a great flavor though. - Yeah. - It's that carbonized that, that essence that you were
talking about, the wok hei. - It's hard to describe. - It really is. - I spoke to a a food historian who said, it's like a rainbow. You'll know it when you see it. - [Lan] I love that nutty,
sweet flavor of the gai lan. - [Bridget] All right, the beef. - [Lan] Yeah. - This would be the pot of gold
at the end of that rainbow. Buttery, tender. - Yeah. - The sauce. It has my favorite sauce in it. The oyster sauce. That's the wonder sauce. - It somehow makes the beef beefier and the gai lan tastes sweeter for it. It's a great combo. There's something lovely
about going back to this more traditional approach that is more savory. It doesn't have the sweetness
of onion or bell pepper. Not that there's anything
wrong with that, but you know, change it up a little, it's nice. - Thanks Lan. This is absolutely perfection. - We have Martin to thank. - Get to stir-fry with a
little help from your friends. And Lan certainly called
upon some of the greats for help with this recipe. And it starts by cutting
par-frozen filet mignon into thin slices. Cook the gai lan stalks first until brown, and then cook gai lan leaves until they're vibrant and green. And of course, it's that beautiful super sauce that holds everything together. So from America's Test Kitchen, a wondrous version of beef and broccoli, it's stir-fried beef and gai lan. At America's Test Kitchen
recipe development is serious business. - Head over to ameticastestkitchen.com
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access trial membership at americastestkitchen.com today. (upbeat music) - Bamboo steamers have been
used for thousands of years and with good reason. They work with a wide variety of foods. They're relatively inexpensive
and they're made from bamboo, which is a sustainable resource. And today, Adam's gonna show us what to look for when buying a new one. - These are super useful. If you've gone to dim sum, you have seen these
deployed by the squadron, because they're used for dumplings, they're used for those bao buns. They come in a lot of different sizes. We chose a lineup of five here. They're in a 10 inch round size, which is compatible with say, a 12 inch skillet like we have here, or a 14 inch wok with a
little water on the bottom. The steamer goes on top, the steam rises, they come in tiers. We have some that have
two tiers like that one down on the end, or say
this one has two tiers. And then that one in front
of you has three tiers. Also, one thing that we
really like about these is you can see the bottom is flat. - [Julia] Yep. - So if you're cooking something delicate that could get bent or
broken in the curved interior of a collapsible metal
steamer like fish filets, these work really well. They're a natural material,
and they do pick up odors. So you always line the tiers. I have some parchment liners here. Why don't you throw one in? - I've actually never bought these. I didn't know they made these. I've been making 'em myself with parchment and a pair of scissors. (laughing) This is a cool product. - I'm gonna gift you a pack of these. You know, a lot of people will use cabbage leaves or lettuce leaves also. So we tested these with dumplings and bao, those filled buns in two
tiers for the dumplings. Three, if we could, bao in one tier, cleaning was a very important
part of the testing because this is a natural material. They absorb those odors. So you do want to clean them out. You want to dry it carefully
and then separate the tiers so that they air dry more. And that should help you
avoid cracking and mold and getting it all misshapen
and out of alignment. In the testing these all
were pretty comparable in terms of their steaming performance. A little less comparable in
terms of structural integrity. - Interesting. - And by that I mean this, if it wasn't well made, some of these began to sort
of lose their alignment. They didn't fit together quite as well. It didn't affect the steaming performance. It just made 'em a
little irritating to use. The ones that stayed in alignment better were the ones down in front of you. You can see they have those
metal bands that really help them retain their shape. Another structural issue arose again, I'll show you this one. You can see that the
inside is made up of slats, and in this case, they're tied
together with bamboo threads. Over the course of the testing, some of these threads began to fray. And you know, we thought
that they would end up trashed after a couple of years. That one in front of you. Look at those nice thick wooden slats. - [Julia] Yeah. - And they're glued together. Again, much better
structural integrity there. So those two are our winners. The one down at the very end, that is the Juvele 10 inch
bamboo steamer with steel rings. $24, two tiers, worked beautifully, stayed well aligned
through the whole thing. If you're steaming for a crowd
and you want an extra tier, we have a three-tiered winner. And that's the Hcooker,
three-tier kitchen bamboo steamer with stainless steel banding. - [Julia] Yeah. - [Adam] And that one is $43. - So there you have it. If you're in the market
for a new bamboo steamer, check out the Juvele
10 inch bamboo steamer with steel rings. Or if you're steaming for a
