- Egg sandwiches. Specifically, Hong Kong
style egg sandwiches. So these are egg sandwiches
that we call dan zhi from Hong Kong style diners
called cha chaang ten. And I have pretty vivid memories of eating these egg sandwiches, because they're quite special. The eggs, themselves,
are ridiculously fluffy. They're really layered, they're custardy, and Hong Kong style scrambled eggs have a couple of little twists in
them that really make them, I think, special and not
like most egg sandwiches that we normally get in the United States. We are going to be doing
a couple of variations on this egg sandwiches. But first and foremost, we'll start with the basic Hong Kong style
scrambled egg recipe. This is a recipe I've worked
on for a little while. I do like it like this with the additions. So eggs first. Freshest possible eggs. We're looking for silky,
we're looking for fluffy, we're looking for
emulsified and incorporated. Key ingredient, evaporated milk. Evaporated milk or even
any other type of milk is going to introduce a
little bit of fat in there that's gonna give it that silkier texture. We're also going to be
adding a little bit of water to our cornstarch or our potato starch. Make a slurry. And this is the emulsifier. This is the same type of slurry used to thicken sauces in a
lot of Cantonese cooking. And when we add this to the egg, it's gonna make sure that all of that oil and all of that water inside the yolk and the egg whites and the
evaporated milk and the oil and all these other
things that we add to it, it's gonna make sure that
all of it comes together and holds together. One of the biggest problems
with scrambled eggs often, is after you make a
really delicious, fluffy, scrambled egg, it loses water after it sits for a little while. This prevents that from happening. This technique, sometimes, it's also known as (foreign language). So a Whampoa style
slippery egg or a huadan. A huadan, a silky egg. And this is the type of thing that we use for banquet cooking as well. A little bit of oil to give
it a little bit more fat and a little bit more slipperiness. The seasoning is salt and a pinch of white pepper for balance. White pepper is slightly
fermented so just gives it a little bit of that kick. And Hong Kong people tend
to prefer white pepper than black pepper anyway. We're gonna mix this
all together really well (whisk clanking) because the name of the
game is emulsification. And what you're looking for is you want to get rid of as many of these streaks of eggs whites as possible. Okay, how's this? Cool. So usually in cha chaang
tens you're gonna cook this on a griddle that has a basically
nonstick seasoning on top. You want to use a nonstick
pan or a wok for this. Anything that has a large surface area that is in contact with
your heating element. We're going to cook this egg. It's gonna come together
in like 10 seconds. We're gonna cook this egg and
then we're gonna return it back to the bowl, toast the bread, and then plate the eggs on
top of the bowl with a spoon, which is basically how
cha chaang tens actually do it when they're doing larger orders. Now pan needs to be hot. We're aiming for layers of custardy egg. And in order to create those layers, there's gonna be a solid sheet of egg that's gonna form when it comes in contact with the hot pan. And then, were gonna push
it around with a spatula, decisive pushes, to create more layers and fold it over that way. So pan is starting to smoke,
so that's when you know it's hot enough. We're gonna give it a little bit of oil. Actually, not a tiny bit,
but not quite generous. Good amount of oil. And then, we're gonna move it around and we're gonna wait for these ripples. You see those ripples in the middle? That's when you know
your oil is ready to go. At this moment in time,
what's gonna happen is we're gonna wait for that to smoke and then we're gonna turn it off. Eggs are gonna go in and
I'm gonna push it around. (pan sizzles) Almost immediately
start pushing it around. (pan sizzles) All I'm doing is moving it, moving it. And every time I leave a
streak more egg layers form. We're just using the residual heat because my stove isn't even on. You see how custardy it is
and how emulsified it is? Barely picking up any color at all. Right at the end, when
I have the shape I want, I'm just gonna let it sit
and let it all settle. All the water and oil's gonna settle and then the whole thing's gonna come off. That's a Hong Kong scrambled egg. Straight into the bowl. I think this is the best
scrambled egg in the world. Now that the egg is done, we
need to toast our milk bread and build a basic Hong Kong egg sandwich. Let's talk about bread real quick. This is milk bread. That's the preferred type of bread for me. Anything that's nice and
fluffy and doesn't have too much stuff in it. It's called milk bread
because there's milk inside. The milk in the bread makes
it a little bit more luscious, a little bit more fluffy
almost the way brioche is. We like to take the crust off
because this egg is so fluffy you really don't want
anything to get in the way of you, your palate, and
the silkiness of your egg. The other thing about
this bread is my dad, I want to say most Hong Kong people, tend to prefer their scrambled
egg sandwiches untoasted because of the fluffiness of that egg. But I do love that flavor of toasted bread so what I like to do at home, and this is not standard practice, is to toast the inside of the
bread to give it that flavor, but not the outside. And so, that way, when you serve it, it's a fluffy, untoasted,
white on the outside, and then you get a little
bit of that caramelization on the toast in the inside layer. So butter.
