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The Cook Up with Adam Liaw Season 9 Episode 38
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00:00MUSIC
00:21Hello, I'm Adam Liao, and welcome to The Cook-Up,
00:23the show that always clicks except cookies.
00:25On tonight's menu, vegetable ten-tuk, green dal
00:28and Luo Hongzai, let's say hi to our guests.
00:31Chinese-born, Melbourne-based comedian He Huang
00:34is a favourite at comedy festivals the world over.
00:37She promises to bring some Chinese flavour to your daily giggles.
00:40So I wonder what flavour she'll bring to the kitchen tonight.
00:42Hello, He.
00:43Hi, Adam.
00:44Great to have you here.
00:46Young chef of the year, cling-wrapper, fermenter Jen Kwok Lee
00:49wears many hats, and he wins a few too.
00:51After helping Melbourne's Atria Dining Receiver hat,
00:54he backed that up again with his role as head chef
00:57of Infinity by Mark Best in Sydney Tower.
00:59Hello, Jen.
00:59Thanks for having me, Adam.
01:01What do you mean by cling-wrapper?
01:04It was just a joke, you know.
01:07Let us in on it.
01:08We have a comedian here.
01:09She'll tell you if it's funny or not.
01:11You know, I do the menial tasks.
01:13I'm very, very particular in how I wrap things in the kitchen.
01:18I don't want to say I have, you know, ADD.
01:21I think a lot of chefs think they do, but I don't.
01:23I just like things particularly, right?
01:26I'm with you.
01:27I'm with you.
01:28What does it mean to bring Chinese flavour to your giggles?
01:32I mean, I'm Chinese.
01:33Oh, okay.
01:34Everything I say.
01:35I didn't realise.
01:36Okay.
01:37It makes so much sense now.
01:40It is so obvious, right?
01:41Yeah, you can say it.
01:43I can see it, you know.
01:44I look like this.
01:45I go to the comedy show.
01:46People, I would do like stuff, comparison.
01:49For example, you say potato.
01:50I say, I don't say potato.
01:53I say to dough.
01:55So that kind of, you know, nuanced kind of humour.
01:59Gotcha.
01:59Time to find out if we can make this catchphrase happen.
02:02Winner, winner, veggie dinner.
02:06Quickfire.
02:07He, what's your favourite vegetable?
02:08I love potato.
02:09If it's a vegetable, I think potato, you can use it for everything.
02:13Like stew, stir fry.
02:15You can air fry them.
02:17You can also cold dish.
02:19Oh, okay.
02:20Dip fry them.
02:21And then just so many ways to eat them.
02:23This is a cooking show we are familiar with potatoes.
02:26I love potatoes.
02:28Jaden, what about you?
02:29Favourite veg?
02:30My absolute favourite is definitely wambok.
02:33Yeah, okay.
02:33Super versatile.
02:35Yes.
02:35And also being a chef, sometimes you don't really get to cook that much at home.
02:39And sometimes you plan, you want to cook tonight, but things don't go to plan.
02:44Yeah.
02:44Wambok lasts pretty much, you know, forever in the fridge.
02:48Yes, that's true.
02:48That's true.
02:48It's always something handy and you can serve it fresh or cooked.
02:52I keep it in a paper bag and it's in there for like a month.
02:54Yeah.
02:54And it's fine.
02:55Yeah.
02:56Well, my veggie dinner is up first and I'm making a vegetable ten tuk.
03:04So ten tuk is a Tibetan, Nepalese, Northeast Indian sort of type, let's call it a hand pulled noodle soup.
03:16Made with all different kinds of ingredients.
03:19I'm going to make a vegetarian version because honestly, I don't think we cook enough vegetarian food.
03:25Particularly for a lot of traditional dishes, eating meat has come along relatively recently as something that people do regularly.
03:34And a lot of these traditional dishes like you can have, if you go to Tibet, you can have this
03:37in, you know, lamb, yak, beef, that kind of thing.
03:40But vegetarian is kind of what most people around the world eat.
03:45So I'm just frying here some Sichuan peppercorns, some garlic, some ginger and some onion.
03:51And I'm going to start to throw some additional spices and vegetables in there.
03:58So what's the substitute instead of like a neat option?
04:03Nothing.
04:04We're not substituting like this is, I would say that this is probably traditionally more a vegetarian dish.