crowd, check out the Hcooker, three tier kitchen bamboo steamer with stainless steel banding. - Are you ready to take your
cooking to the next level? - Introducing the Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook. - [Bridget] Featuring every
recipe from every episode of America's Test Kitchen. That's thousands of recipes. That texture is unbelievable. Reviews. - Gadgets you didn't know you needed. - [Bridget] And tips. - Yes, there's some terrible choices, but there are also some amazing choices. - We've spilled all of our
secrets and included our insider notes alongside each recipe. - Plus, there's a handy shopping guide. So, you know exactly what to grab when you're at the store. And of course it makes an excellent gift. Get your copy today at
americastestkitchen.com. (upbeat music) - Cooking rice down into a hardy porridge is a classic technique found all over east and southeast Asia. And congee is a great example of this. And Dan, you're a huge fan of congee. - I am, I really love it. So I'm a huge rice fan in general. And I think congee speaks
to the versatility of rice. You can make it sticky and you know, perfectly tender individual grains, or you can cook it down
into a comforting porridge. So I'm gonna start with our rice here. And I have three quarters
of a cup of jasmine. - Okay. - So even within the rice,
there's a lot of variation. Traditionally, a lot of it
was made with broken rice. So when you process rice, not every grain comes
out perfectly like this. Some of it's broken, and that's
already really broken down, so it cooks a lot quicker that way. But of course, people often
use whole rice for this. And specifically to make congee. I just love jasmine
for how aromatic it is. You use long grain and there's, you know, other rices that are used as well. - Okay. - So the first step is we're
going to rinse our rice. So the rinsing is an important step. You know, rinsing rice in general is a really good thing to do. Here we have plenty of
starch in the rice itself, so we're not short on,
short on starch at all. - Gotcha. - The exterior starch
can cause some foaming while we're cooking it. And you can get boilovers,
which I, you know, I'm sure you've experienced with oatmeal and that kind of stuff. So this actually helps prevent that. - Interesting. - So that looks good. It's running clear, I like to shake it and then
give it a few good drops like this. Just make sure we've
gotten that water off. And we're gonna transfer it
over to our big Dutch oven. I'm gonna start by adding
a cup of chicken broth. - [Julia] Just a cup? - Just a cup. So a little bit of chicken broth adds some nice meatiness and depth. And next I'm gonna add, there's a little bit of
salt in the chicken broth, but I'm gonna add three
quarters of a teaspoon. Next up I have nine cups of water. [Julia] That's a lot of water. - [Dan] A lot of water. - [Julia] Now I get why
you used the big pot. - Yep, you need the big pot for it. I'm just gonna bring this
up to a boil over high heat. So the congee is up to a boil here. We're gonna reduce the heat. We want a vigorous simmer here. We're actually gonna cook
this a fairly long time. Congee is often cooked for 90
minutes, sometimes even more. And it's really, again, a personal preference thing
of how much you want the rice to break down. You can cook the rice until it blossoms, like a flour is one descriptor for it. You can also cook it until
almost no grains are visible. So we're gonna go
something a little bit more in the middle there. So we're gonna do a vigorous
simmer to speed things up. A gentle simmer. It could take a really long time. And boiling can be good too. You see that a lot. But you can get boilovers, right? And so what we wanna
do is eliminate those. So we're gonna use the lid here, but we're gonna put a
wooden spoon in like that. - [Julia] Ah. - So, we're gonna have a
little bit of space for water to evaporate. And we're gonna do this
for about 45 to 50 minutes until it's really silky and tender. And I'll show you what that looks like. - Okay. To turn rice into congee, you have to cook it for a
lot longer than you would if you were making say,
a pilaf or even risotto. To explain, let's take a closer
look inside a grain of rice. Each grain of rice contains
hundreds of thousands of starch granules. Each one made up of long, tightly packed starch molecules. As the rice cooks, those granules start to
absorb water and swell, and the water pushes the
starch molecules apart. This is called gelation. During this process, some of the starch molecules
leach out of the granules and onto the surface of the rice. This is what causes grains of
rice to stick to each other. With continued cooking
some of the granules burst entirely releasing their starch. Risotto is an example of
rice cooked to this point. As more granules burst the
starch fills the cooking liquid. The long starch molecules
tangle with each other, making the liquid viscous. And it's at this point that the
rice has turned into congee. - Eggs are a really
common topping for congee. I think probably the most traditional is the thousand year egg, which is really tasty and wonderful. Kind of chopped up on top. But you see hard boiled eggs. You even see raw eggs sometimes. We're gonna make some jammy eggs. - Jammy eggs? - Yeah, so they're like partway between a soft cooked egg and a hard boiled egg, the yolk is like thick and creamy. It's really, really nice. So I have a half inch of