(pan sizzles) And then, we're gonna toast bread like how people toast bread. Mop it around, soak up
some of that butter flavor. I'm doing it in the cast iron pan because toast is a little bit better when it's toasting on the griddle. It seems to be a little more even. Toasty flavor in the middle, okay? That's good. That's one. Ooh, gorgeous, that's the second. I think the shape of the
egg kind of fits in here. So this whole guy is gonna come out. There's that gorgeous, luscious egg. Dude. Okay. Pre-seasoned, so we don't
have to mess with it too much. And the top is going to go
on. Press it down a little. Like all egg sandwiches,
you need it to adhere. The shape is important here. Fix the sides because
we're being fussy about the egg in the first place, might as well get everything tight, compress it a little bit, right? Try to get the edges lined up. And then, just straight in
the middle, super gentle. Again, untoasted bread, so
the bread knife is essential. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. See those layers?
(knife scraping) So delightful. That's what
I'm talking about there. Shoot (beep). Basic egg sandwich. Toasted in the inside,
untoasted on the outside. Super fluffy, not a lot
of color on the egg, but a lot of volume. Good emulsification. You don't see too much
striation of egg white an egg yolk and stuff, but
this is pretty much ideal, Hong Kong style egg sandwich. Oh, that looks so good, dude. Here's a classing Hong
Kong style egg sandwich. We're gonna make a couple
of variations utilizing a couple of delicious, salty staples of the Hong Kong diner. You know what I like to
do in "Food52" videos? Embed other recipes that
barely have anything to do with the primary recipe and insert an entirely new technique that is just supplemental content to the primary source of content. Point is we're doing a whole
stir fried satay beef recipe secretly hidden within
an egg sandwich recipe. Bet you didn't see that coming. So this is satay beef. Satay is a funny little thing. Satay beef is a Southeast
Asian dish obviously. Primarily, I want to say
most of this influence comes from Indonesia,
but in and of itself, the ideas of how peanuttiness
and some shrimp paste could come from other parts
of Southeast Asia as well. Satay in Hong Kong, however,
has taken on its own flavor and it really is kind of
a peanutty sha cha sauce. It's built off of a, I suppose confusion might
be one way to put it, but confluence of Southeast Asian cultures and Southern Chinese cultures. And basically, it's a
marinated stir fry flank steak. It's a staple in Hong
Kong style cha chaang tens or Hong Kong style diners. And so, therefore, sometimes,
it makes its way into the egg sandwich, which is a staple within these Hong Kong diners. So, first things first, is flank steak. This is a beautiful flank steak
that we have sliced slightly on a bias against the grain. We're going to squeeze it
with a bunch of flavor, and then marinade for at least 30 minutes up to three days. There are a couple of
important things in here. First and foremost, from
the seasoning perspective, we're going to put some white
pepper, chicken powder or MSG as an umami booster, some
xiao xing cooking wine to get rid of some of those
gammy, grassy, bloody notes. Dark soy sauce for color. Light soy sauce for sodium. Oil. So oil is gonna
help velvet that beef. When we cook it, the oil that's gonna coat and protect the outside
is gonna help the texture and get it a little bit
slipperier, so it's important here. Cold oil, even though we're
stir frying with hot oil later. For the texture, there is
a little bit of water here that we're going to mix into
cornstarch or potato starch. That's the layer of protection that's gonna go over the beef. And we're going to add a
little bit of baking soda. Baking soda is a
traditional meat tenderizer that produces the type of texture that is commonly associated
with a lot of Cantonese sliced beef dishes, but
certainly satay beef. So all of this liquid of starch, water, baking soda, goes in. As you can tell, it's decent
amount of water in here, so we're going to squeeze it altogether. The leftover marinade here
is going to form the basis of our sauce. Do not be afraid of really handling and tenderizing that meat
by squeezing into it. What's gonna happen after you
first start squeezing this you're gonna notice that
a lot of that liquid is going to be absorbed into the beef, which is going to help its texture. After it sits for about 30 minutes, you might notice some of
that water leaking out again, which is totally fine. Again, excess liquid becomes sauce. Once all that's together,
put this into the fridge, let it marinade for at least 30 minutes, up until three days.