04:10And then the addition of meat to it is probably something more, more recent or a special occasion thing that's
04:17become, I don't know, more, more regular.
04:20Okay.
04:21I'm going to add in a couple of spices because of the closeness to, I guess, Indian spices.
04:26I'm using just some garam masala and some ground coriander.
04:30And it's got really nice fragrance even as we are there.
04:33Yeah.
04:34But the one kind of mandatory ingredient, in my opinion, is radish, daikon radish.
04:39Yeah.
04:40Really, really lovely in this kind of soup.
04:45Jen, do you think people, when they go to a fancy restaurant, they're looking for vegetarian dishes more?
04:54Yeah, especially these days, definitely.
04:56You know, when we, when we wrote the menu at infinity, you know, Mark and I were just like, we
05:01had to make sure that we had plenty of options.
05:04There was one dish that's on our mains right now.
05:08It's a lion's mane mushroom.
05:10Oh, yeah.
05:10And that was, that was the one that gave us the most headache, but it actually turned out to be,
05:15to me personally, anyways, one of my favorites on the dish, on the menu now.
05:18Wow.
05:19All right.
05:19Better than the meat dishes, I think.
05:22Hey, what about you?
05:23Growing up in Chongqing, did you eat a lot of vegetables?
05:26Yes.
05:27I think you're right about eating meat is pretty recent.
05:31Yeah.
05:31Vegetable, especially if you're from mountain areas, a lot of local veggies you can get.
05:37I don't think you can find anywhere outside your hometown.
05:40So we do a lot of like, especially in summer, like cold dishes.
05:43Oh, yeah.
05:44So you just get the herbs from the mountains and you make them either into jelly and then summer treats
05:48or you can just make them cold dishes.
05:52Oh, fantastic.
05:52As a side or appetizer.
05:55The only real seasonings I'm using here is some soy sauce and some salt.
06:00The rest of the flavor is going to come from the vegetables themselves, which I think is a really wonderful
06:05thing.
06:06Like meat provides a good flavor to a lot of dishes when you want that savoriness.
06:12But what vegetables do, they'll provide a bit of sweetness.
06:15They'll provide a bit of, you know, they'll add some savoriness as well.
06:17The tomatoes in here are going to give us, give us that umami that you would get from meat.
06:22Same with the mushrooms.
06:24But the tomatoes will actually also give some sweetness as we cook them down.
06:28So I'm just going to cook that while I make my noodles.
06:31Wow.
06:36I've made a dough here, a really simple water dough.
06:40Water, a little bit of salt and some flour, obviously.
06:48And I'm just going to start to turn this into some really simple hand-pulled noodles.
06:53Did you have to rest it at all?
06:55Yeah.
06:55Yeah, absolutely.
06:56So I made that like an hour ago and so now I'm just resting it.
07:00But the thing I like about this is it's a very rustic noodle.
07:03You can see how it's stretching even as it is.
07:07And so I just want to flatten it out.
07:08And this is one of those things where like I'm just going to stretch it a little bit.
07:13Like I'm not trying to make a hand-pulled noodle type thing because this is not about making a noodle.
07:18It's the opposite.
07:19I'm trying to make short noodles for this dish.
07:21But you can see how simple that is.
07:22Just flour, water, rest it.
07:24And that's what gives you that stretch to it.
07:26Okay.
07:28You're a comedian whose first language is Chinese.
07:33Yeah.
07:34And you do comedy in English.
07:36English, yeah.
07:37That to me is terrifying.
07:39Yeah.
07:39Like I get nervous speaking my languages other than English in front of anyone.
07:46Yeah.
07:46The idea of standing in front of a room and doing comedy in that is like how?
07:51How is that possible?
07:52I guess like my nerve about that is being snapped.
07:56So I don't really feel that way.
07:58I just feel like I just do it.
08:00I don't feel that much.
08:01And then one of my friends says like you, oh, so you just do, you just behave like a man.
08:08Just like do it.
08:08You just don't think about the consequences.
08:10Yeah, just don't think about it.
08:10You're just not sensitive enough.
08:11You're a man.
08:13Oh, that's right.
08:14Okay, that's right.
08:15Okay.
08:15But now I'm changed.
08:17You know, I've become more sensitive.
