- People normally don't eat the decoration.
(Brenda laughs hysterically)
- What's up, guys, I'm Brenda,
and, you know what, I am obsessed with Chinese culture
and especially Chinese food.
Only issue, though, is that what I thought
was authentic Chinese sweet and sour pork
is actually an interpretation
to please the masses outside of China.
That's crazy!
I can't live with interpretations.
I wanna see the real thing.
I wanna touch it, I wanna eat it!
I wanna learn how to make it at home!
That would be like life goals, right there!
So I start annoying everyone,
like, hey anyone knows about an authentic
version of sweet and sour pork?
Then this kid Alvin, he's like,
yo, I know about Tang Cu Li Ji,
it's a kind of sweet and sour pork,
so I'm like, oh, so there are many, he's like, yeah,
but go ahead and try this.
All I have to do is find a place
where I can actually eat it.
Inga, God bless this girl, she comes to the rescue,
she's like, look, I got this place called Little Pepper.
It's on the other side of the world.
I'm thinking, we're going to China.
She's like, no, we're going to Queens.
(exciting instrumental hip-hop music)
So I'm now with Alan and Inga in a car
going to College Point.
- Dude, I don't think they have trains out here.
- And this thing is one hour and a half away.
As far as I know, we're back in my country.
So we get there, Little Pepper is huge!
And then we meet Chef Huang.
(speaking foreign language)
- So Chef Huang's like, yo, I'm gonna cook
some Tang Cu Li Ji from the area of Sichuan in China,
and it's gonna be lit, it's gonna be popping,
and you're gonna love it.
And I'm like, I'm down!
(relaxing hip-hop music)
Huang takes us to the kitchen and
I'm seeing a very similar process.
There's corn starch, sugar, but
the way he cuts the meat is very different.
It's like little strips like this,
like my tiny little finger.
Not those squares that we're used to seeing
in an American sweet & sour pork.
Then he's telling us that you gotta drop
each one of those pieces into the frying oil
one at a time, so that they don't stick to each other.
One at a time.
That's a lot of patience.
He's making the sauce, but I don't see ketchup,
which is, it's a huge part of the sweet and sour pork
here in the United States.
(speaking foreign language)
He's like, so in America, the Chinese food
is very sweet, but in Sichuan cuisine,
every single dish is different.
There's so many elements, it's not just sugar.
This man is pulling some black vinegar.
There's white pepper, ginger.
(sighs)
I don't know, but this kitchen smelled so good.
So now he's putting that dish together
and I'm not seeing, though, the peppers
or sometimes the pineapple that you would
normally put in sweet & sour pork.
But instead it has these vegetables,
cucumber, beautifully decorating the plate.
It looked amazing!
So I remember Chef Huang coming our way.
We're just so excited 'cause
you know it's going to be awesome.
- Oh
- What!
(Brenda laughs) Ooh.
- Yes!
This looks amazing.
First of all, the decoration is so on freaking point.
So, let's do this.
This is nothing like what I ever had
here in the United States. - Mm-hmm.
The color is so different.
- The sauce is not as thick.
- Definitely taste the garlic, you taste the ginger,
you taste all the fresh ingredients he put in it.
- The sweet and sour part of it was so well-balanced
that you were still allowed to taste that super fresh pork.
- Chef Huang was saying that you really do
get that crisp outside and the tender meat on the inside.
It's not dry, it's really just perfect.
- This is delicious.
- Yeah, right?
- I'm so glad you brought me here, Inga.
We're about to leave and Chef Huang
comes over with a bunch of other dishes.
- [Cameraman] Brenda, how ya feeling?
- I'm so excited, I'm like, God,
is this the end of the world?
Do I deserve this, am I enough?
I don't know, guys.
(cool music)
There's a version of Tang Cu Li Ji
that actually has ketchup.
But I'm not gonna leave.
If he's offering all these beautiful dishes,
I sit down respectfully and eat like a wild beast.
Thank you so much for having us,
it was super special, and I can't wait to come back.
