What's up everyone?
Today we're making Lobster Yee Mein,
a dish my dad has made thousands of times.
Hello everyone, how are you?
A lot of friends have mentioned that
there are lots of holidays at the end of the year.
After those holidays, there's also Lunar New Year.
So let's have a great time learning Lobster Yee Mein.
Happy holidays, everyone!
This morning, we bought two live lobsters from 99 Ranch in Concord.
Thank you to the manager at 99 Ranch, Danny,
for helping me buy these lobsters!
Usually, one lobster is enough for one order
but since we are eating as a big family today,
we'll make more, and everyone can enjoy!
All right, let's start with the yee mein.
These have been fried in oil.
While there are countless types of Cantonese noodles,
including chow mein and lo mein,
this dish is traditionally made with yee mein (ji min),
a noodle made from wheat flour and egg, which is then deep fried.
Because baking soda is also used in the making of the dough,
the resulting texture of the noodles is uniquely chewy and spongy,
perfect for soaking up the delicious sauce of this dish.
Before cooking the noodles, use some hot water to help loosen them up.
Turn the stove up to the highest heat.
The water's boiling.
Put just one portion of noodle in first.
Press it down with something.
Boiling the noodles will help take some of the oil off,
since these noodles are fried.
We'll do a quick boil of the noodles until they loosen,
or about 2 minutes.
Do you see all the oil floating?
Don't boil them for too long.
If you boil them too much, the noodles get mushy,
and the texture won't be as good.
What if you don't have that strainer?
If you don't have a strainer, you can use a colander.
Or you can use chopsticks.
Loosen them up.
Or you can do this.
Take a bite.
If it's not mushy, then it's good.
After boiling the noodles, put them on a plate.
Have them on a plate.
After the lobster is cooked, it just goes on top.
So it's usually one lobster to one portion of noodle?
Yes, that's the amount for one order.
Since Daddy Lau is making two portions today,
we'll do the same boiling process with this second portion of noodles.
First question: what are the best noodles to use?
Whatever you like.
Some people use chow mein, but this is the best option.
Yee mein is the best.
Yes, yee mein.
What's the difference?
They're both types of lo mein.
These are chewier, so they'll keep their bite even after lots of cooking.
Since they've been fried, they won't bloat and soften easily.
Chow mein does bloat easily.
Chow mein is not fried, it's either steamed,
or it's just fresh.
The noodles are cooked.
Let's cut the ginger and green onions.
The ginger is washed and cleaned,
so we don't need to peel it.
Cut the ginger into slices.
Separate the whites and greens of the green onion.
This is the green end.
Cut them into about an inch, or 1.5 inch.
Give the white ends a good smash.
Let out the flavor.
Is it less flavorful without the smashing?
When you smash it, it gets crushed, so the flavor comes out more.
And garlic.
Don't chop it too finely.
This is fine
Those are all the ingredients.
Ginger, green onions, and garlic.
Before we get to the lobster...
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All right.
Time for the main character to appear.
Lobster.
Lobsters are known as lung haa (龍蝦) in Cantonese,
which directly translates to "dragon prawn".
As you might know,
dragons are extremely auspicious animals in Chinese tradition
one of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac
and symbols of power, luck, and strength.
Paired with the tidings of a long life with our noodles,
you'll often find lobster yee mein served at banquets and weddings.
Interestingly enough, at times throughout American history,
lobsters were seen as a "poor-man's" food,
fed to prisoners and servants.
Nowadays, lobsters are a hot commodity in China.
Since they're not native to the South China Sea,
China literally flies millions of lobsters over
from Maine, other parts of the US, and Canada.
In restaurants in China, a red dragon could cost more than $100.
Luckily for us, we get to make this dish at home for much, much less money.
With lobsters, there is a very important step.
Before cutting the lobster up,
we have to release the urine.
Here, there's an opening.
Stick the chopstick in.
See?
That's urine?
Yes, that's lobster urine.
After releasing the urine,
the lobster will be much tastier.
There won't be a urine taste.
There's so much.
Pat it dry.
We've released the urine from these lobsters.
Let's start cutting them up.
Just as a heads up, we'll be cutting live lobsters here,
so if that's not for you, feel free to skip to a later part of our recipe.
The antennas are too long, so we'll snip them shorter with scissors.
Take the legs off.
You could use scissors,
or you could chop them with a knife.
Give it a hit.
It's very soft here, it's not hard.
Could you use a cleaver?
Sure, you could！
Lobster claws.
Give it a trim.
Trim these as well.
You don't have to trim these if you don't want to.
Do the head like this.
All right.
Keep the brain to steam with eggs, it's so tasty.
Either steamed or fried eggs.
All right, let's start cutting the lobster up.
Use scissors to cut here.
First, we'll cut down the middle of the back of the lobster
so we have a good guide for chopping later.
This is the lobster tail.
Then we'll chop off the tail.
Using the line we cut earlier, we'll align our cleaver
and chop down hard to split the two sides cleanly.
Could you kill it so it's dead first?
No, you just need to release the urine.
This is feces, you don't want that.
Break it open here.
These are gills here.
We don't want the gills, pull them out.
We're almost done with the lobster.
We'll chop the legs off both sides,
then move on to the body.
Now, let's cut the body up.
Chop it here, or you could also cut with scissors.
As you can see, the sizes we're cutting can vary,
but around 2 inches wide is a good size for each piece.
