Today, I want to share
3 of our quickest and easiest recipes,
perfect for lazy days
or when you just don’t have time.
Each of these dishes have limited ingredients
and take less than 15 minutes to make.
So let’s get started with a two-ingredient favorite of mine,
Cantonese scrambled eggs & shrimp.
Of course, we've got shrimp for this dish.
About 5 oz of shrimp.
Peel the shrimp first.
This is 31/35.
Rather large.
In the US, shrimp are sold by the amount in a pound,
so 31/35 means that there are 31 to 35 shrimp in a pound,
which is considered large.
So bigger numbers would mean smaller shrimp
if that’s what you prefer.
"What if you use frozen shrimp?"
I used frozen shrimp!
Still great!
You could also buy the pre-peeled ones.
It's the same.
But if you do have shell-on shrimp like us,
here’s a quick lesson on how to peel them quickly.
Peel it at the third section.
Peel it here.
Here on the back.
Just hook under, and it comes off.
That's so fast!
That's it! It's easy.
These are too big for cooking with eggs.
So we're going to split them.
Each one into halves.
Open them up by the middle.
See?
If your shrimp is too large like ours,
we’ll turn our knife horizontally to halve them.
Does Daddy like to have a particular size shrimp for this dish?
You don't need large shrimp for stir-fries.
The shrimp today was too big.
That's why I halved them.
If they're small to start with, no need to cut them.
If you want smaller shrimp,
buy 40/50.
For this recipe, you can use any kind of shrimp or prawn
but as with many types of seafood,
especially popular ones like shrimp,
finding ones that are sustainably farmed or caught
is often a confusing and complex undertaking.
As consumers, one way to do our part
is by voting with our wallets.
Monterey Bay Aquarium in California runs
a free website called “Seafood Watch”
which has a ton of recommendations
on how to choose and purchase seafood
in ways that have the least environmental impact.
Now that we've halved the shrimp,
let's wash them with water.
Wash the vein out while we're at it.
You don’t have to devein your shrimp,
but if you prefer to,
you can do it while washing them
like my dad does here.
Or you can also buy already peeled and deveined shrimp.
And they're all clean now!
Pour the water out.
Press out the excess water.
Do you have to press it?
It'll be drier if you press it.
We're also going to dry it with a paper towel.
We have to get it dry.
Why?
You have to dry it so there won't be too much water when you cook it.
Let the towel soak up the moisture.
Now, we’ll use some paper towels to dry the shrimp.
Press it a bit to dry it out.
We’ll roll it up in the paper towels
and compress it so that all the moisture can be absorbed.
It's dry now, see?
Once they're dry, put them here.
Quite dry now.
Next, we'll add a little salt.
About 1/2 a tsp.
Give it some flavor.
Mix it up.
Add some white pepper.
Get rid of any fishiness.
1/2 a tsp is enough.
Then, a little cornstarch.
Quick mix.
Then, the shrimp will cook up crisp and tender..
We’ll add a tsp of cornstarch here.
Did you add and mix each individual thing on purpose?
Yes.
Why?
Cornstarch last.
The salt and the white pepper powder go in first,
and the cornstarch is last to coat.
That way it's dry.
Then, when you stir-fry it, the shrimp comes out crisp, tender.
A great bite to it.
"How do you cook the shrimp
and not release too much liquid
before the eggs?"
Press them dry, and then dry with paper towels.
Dry them.
Also, did you see that I mixed it with cornstarch?
I added salt, which makes the shrimp release water,
but mixing in cornstarch afterwards,
it soaks up that moisture.
Now with our shrimp prepared,
we’ll wash our knife and switch out our cutting board
for the next ingredient, the green onions.
Let's cut the green onions.
We don't need a lot of green onions.
Just a little.
Stir-fried eggs don't need a lot of ingredients.
Now, eggs.
5 eggs.
Get some oil.
Mix it into the eggs.
Then when you cook the eggs, they'll be so much silkier.
About 1 tsp.
1/2 a tsp of salt.
Not too salty.
Add a little sugar, 1/2 tsp.
When you beat the eggs, this will make them fluffy and loose.
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.
The ingredients are all prepared.
Let's beat the eggs now.
You can use a fork or whatever you like.
Beat it well.
Lots of people had this question, including Nancy from Patreon,
"How do you make the eggs light and fluffy?"
When you beat the eggs, add some oil.
And some sugar.
That's not for sweetness?
No, it's to make them fluffy.
And really beat the eggs, until you see bubbles.
Don't beat them in advance,
beat them when you're ready to cook.
All right, next,
add the chopped green onions.
Add the chopped green onions and mix them in.
With our three ingredients ready,
my dad will show us how to stir-fry it all together.
Highest heat.
Heat the wok, you'll see it change color.
It's smoking from the bottom.
That means the wok is hot enough.
It's hot enough, add the oil in.
After about 1 minute with the heat on high,
we’ll add our oil.
About 1 tbsp of oil.
Add the shrimp.
Cook the shrimp.