- Eventually. - Two steps here. First and foremost, you're
going to be searing off the beef to get a little
bit of color in there. So in a wok or any sort of heavy skillet, lay a little bit of oil,
wait for it to smoke, wait for it to simmer. And don't overcrowd your pan. The beef's going in.
(pan sizzles) We go half of the time.
(pan sizzles) Looking for color, so I'm
not touching it too much in the beginning. Saute. Natural sugars in the soy
sauce are gonna caramelize over sugar and that chicken powder. Everything's gonna come together. The sugars and the wine are reducing. Starting to see the edges pick up color and then we start moving it. Just looking for color here.
(pan sizzles) This marinade is really almost a basic Cantonese beef marinade. With the addition of the
peanut and the shrimp paste and the sha cha later,
that's gonna make it into a true sha cha beef. Okay, once it's not pink anymore or red take it out.
(utensils clank) Take as much of that
as you can. Round two. This is not to fully cook it. This is just to get a
little bit of browning and caramelization on the beef. If we did it all at once or
if we did it with the sauce, we wouldn't have that kiss of color. (pan sizzles) And it's funny, in Chinese kitchens, cooking it to this extent
isn't called cooking it. We call it (speaks Chinese), so we're cutting short the rawness. So we're just killing
the rawness of the beef and we're not cooking it all the way. (pan sizzles) Beautiful beef is cooked halfway. As you can tell, the meat is
actually quite tender still because of that baking
soda and the protection from that starch. In that same pan, we're going
to activate some aromatics. A little bit more oil to
help get the party started. Shallots. Shallots going first
because garlic tends to burn. But garlic chopped can go in next. And this is a little bit spicy,
but our chili is just one. Not for an immense amount of
heat, but for a small pop. Start to get everything to soften. (pan sizzles) Cook a little bit of that
aggression out of the chilis. Once they start to pick up a
bit of color, shrimp paste. Technically, this is
the type of shrimp paste that I like to use. This is Thai shrimp paste. It's almost conserved in
soybean oil, bright red. And sha cha sauce, sometimes translated as Chinese barbecue sauce,
even though that's exactly what it isn't. It's made from dried fish, salted fish. Traditionally, coconut, but
not in the Taiwanese version that you can normally buy nowadays. Saute all of it until the
flavors start to come out. Just a couple seconds.
No more than 30 seconds. Water's gonna go in with the peanut butter and this is the basis of our sauce. The peanut butter is a thickening agent, but also, obviously, we
want some of that nuttiness. And we're gonna bring that all together, let it simmer for maybe
just short of a minute just to reduce it a little bit and bring all those flavors together. Oh, yeah, Cantonese style satay sauce. A lot of elements of what
people know as curry, but evolved or changed
for the Cantonese palate. So meat is going back in.
