(upbeat music) - We all know the Chinese
American menu item, stir fry beef and broccoli. I happen to love it,
but I'm really excited because Lon'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. - [Lan] 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 stock. 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.
- 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 cornstarch, 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 cling 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. A little funkier. Two teaspoons soy sauce,
one teaspoon of corn starch, that's gonna thicken our
sauce, and a half a teaspoon of sesame oil just for
a little pop of flavor. - I love toasted sesame oil. Uh. - 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.
- 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. At "America's Test
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access trial membership at Americastestkitchen.com, today. (light music) As Lan mentioned, cooking food in a seasoned, hot wok
imparts the legendary savor 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 wok 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. - [Lan] How great does that look? I want to 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 wanna 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. - [Bridget] Mm. - 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. - [Bridget] Mm-hm. - 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. - [Bridget] Mm. - 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 when 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. (oil sizzling) 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. - Right.
- 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.
- Right. (chuckling) - 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.
- That's it. Uh. - All right, here we go. So, ready to eat? - [Bridget] I am so ready to eat. Look at this. This is stunning. - You know what the best
part about stir fries is? You have to serve them immediately. - Yes.
- Can I serve your? - Please! - Now, I grew up eating
this with Jasmine rice and it is kind of my
preferred rice for stir fries. - Mm-hm, 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 essence that you were talking about. The wok hei. - It's hard to describe. - It really is. - I spoke to a food historian who said, "It's like a rainbow. You'll know it when you see it." - Hm. - [Lan] I love that nutty,
sweet flavor of the gai lan. - All right, the beef.
- 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. - 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
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need to cook and learn. So I ask, what are you waiting for? - Let's make something great together.