08:19I was starting to learn how to be a woman, how to be a human being.
08:22I guess I start to understand why people are nervous.
08:25But before that, I never actually thought too much about it.
08:28Wow.
08:28I just like to say it.
08:29Would you be more or less nervous doing comedy in Mandarin?
08:36I think I would be more nervous.
08:39Right.
08:39Yeah.
08:39Because a lot of the taboo.
08:41I get that.
08:42Was associated with the language you brought up.
08:45So English, I think it's somehow the second language.
08:48A lot of the psychological taboo doesn't associate with the language.
08:51So yeah, I'm more like open to say something more raunchy.
08:57It's true.
08:58Like if my kids swear in English, I'm like, hey, what are you doing?
09:00If they swear in another language, I'm like, yeah, that's all right.
09:03Yeah.
09:04It's the same.
09:09It's the same.
09:19You can see how rustic and how, you know, in a mountainous winter, this would be a really
09:24kind of warming thing to have.
09:27Yeah.
09:27All right.
09:28That'll do us.
09:30They can start cooking.
09:31I'm going to start to chop some greens just to finish it off because we're very much in
09:35the end game.
09:39Just roughly chopping some spinach, throw that in and just give that a good mix.
09:52So my bowl of tentook is starting to take shape.
10:01Do your parents speak English?
10:04No, they don't.
10:05My dad is learning though.
10:07Will you quit comedy when he can speak English?
10:12He already watched a lot of my clips.
10:15He tried to understand it.
10:16I think I understand a lot of them.
10:18He's learning that using the AI translation as well.
10:22Right.
10:23Is that because he's supportive of you?
10:25Or is he like, what's she saying about me?
10:26He just wants to know.
10:26What is she saying about me?
10:27Yeah.
10:28He wants to know what's going on.
10:29Yeah.
10:30It's interesting.
10:32But he's very supportive in the whole career.
10:35That's fantastic.
10:36Bit of chilli oil to finish that off.
10:40Some coriander on top.
10:43That's a warming dish.
10:45Vegetable tentook.
10:52You know, I like a noodle soup that I can eat just with a spoon.
10:55Mmm.
10:56Oh, it's better corn.
10:59Yum.
10:59Yeah, less wash up, less fuss.
11:01Do you guys get annoyed by the slurping sound?
11:04No, I don't.
11:05I'm a loud eater.
11:08I think it's a compliment.
11:10Mm-hmm.
11:11Well, here it is just fine.
11:12Mm-hmm.
11:13I really like this.
11:14Her and Jen will start their veggie dinners after the break.
11:27Welcome back to The Cook-Up.
11:28Tonight, comedian He Huang and chef Jen Kwok Lee are making recipes that will have you shouting,
11:33winner, winner, veggie dinner.
11:35Jen, what's your dish?
11:36I'm making Lo Hanzai, which is also called Buddha's Delight.
11:40Fantastic.
11:41And, Her, what are you making?
11:42I'm making green dao, Northern Indian style.
11:44Amazing.
11:53He, I love dao.
11:55Me too.
11:56Yes.
11:57I'm assuming so, because that's what you're making, right?
11:59It is so good.
12:00It's such a comfort food.
12:02Yeah.
12:03And it's clean protein as well.
12:05So whenever you feel down, it's hot soup as well.
12:08So it's really-
12:10Yeah, I call it soup in China.
12:12But they don't call it, they call it, it's a dish.
12:15Yeah.
12:15It's a dao.
12:16It's a dao.
12:18Dao, like in Hindi, just means lentil, right?
12:20Yes, which is awesome.
12:22So you've got your mung dao, your mung beans simmering, soaked simmering over there.
12:30What are we doing?
12:31What's this part?
12:32This part is, I call it get rid of the evil spirit.
12:36It just basically put curry leaves in it until it's like not making sound.
12:41And then you put like cumin seeds in it.
12:44Okay.
12:44Yeah.
12:45So this is the tempering or the tadka that is going to add all the flavor to the dal.
12:53Yes.
12:53It's the most important part in my opinion.
12:55Yes.
12:56I think it's, before I learned how to make Indian food, I was just always curious about
13:01all the things, the pasties thing.
13:03Yeah.
13:03And then I realized it's actually a lot of similar to Sichuan cooking, because they use
13:07so much spice and then they blend it together.