We’ll stir fry the shrimp for about 30 seconds on high,
stirring constantly,
until the color changes almost entirely to orange.
Shrimp cooks very quickly.
"Can you do this without shrimp?"
Sure, you can do it without shrimp.
Then it's stir-fried eggs.
What's important is that the eggs turn out silky.
Add whatever you like.
Shrimp, chicken, and beef all work.
It's cooked, turn off the heat.
Turn the heat off first.
The shrimp looks amazing.
Scoop them out into the eggs.
"How do you get the right shrimp firmness?"
Stir-fry the shrimp first, like I did,
until they're 80-90% cooked,
not all the way cooked.
Stir-fry with more oil.
Season with a bit of salt,
mix in a little cornstarch.
And now we’re ready to cook the egg along with everything else.
There's still oil in here.
We'll add a bit more oil, about 1 tbsp.
Stir-fried eggs need a lot of oil.
High heat.
A bunch of other creators have talked about scrambled eggs
and differences in their consistency and how to make them.
The major difference in Cantonese style scrambled eggs
is that we cook them over high heat.
So let’s see how my dad does it
without overcooking or drying out the eggs.
The wok is hot now.
Pour the eggs in.
Immediately, the bottom of the egg will cook,
but after about 10 seconds,
we’ll start to move it around.
Be patient as you stir-fry it.
We’ll use our spatula to pick up the bottom cooked part of the egg
and put it on top.
As the uncooked egg fills up the bottom
and quickly cooks,
we’ll repeat the process,
stacking the layers on top.
Stir-fry it layer by layer.
After 30 seconds, we’ll turn the heat off.
Turn off the heat.
Turn off the heat, and keep cooking.
If the heat is too high,
the eggs will get tough.
We’ll continue the layering process
with the residual heat of the wok
until the eggs are cooked to your liking.
Isn't it silky?
We're going to turn the heat back on.
High heat?
Yes, high heat.
Give it a flip.
My dad still thought the eggs were too wet here,
so he turned on the heat for 10 more seconds
to cook them a bit more,
but this is all up to your preference.
The point is to have a variety of textures in the dish,
from the chewier outside
to the silky smooth and tender inside.
All right, time to plate it.
Cheers! Stir-fried Shrimp and Eggs!
Stir-fried Shrimp and Eggs is complete!
I hope you all enjoy it!
Next, we’ll be making Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce,
a delicious veggie dish
that is truly the easiest thing to make.
Also known as gaai laan in Cantonese,
this is a super easy recipe that I ate almost
every single week growing up.
Even for a “simple” dinner, my dad would have
at least 3 or 4 courses, and gailan was always
in the rotation as his go-to vegetable dish.
He’s cooked gaai laan literally over 100,000 times
over his 50 years as a chef.
I hope all of our friends are well!
Today, I’ll be teaching you how to make
beautiful Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce.
It’s really easy!
First, let’s set our wok down, and add water and oil.
If you wanted to save time and have a water kettle,
you can start boiling water.
For 1 lb of gai lan, we’ll need to bring about 6-7 cups of water to a boil.
Set the stove to high heat and start heating the wok as well.
Here we go.
Woo!
For the water, it’s okay if we have more water than we need.
The more water, the faster the gai lan will cook.
We don’t want the vegetables to be
sitting in the boiling water for too long
See how much gai lan you have.
If you have more, then add more water.
Here, we have 1 lb of Chinese broccoli.
We’ll use about 6-7 cups of water.
Next, well add 1 tbsp olive oil.
We'll add 1 tsp of salt.
Now we've added the salt and oil.
For the Chinese broccoli, we definitely have to wash it first, right?
Then we can start cooking it.
If the gai lan has a thicker stalk,
we can cut it down the middle of the stem.
Then it will cook faster.
There are some pieces that are thicker, some thinner.
This helps make sure that they cook evenly all at the same time.
It's really easy.
Now, we'll place the gai lan in the wok.
Once we place it in the wok, we'll cover it.
We can add more water to the wok
to make sure the vegetables are submerged.
This will help the vegetables cook faster as well.
Submerge them in water.
We're at the highest heat on our stove.
Cover the wok.
Once it's boiling, if you like it crunchier,
you can stop cooking after 2-3 minutes.
If you prefer it softer, continue cooking for another 1-2 minutes.
It's up to you - this is very simple.
For the 2-3 minutes, do you start timing when it starts boiling?
Only start timing once the water starts boiling.
This way, when the gai lan are done cooking,
the vegetables will be very fresh, very green, and very crunchy.
The way restaurants get their gai lan so green and bright
is that they add oil and salt first.
They also use bigger woks with more water
so it cooks much faster.
It doesn’t have to sit in the boiling water as long
and it retains more nutrition, understand?
If you cook it for longer, more chlorophyll will leak out into the water.
So that's why we use more water, so it cooks faster.
If you start cooking with cold water, is it not as ideal?
If you start the Chinese broccoli in cold water,
it won't taste good.
By the time they're done, they'll have turned yellow.
The water has to be boiling before you add the vegetables.