So now we're heading back to the office
and of course I'm gonna be sharing everything
I have with some of my friends at Buzzfeed.
- These are what my grandpa used to make.
Hey grandpa!
- [Woman] What is it called?
- Oh, oh my God!
(Brenda laughing)
- [Brenda] At this point, I'm trying not to cry in public
because I know what tasting authentic food
from your culture feels like.
It can make you relive a whole page of your life.
It's insane.
So now you know, we all cried together.
Or maybe just me by myself in a bathroom.
And now I wanna learn how to make it at home,
because I want to share that experience with my family.
Is there a tiny chance that you can show me how to make it?
- [Alvin] Oh, you want me to teach you how to make it?
- Yes, please.
- Okay, yeah, we can do it.
- Yeah?
- Yeah, of course.
- Are you serious?
- Anything for you, Brenda.
- Oh my God!
- [Alvin] Alright, so I'm gonna show you how to make
the classic sweet and sour pork, no fancy garnishes.
Just the plain old simple, how it's made in China.
I'm actually gonna use a little bit of ketchup
in the one I'm making.
A little bit does help bring all the flavors together.
You're actually using pork tenderloin here,
which is a very prized cut of meat in China.
- [Brenda] I noticed that you cut the meat
in these tiny little strips.
- [Alvin] So the whole point of cutting it into thin strips
is to be able to cook them,
but also fry them with a really nice texture.
So we're adding all the marinating ingredients,
giving it a nice toss, and letting it rest in the fridge
to really just help flavor the meat.
And now we're gonna start making the batter,
which really just involves eggs and cornstarch.
When I went to the restaurant in China,
I was finally able to sort of break down the chef
over there to give the secret for the recipe
and he was like, oh, it's just eggs and cornstarch.
and I was like, what, that's crazy!
So the goal here is to really beat the eggs
and the cornstarch until they're really, really
smooth, there's no lumps, and it's really, really
silky like this.
That really helps you get a much even coat
and a much more even fry.
Chinese takeout can be a lot of fried stuff,
a lot of sweet stuff, but really authentic
Chinese cuisine, you can see how much work goes into
the ingredient choice and how much they care
about the balance of flavors.
So after a nice toss, you're gonna get the oil ready to fry.
So we're frying these at a pretty high heat.
These meat strips are pretty thin.
So I would say around 350, 375 is your standard.
Make sure you don't overcrowd the pan,
as you can really get soggy if you have too much
in there at the same time.
And what you're looking for is a really, really, really
nice kind of a light golden brown point at this stage.
Like, damn, look at that one.
- [Brenda] That is beautiful.
- [Alvin] That's a pretty boy right there.
(Brenda laughs)
Now we're gonna make the sauce.
So the sauce consists of garlic,
and really just a lot of liquids, and spices, and seasonings
that we use in Asian culture, such as sesame oil,
or a little bit of ketchup, or some soy sauce.
To make this sauce thick, you actually have to
add what we call a cornstarch slurry,
which is very common in stir fries,
which is just a little bit of cornstarch
mixed with a little bit of water to help
really thicken up the sauce to give it that
signature shine.
That's a beauty right there.
- [Brenda] Look at that color, that's beautiful.
- [Alvin] This dish actually means
quite a lot to me because every time I would
go back to China to visit my grandpa,
he would always take me to this restaurant
and we would order a bunch of fancy things,
but somehow his favorite dish on the entire menu,
out of all the elegantly prepared and plated dishes,
was the Tang Cu Li Ji.
He was like, oh, it's so crispy, it's so juicy,
it tastes so good, oh, eat it, eat it, try it, try it!
And I was like, this is pretty good.
So the more he said it, the more I began to like it.
- [Brenda] I think some of the biggest things
I learned from this journey was that
Tang Cu Li Ji, it's insanely delicious,
and that there's really cool people out there
like Chef Huang, Inga, and Alvin, who will do anything
to make sure that you experience their culture
because it means so much to them.