13:10So you couldn't tell what's going on.
13:11But it's actually very, very spice heavy food.
13:14Yes.
13:14So I started to learn how to appreciate it more.
13:17And the thing is, I really think that the techniques, I mean, it seems and it looks very,
13:25very different, Indian cooking and Chinese cooking.
13:27But to me, the tempering process, the tadka process is the same as achieving like wok hei.
13:35When you're doing wok cooking, you want to get the same release of flavors.
13:40I mean, the spice is sometimes the same, something mostly different.
13:43It's just that process of releasing flavor of aromatics that you get in wok cooking through,
13:49you know, putting things into a hot wok, but you get it through this process in Indian cooking,
13:55the tadka process.
13:56Yes.
13:57I don't know.
13:58Actually, I don't know the term for it, but I just feel like whenever I smell this, it's
14:02so comforting.
14:02Yeah.
14:03The aromatics about it.
14:04That's the most important part.
14:06I can talk about it like a nerd, but if you're like, oh yeah, the smell of this makes
14:10me feel comforted.
14:11That to me says that it's similar processes, I guess.
14:15Yeah.
14:16To the Chinese hand cooking.
14:17And that smells wonderful.
14:19Yeah.
14:19So these spices, are they going into this or are they going into something else?
14:24They're going into this.
14:25Okay.
14:25They have turmeric, we have the chili powder.
14:31Yes.
14:31And then Garmin Masala, I think.
14:34Garmin Masala, yes.
14:35And that's coriander.
14:36And coriander.
14:36Yes.
14:37And it's all adding to the flavor of the wonder of the Great Green Doll.
14:41The wonder of the Great Green Doll.
14:43When you eat, you become Buddha itself, I guess.
14:47And start enlightenment and think about what's the meaning of life and stuff like that.
14:51Speaking of becoming Buddha, I'm going to see what is delighting Buddha over there.
14:55Yeah.
14:58Jan.
14:59Yes.
15:00Buddha's Delight.
15:03Yep.
15:04Tell me about this dish.
15:06It's something that will delight a Buddha, I think.
15:09It's completely vegan.
15:10You get a lot of flavor from this beautiful fermented paste called nanru, or red fermented
15:19bean curd, which is essentially just red yeast rice fermented with soy curd.
15:24There's like super deep, like savory flavor from it.
15:28Really, really meaty as well without having...
15:30It's a really fantastic, like, Hokkien, Fujianese ingredient.
15:35People think it's all a bit weird, but then they love char siu, and this is one of like
15:38the main marinade ingredients for like Chinese char siu.
15:42Yeah, exactly.
15:42And also when, you know, when you're trying to do something quick, like, that is such a
15:47perfect hack just to introduce so much complexity into your dish.
15:50So now I'm just frying off these really, really nice snow peas and ginger.
15:55And you blanched a whole bunch of vegetables over there.
15:57Yeah, so blanch the whole vegetables.
15:58The beauty about this dish is that, you know, you don't have to worry about the doneness
16:02of the vegetables anymore.
16:04You know, and sometimes it is better to blanch them at the start so they all cook at the same
16:09time.
16:10You know, I never knew this dish was called Buddha's Delight until, I'm going to say, well into adulthood.
16:18And then when I, when I, when I, I was like, oh, this, this sounds like some weird name that
16:23they've given to a Chinese dish.
16:25But then I read the ingredients and I read the recipe for this.
16:29And I was like, oh, we ate this like once a week when I was growing up.
16:33Like so, so, so frequently.
16:36Yeah, exactly.
16:37I also, my grandma used to make this.
16:39We used to go sort of essentially vegan for a week during spraying season.
16:45Right.
16:45You know, like we would cook a big feast for, you know, just to honor the ancestors.
16:52And this was one of her favorite dish to cook.
16:55And we set up a big table full of, you know, this, like other sort of vegan sort of fried
17:00noodles.
17:01Mmm.
17:02And yeah, it was, it was a good crowd Caesar as well.
17:04Everyone could eat it.
17:05Fantastic.
17:06So the process, all of that's getting tossed together with the things that you're frying
17:10or the vegetables, you've got some dried bean curd here as well.
17:14Yeah.
17:14So that's, that's just a bean curd skin.