At a restaurant, the vegetables would already be ready.
The woks are much bigger, with more water.
See, it's starting to boil.
We'll flip it over.
See, the vegetables are green.
We'll just cook them for a bit and they should be ready.
These small ones are already fully cooked.
We'll need to cook the bigger ones for longer.
It shouldn't take long.
The gai lan should be cooked enough now.
You can see if it's ready by breaking a piece off and trying it.
That's good, just perfect.
It's very crunchy and sweet.
If you want it to be softer, then you can cook it 1-2 minutes longer.
Great, let's transfer this to a plate.
Great, our Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce has finished cooking.
Using scissors, we'll cut the stems twice, maybe 3 times.
That way, it's easier to eat, right? Watch.
Let's cut it.
There, beautiful right?
Usually, restaurants will cook it in oil again before serving.
At home, we don’t have to do this.
We’ll just add 1 tbsp olive oil.
We don’t have to add a lot, since we already boiled it with some oil.
We’ll also use 1 tbsp of oyster sauce.
Let’s add a little bit more.
If you like it more savory, then you can add more.
Great, now we're done with our gailan with oyster sauce
If you have dietary restrictions, vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce
is a great alternative to the standard oyster sauce,
which is made with oyster extract.
There’s also a brand called Wok Mei
that makes a gluten-free oyster sauce,
but it still contains oyster extract.
Cheers!
Oh yeah!
Yum!
So we eat this dish at least 3 times a week on average.
We never get tired of eating this!
In China, did you eat Chinese broccoli?
Of course!
It's called Chinese broccoli!
It's very popular
Did you have it in your village? Or did you have to buy it?
No, we grew bok choy.
It's easier - when you cut it, it grows back.
Before we move on to the next recipe,
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!
Now we’ll be making Egg Flower Soup,
a heart-warming classic
that’s ready in just 10-15 minutes.
The "faa" in “daan faa tong”
refers to the way the eggs beautifully blossom
into fine wisps and strands
as we slowly whisk the egg into the soup.
I hope everyone is doing well!
Today we're going to make the simple and popular
Egg Flower Soup.
It's actually very simple, you just need eggs.
Vegetables and other toppings are up to you.
First, let's chop up our green onions and carrots.
Cut the carrots into tiny cubes.
Then, we'll add 6 cups of water into the pot
and set the stove to high heat
to start boiling the water.
Let's beat the eggs first.
We're using 3 eggs.
If you'd like to use 4 eggs, that's fine too.
This serves about 4-6 people.
If you have less people, you can make less.
It's up to you.
When we mix the eggs,
here's an important tip:
add 1 tbsp of water to the bowl.
Adding a bit of water helps the eggs flower better
but don't add too much.
To be thorough, beat the eggs for about 20 seconds.
Great, now we're done with the eggs. Place it to the side.
Once our pot is boiling,
we'll add our carrots, corn, and peas into the pot.
Then, we'll start preparing our cornstarch slurry
with 3 tbsp cornstarch and 5 tbsp water.
Mix until there are no clumps of cornstarch.
Everyone, watch this.
Let's start to thicken the soup.
Keep mixing constantly as you pour in the cornstarch.
Don't pour it in all at once - pour slowly.
Keep pouring and stirring for about 30 seconds
until the soup base starts to thicken
We've thickened our soup.
Now, we'll add our egg to the soup.
When you pour the egg, don't pour it in all at once.
You have to go slowly,
constantly stirring as you pour.
Then you won’t have clumps.
Watch.
Stir as you pour.
See?
Slowly pour, slowly stir.
Wow, look how beautiful the egg flower is! See?
It really is beautiful.
Now, let's turn the heat off
to preserve the softness of the eggs.
Then we'll add 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp chicken powder,
as well as white pepper and sesame oil to taste.
Mix the flavors into the soup.
This soup is basically done!
Great!
Now, our soup is done.
Everyone, look!
The egg flower is really beautiful.
Let's pour it into the bowl.
See how pretty it is?
Okay.
A great success!
See this beautiful Egg Flower Soup?
Okay, we can all eat now!
Let's add a bit of chopped green onion.
You can add it or not, it's up to you.
Great! It's that simple.
Can you use chicken (in the Egg Flower Soup?)
Yeah, like Daddy said, you can use whatever you want
but you must flower the egg.
You can use whatever meat you want.
Shrimp works too!
Have you had this as a kid?
You think I had eggs to eat when I was a kid?
You had chickens, though.
Our chickens didn't yield that many eggs.
This dish requires 3 eggs.
We'd have to wait days for 3 eggs.
It's not like now where we eat tons of eggs.
In one month we’d be lucky to eat eggs twice.
Great. Our easy Egg Flower Soup is done.
Let's eat!
When you were little,
when Jennifer was little,
we cooked this a lot for them.
Like 3 or 4 times a week.
Oh wow!
Because we had a restaurant.
In the restaurant, it's very easy to do it.
YouTube thinks you’ll like this recipe next.
Let's see if they're right.