We'll put them here.
Let them drain.
For the front legs, we'll first cut them at the joints.
Give it a smack.
Then we'll smack the smaller pieces to crack the shell.
Get in there with the knife.
For the claw, we'll chop right down the middle lengthwise.
The lobster meat looks great.
I also wanted to make a special shoutout to thank all of our
wonderful Patreon supporters for helping bring this video to life.
If you enjoy our videos and are interested in supporting us directly,
head on over to patreon.com/madewithlau to learn more!
After cutting the lobster up, what's next?
Soak up some of the water, and then we'll flour it.
It'll be easy to flour them when they're set out like this.
After they're a little drier, we'll start flouring them.
Put some cornstarch here.
Put it in a bowl.
We'll start with 2 tbsp.
Dust it with a very light coat.
Later, when they fry up, they'll be fragrant and crisp.
The juices won't all come out into the oil.
Don't put too much cornstarch, just a little.
Only dust the meat, the shell doesn't need any cornstarch.
In restaurants, to speed it up, they'll just dump the cornstarch over,
shake it off, and call it a day.
At home, we can take our time and put in more effort.
Coating the lobster in cornstarch
will help lock in the lobster's juices when we cook it later.
All right, and we're set.
Before we cook the lobster, we're going to create the sauce
with 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, 1 tbsp of dark soy sauce,
1 tsp of sugar, a 1/2 tsp of salt,
1/3 tsp of white pepper, and 1 tbsp of cooking wine.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
All right, turn on the stove.
We'll heat the wok on high heat for 2.5 minutes.
Then add in 4-5 tbsp of oil
and let it heat up for 30-40 seconds
or until it starts to ripple.
Take your time.
Turn the fan on.
We'll fry the lobster pieces by sliding in each piece from the side of the wok
to avoid the oil splashing out.
Make sure to fry in batches to not overcrowd the wok.
After about only 40-50 seconds,
or when the shell turns bright red and the meat turns white,
we'll remove the lobster pieces.
As you can see, Daddy Lau is letting the excess oil drip back into the wok
while he fries the next batch of lobster.
Using a metal strainer is best for this step.
Is there a color it turns if it's overcooked?
The only thing is, when you over cook it, the meat is less tender.
It's more dry, and it's chewier.
Pour the oil into a bowl to use for stir-frying.
All right, let's start cooking the lobster.
Turn to the highest heat.
We'll add in about a tbsp of the oil we just poured out.
Garlic.
Okay, and ginger.
Bloom the ginger.
Green onion whites.
After about 50 seconds stir-frying our aromatics,
we'll put all our lobster back into the wok.
Oh my god!
After stirring for about 20 seconds,
we'll add in 1 tbsp of cooking wine.
Oh, wow!
Put 2 cups of water in.
Better if it's boiling water.
Whoo!
Is that high heat?
High heat, of course.
We'll also add the sauce we made earlier.
How do you get the lobster flavor across the whole dish?
When you cook the lobster, you have sauce inside, right?
The sauce will absorb the flavor from the lobster,
and that sauce will spread the flavor to all the noodles.
A bit more water, so 2.5 cups total.
After cooking with the sauce for 40-50 seconds,
we'll cover with a lid to bring it to a boil.
In the meantime, we'll quickly mix a slurry
of 2 tsp of cornstarch with 1 tbsp of water.
Once the water boils, or after about 30 seconds,
we'll remove the lid.
After another minute of cooking it uncovered,
we'll add the slurry to thicken the sauce,
mixing the contents as we pour.
Now, let's add the rest of the green onions.
We'll mix the scallions in and cook for 30 seconds
before we add 1 tbsp of sesame oil
and another tbsp of our cooking oil to finish.
Once this is mixed in, it'll be beautiful.
All right, heat off.
How do you avoid overcooking the lobster?
The first fry will cook them almost through, because lobsters cook very quickly.
Don't cook it for too long.
Like how I did it, put the lid on, once the water boils, it's done.
Two lobster heads here.
Twin dragons bursting from the seas!
What does that mean?
It's an auspicious thing to say. Good things come in pairs!
So, when I was looking it up online,
they don't always have noodles underneath.
Is it more common to put the noodles, or is it the more traditional way?
You can do it different ways.
Without noodles, then it's just lobster.
You can cook it the same way, it'll just have less sauce.
We'll just scoop these up.
Lobster Yee Mein is complete!
Hope everyone enjoys it!
Happy holidays, and stay healthy!
Time to eat, Hong Doy!
Yay, we did it!
Wow!
Oh, wow!
Long life, Cam!
You like it? Lobster Yee Mein!
Cheers!
When the lobster is alive, it's like a brown color.
After you cook it, it turns orange-red.
What is the symbolism there?
The red color stands for happiness and good luck
Anything that's red in color, in Chinese culture, it's a good symbol.
Also, the word dragon in Chinese,
is in a lot of lucky sayings for good health, so it's also very good.
Oh, yum! Wow!
Say thank you, Po Po!
Thank you, Po Po!
Did you have this at your wedding?
I don't even remember.
I don't think we did.
When was the first time you ate it?
Here in the US!
Oh, really?
You didn't have lobster when you were in China?
Never saw it there, it was only for really rich people.
Back then, lobster wasn't something normal people could eat.
That's right, Hong Doy, we couldn't eat it back then.
And look at us now!
Abundance!