17:17So we're just going to, it's a good way to introduce a bit of protein in your diet, but
17:21also really, really nice texture.
17:23We'll kind of transfer this into this beautiful clay pot.
17:27Oh, very cool.
17:30And it's pretty much all your leg work done.
17:33You just got to, you know, put a little water, adjust the seasoning and let it simmer.
17:39And that's pretty much it.
17:39It looks surprisingly straightforward.
17:41I have to say, you know, I can see why, like you see your grandmother made this.
17:46My grandmother made this literally every week.
17:49Like, yeah, it's really nostalgic for me to see it.
17:53Very cool.
17:54Yeah.
17:54These are some soaked mung beans as well.
17:57Just a bit of nice texture.
17:59Yeah.
17:59The vermicelli.
18:00Is it the same mung bean that's in the dal over there?
18:05I think it is.
18:05I think so.
18:06Yeah.
18:06I think it's actually the same legume.
18:08Yeah.
18:09It's just blanched and steamed into these noodles.
18:13All right.
18:14So the spices, the tomato all have gone into your flavorful mix.
18:21Yeah.
18:22It looks so good.
18:23I was talking about the similarities and, you know, Jen over there is using the mung bean
18:27vermicelli.
18:29And I know that it's called mung bean and the mung da is also like mung bean.
18:33But in my mind, they're just not even the same thing.
18:36But they're the same legume.
18:39Right?
18:40They are.
18:41I mean, I get confused.
18:42So you probably know more.
18:44I just feel they're the same.
18:45Yeah.
18:46I think they're the same too.
18:47Yeah.
18:47But definitely people have different name for it.
18:50One thing I really like about your comedy is that it's not self deprecating.
18:55I think you see a lot of comedians, particularly Asian comedians, that kind of immediately go
19:01for self deprecating comedy in some ways.
19:04And yours is not that.
19:06It's really kind of, it's bleak.
19:07It's really bleak.
19:08Yeah.
19:09It's dark.
19:09It's very bleak.
19:11But it's funny and it's confident, you know.
19:13That's what I really like about it.
19:14It's my take.
19:15I was actually thinking about this.
19:17You say like a reflection comedy on food wise.
19:21I feel like my comedy, it's not absolutely self deprecating.
19:25It's just me hating on the world.
19:28Yes.
19:28Which is fine.
19:29Right.
19:31Hey Jen.
19:32Oh, that looks great.
19:34Yeah.
19:34It's coming out really nicely.
19:36Where is this dish from?
19:38To be honest with you, Adam, I've known it.
19:41Me neither.
19:41I just grew up eating it.
19:43Right.
19:43You know, it's such a familiar flavour.
19:46So here's my thing.
19:47Like the name that you called it is, you were saying that in Cantonese.
19:53Was it?
19:53Mandarin.
19:55Oh, okay.
19:55Yeah.
19:56Oh, okay.
19:56Yeah.
19:57So to me, it uses a lot of like Fujian type ingredients, but I also don't know of like,
20:08is it the Hokkien diaspora in Southeast Asia that have made this dish or is it?
20:14Yeah, I think so.
20:15I mean, we have a lot of, you know, it's just a mixture of these diasporas in just even
20:20within Malaysian, you know, I'm half Hananese, half Teochew.
20:24Yes.
20:24And that's already the crossover there.
20:26I'm guessing you probably grew up pretty similarly to me in the sense that, particularly when
20:31you're talking about food, like the sentence can, you can start in like Haka and then finish
20:36the sentence in Cantonese and then start another sentence in Teochew.
20:39Yeah, you can't really do that here.
20:41I saw some Mandarin words in the end there and it's just, when you're talking about food,
20:45it's normal because it's all blended together.
20:47Mmm.
20:48The aroma of these dishes, honestly, it's taking me right back to my own childhood.
20:50I can't wait to taste these veggie dinners when we return and ready your air fryers because
20:55I've got some unexpected veg to fry.
21:07Welcome back to a night of winning veggie dinners on the cook-up.
21:10He Hwang and Jen Kwok Lee are finishing their dishes.
21:13Jen, are we nearly ready?
21:14I'm almost done.
21:15Lovely.
21:16And He, this looks wonderful.
21:18Yeah, I hope so.
21:19It looks yummy to me.
21:22It's my emotional support food.
21:25Emotional support dal.
21:27Yes.