Everything comes together. (pan sizzles) There you go. I'm just gonna let it cook
for about a minute or so. You want the beef to finish cooking. You want all the flavors to meld. Classically, this satay beef
in Hong Kong cha chaang tens is served over instant noodles. Occasionally, you'll see
it inside of a sandwich and I actually quite like it. And the egg sandwich because
the flavors are so intense. So not looking for too
much sauce on the bottom of the pan. I want everything to come together. I want the beef to just
finish cooking. Call it a day. Satay. No, satay beef. Let's taste it actually. It's so good. So soft, so tender because
of that baking soda. It's so classic Hong Kong. But that's a basic satay
that we're gonna use inside of one variation of the egg sandwich. After that satay beef,
more bonus variations and a very simple recipe. We're gonna make probably
my favorite version of the sandwich which is (speaks Chinese). So that's corned beef or
technically translated from Cantonese, salted beef. This is the corned beef
brought over by the British, left in Hong Kong. Like very many other
shelf-stable products, a very affordable entryway
to European culture, European food culture, so to speak, and, therefore, that's the basis of these Hong Kong style
diners that are really a Hong Kong re-appropriation of European sort of tea house cafe culture. Really simple like most other meat because the cooking of the egg that
you've seen is so quick, we need to make sure
that everything inside of that egg mixture is
cooked and already delicious. Corned beef is really well salted and it's also got a lot of fat in it. So over a medium-high
heat, medium-high flame, you're just going to toast the corned beef and let that fat naturally render out. We're just trying to get this crisp and get it delicious. And we're gonna mix this into
the egg mixture in a second. The type of corned beef that
has a little potatoes in it, also quite delectable in this setup. But it's nice because in this recipe the corned beef seasons the egg and so you have these nice,
salty caramelized bites with the luscious, silky, velvety egg. By the way, there's a vegan SPAM. They're called OmniPork
and it is very good. Surprisingly good. Nice color on there. You're just going to take it off. (utensils clank) That's the corned beef
ready for the egg mixture. Got some SPAM on hand. SPAM is also very important
of cha chaang tens. And obviously, SPAM, egg sandwiches. So SPAM in a nonstick pan,
in this case a nonstick wok. Raw, not raw, but dry. There's a bunch of fat in there that's gonna rend out slowly. This is a little neat trick for your SPAM. As the fat begins to render out, it will free itself from the pan. Before that, the meat and
the pressure that's created from the heat going into the meat is going to help stick it
a little bit to the pan, which means that you're gonna get a nicer, even brown color.
(pan sizzles) I bet this is the most amount
of concentration anybody in this studio has ever
spent searing SPAM. (group laughs) It's actually right now,
so okay, seared SPAM. Beautiful salty companion to the eggs. So here are all the variations. The corned beef, the satay,
the scallion and the SPAM. And we have the basic egg mixture that we showed earlier set up ready to go. We're gonna make some variations. For the corned beef and the scallion, the tradition usually is
to mix that ingredient into the egg mixture and
cook it all together. For other things like ham
or SPAM or even bacon, maybe you would do, or satay beef, we're going to plate that
separately in one layer and put the egg over the
top before we serve it. Otherwise, the cook of the egg
is almost exactly the same. Make sense. Corned beef first. Corned beef first. While that's smoking, corned
beef going to go into the egg. It's quite salty, so we're
gonna use about half of it. Since the corned beef's already cooked, the cook on the egg is exactly the same. Just mix it altogether to make
sure it's well incorporated. Oil. Whoop, all on the sides. Wait for it to smoke,
wait for it to shimmer as it's doing now. Turn it off. Eggs gonna go in. (pan sizzles) Just let that egg finally set.
(utensils clank) Ready to go. Scallion
into the egg mixture. Scallion's gonna give
that nice onionyness. Classic combination,
honestly, Chinese cooking. Eggs go in.
(pan sizzles) (utensils clanking) And then, these two,
I'm just cooking normal. (pan sizzles) We're gonna assemble the sandwiches. Same, as always, toasted
in, untoasted out. Here's a scallion. Actually, it fits quite nicely. Move it to the top. Huh!
- Who's the guest? - This thing.
(woman laughs) But it's so delicate. Corned beef. Dude, look at this. Ridiculous. For this one, let's lay the satay down. Egg. SPAM and egg, the most standard one. This one is probably
the nicest looking one. Before we sign off, gotta check your work. Look at this guy. Egg, satay. This is a slightly more creative,
not super traditional one. Mm, that's actually the
best egg sandwiches ever, I'm not even joking. The way that the bread gives
away into how eggy it is. Because all of the fats and the liquid. Everything about the egg is so homogenized and it's seasoned so delicately with the slightly over salted meat. It's so balanced. It's everything you
want in an egg sandwich. The recipes are on "Food52." Next time, I'm going to
be making some wontons, so keep an eye out for that. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - You want ...
- Mm.