water in this pot here, and it's boiling, and I'm
gonna drop my eggs in, not drop them, I'm gonna place
them in really carefully. - [Julia] It's not a lot of water. - It's not a lot of water. - [Julia] So it's not
even covering the eggs. - Nope, not at all. So we're gonna cover this up, and we're gonna cook them
for eight minutes here. Starting them in the hot
water like this is key. It's gonna make them a lot easier to peel. All right, that's been eight minutes. Take the lid off there
and we're gonna pop over to the sink here. - [Julia] All right. - So I'm gonna drain the water
off and run some cold water over them, that's gonna
help stop the cooking, but it really just makes
them easier to handle. I find if you're running them under water, you can pretty easily peel
them while they're out here. Yeah, this is just gonna come right off. We'll pop 'em in this bowl
and we're gonna work on another topping. - [Julia] Okay. - We're gonna make some fried shallots. We're gonna use a microwave technique, which I really like a lot. So I'm starting with three shallots that have been sliced thin. If you have a mandolin, this is a great time to use it. It doesn't have to be super, super thin, but they all need to be
pretty equal so that they cook at the same rate. - [Julia] That makes sense. - To that, I'm gonna add a
half cup of vegetable oil. Any neutral oil is fine here. So we're gonna go into the
microwave for about five minutes. Okay, that has been five minutes. And you can see that the
shallots have shrunk down below the level of the oil. That's good. That means we're deep frying. I'm giving it a quick
stir just to even out the temperature, and I'll go back into the microwave now for another two minutes. Repeat the stirring and
microwaving every two minutes until they're starting
to get golden brown. About six minutes. Ooh, these are starting
to look really good. So it's been about six minutes. We want them to be a
little bit more brown, but I'm gonna drop the
intervals to 30 seconds 'cause it goes super fast at this point. At Cook's Illustrated, we're food nerds. That's why every recipe we
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the best cook you know? Subscribe to Cook's Illustrated Magazine at cooksillustrated.com, today. Beautiful. - Goodness. Those smell good. - Don't they? Now, the key is to get
them outta here right away. They can go from beautiful
to burnt pretty quickly. - Ah. - So, what's interesting is
they come out really soft even at that point. And they don't get crispy
until they cool down. - Aha. - While they're still soft like this, that's when you wanna
hit them with some salt. All right, those look beautiful. - [Julia] Delicious. - So it's been about 50 minutes, our rice is done and
you can see it's turned into this really luscious texture. So we burst a ton of starch
granules and all that liquid around it you can see is
really thickened and beautiful. It's really nice. Yeah, this is just pure comfort food. So good. - Look at all these toppings. - Yeah, so we have lots of
toppings to choose from. So we have some chili oil here. We have some soy sauce
and some black vinegar. Cilantro, scallion, ginger. - [Julia] Ooh, I'm gonna copy you. - All right. So I'm gonna do one half an egg. You can go even more if you want. - [Julia] All right. - I'm gonna do a little scallion, a little bit of julienned ginger, which adds tons of freshness. And we also got some
chopped roasted peanuts, which are really nice,
and some fried shallot. - [Julia] Oh yeah. - All right. And I'm just gonna go with a
little bit of black vinegar on mine just to, just to brighten it up. All right, let's dig in. - [Julia] All right. - Mm. That's delicious. - That's so good. - You know, you said comfort food earlier. I get it now. I could easily tuck into a big
bowl of this if I was feeling a little under the weather. - [Dan] Totally. - [Julia] Or a rainy day. - Yep. And you haven't tried your jammy egg yet. - I haven't. - [Dan] Gotta have a little bit of that, adds so much richness. - [Julia] All right, here we go. - Mm. - Mm. I really love this. - It's really good, right? - Yeah, thank you for
showing me how to make it. - You're so welcome. - So if you wanna make a big
bowl of comforting congee, start with a high ratio of water to rice. Cook for almost an hour
at a vigorous simmer, and top it with whatever you like, which in our case means jammy
eggs and fried shallots. From America's Test Kitchen, a soothing and savory recipe for congee. You can find this recipe
in all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes
and our product reviews at our website,
americastestkitchen.com/tv. We hope you enjoyed this
video as much as we enjoyed making it. - Don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe to our channel. - And if you're ready to take your cooking to the next level, head over to americastestkitchen.com and get a free all-access
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free email newsletters and download our app. - -[Julia] With unlimited
access to over 14,000 of our test kitchen recipes
and 8,000 product reviews. You'll have everything you
need to cook and learn. So I ask, what are you waiting for? - Let's make something great together.