21:27I like it.
21:28I need it on the airplane.
21:30That looks beautiful.
21:32Oh, thank you.
21:33Alright, Jen.
21:36That looks like a taste of home.
21:38I hope you're hungry.
21:40It's, you know, I can smell the aroma of it and it is so nostalgic for me.
21:45Thank you for making it.
21:46Lo Hongzai and green dal.
21:58This dal looks amazing.
22:01Mmm.
22:02How does it taste?
22:04Tastes so good.
22:05Mmm.
22:05So comforting, right?
22:06Mmm.
22:06I think the way that you cooked out the onion and the tomato gives it a real sweetness.
22:12Mmm.
22:12That's so nice.
22:14Mmm.
22:14I love it.
22:16Alright, Jen.
22:17A little bit of truth.
22:18Mmm.
22:19Mmm.
22:20That's delicious.
22:22Mmm.
22:22Mmm.
22:23It's a sesame oil.
22:25That's absolutely delicious.
22:26In the same way as in the dal, you do get the sweetness of all the different vegetables
22:30as they cook and release some of their sugars.
22:34But then you also get all the different textures.
22:36Like the bean curd skin has a really kind of almost meaty, chewy texture.
22:41The mushrooms have a really chewy texture to them.
22:45That's delicious.
22:46Heel, what do you think?
22:47I love that.
22:48Mmm.
22:49I love bean curd.
22:50Potato bean curd.
22:51Yeah.
22:52I love them.
22:54Well, potato and bean curd, one very popular in Australia, the other one not so much.
23:00But I just think people should cook vegetables more.
23:04So I'm just going to show you a way that you can do that.
23:08And what essentially it amounts to is just putting a bunch of vegetables into an air fryer.
23:14But the thing with vegetables and the thing that makes them really, really good for cooking
23:19is you can't really, in my opinion, overcook them.
23:27With meat, there's a point where you cook all the moisture out of the meat
23:30and it's not going to be any good and it's not going to taste very good.
23:34With vegetables, or it's going to be burnt on the outside and it's going to be very unpleasant.
23:38With vegetables, to me, yeah, the texture will change,
23:42but you're always going to have something that's pretty good no matter how kind of cooked you get.
23:48But these, I've just thrown a bunch of vegetables into an air fryer and just let it go.
23:55And you can see they're brown, they're caramelised.
23:57The more these are cooked, they haven't overcooked in my opinion, they're just cooked more.
24:01So the caramelisation then brings out the sweetness of, you know,
24:04if kids don't like broccoli or cauliflower or onion, the sweetness of that comes out with this roasting.
24:10So then, all we do is knock it back.
24:12A bit of sherry vinegar or some lemon if you wanted, some herbs if you wanted to do that.
24:17Some olive oil and salt is always going to be a good idea.
24:23Air fryer is such an underrated equipment in the home kitchen, I think.
24:27You're the young chef of the year.
24:28Are you comfortable saying that?
24:29Yeah.
24:30I used to despise it and then I started using it three years ago.
24:34Yeah.
24:35Because it was a house gift and I was...
24:37They're very, very useful.
24:38Yeah, I can't do it.
24:39They're really, really useful actually.
24:40It's great.
24:41Like, if you've got a great meal happening over there and you're like,
24:43oh, I just want a vegetable dish to go with that or I want to make some garlic bread or
24:46something,
24:47just having that one separate thing that you can do,
24:50and even if it's as simple as just roasting some veggies,
24:52putting some vinegar, oil and some feta on it,
24:55it's just a simple way to have an extra dish on the table.
24:58Healthy.
24:59That's fantastic.
24:59Yeah.
25:00Super healthy.
25:01Well, Jen, thank you so much for joining me.
25:03In terms of vegetables, I think we have absolutely knocked it out of the park.
25:07I think we did pretty well.
25:08100%.
25:09After three excellent veggie dinners, it is time to update that catchphrase
25:13from winner, winner, veggie dinner to winner, winner, winner, veggie dinner, dinner.
25:17If you want more of The Cook Up and more delicious food ideas, head to SBS On Demand.
25:20I'm Adam Liao.
25:21Thanks for watching The Cook Up.
25:39The Cook Up.
25:40Thanks, guys.
25:40Thanks, guys.
25:41Thanks, guys.
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