00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Egg Fu Young for One.
00:08That's right, I'm going to show you how to make this big, beautiful, nutritious plate of food
00:12with little more than a couple eggs and a handful of veggies.
00:16And for me, this fast-easy recipe is one of the greatest Chinese-American comfort foods of all time.
00:21And to get started, we're going to make a super fast and easy gravy to serve over the top.
00:26And that'll start with a little bit of chicken broth, to which we will add some oyster sauce.
00:32And try to use a real one that actually has oysters in the ingredients.
00:36We will also want a little splash of soy sauce, a little bit of rice vinegar, as well as just
00:42a touch of sugar.
00:43And some recipes call for way more than that, but I don't like mine too sweet.
00:48And what we'll do is give that a quick mix.
00:50And then we'll take a little bit of cornstarch, and we will stir in some cold fresh water
00:55to form what we call in the business a slurry, which, as you'll see, we'll use to thicken our gravy
01:00up in a few moments.
01:02And this is a relatively small amount, since I don't want it too thick.
01:06Right, if you add too much, you're going to end up with something that looks like Jell-O.
01:10And I don't want Jell-O.
01:11I mean, we're making egg food young, not egg food old.
01:15But anyway, what we'll do is bring our sauce up to a boil.
01:18And just as soon as it starts bubbling like this, we'll reduce our heat to low, and pour in our
01:23slurry, and whisk it in.
01:25And the great thing about a cornstarch thickened sauce is that everything happens very quickly.
01:30Right, pretty much as soon as that's stirred in, our sauce is going to thicken slightly.
01:35And it's going to become nice and shiny.
01:37And once that happens, we'll grab a ladle, and we'll keep that over the heat for just another minute or
01:42so.
01:43And this super fast and very simple sauce is going to be absolutely perfect over our egg food young.
01:49And what we'll do is just keep that warm on the back of the stove, while we move on to
01:53prep a few veggies.
01:54And I'll be using some bean sprouts, along with a little bit of finely sliced cabbage.
02:00Okay, you can put anything in this, but I almost always use those two things,
02:05since it provides a great texture and a little bit of sweetness.
02:08And then along with those two things, I'm going to add a couple tablespoons of freshly sliced green onion.
02:13And what we'll do is use the whiter, lighter parts for the egg.
02:17And then we'll save those green tops to garnish with later if we want.
02:21And then I also think a little bit of carrot's very nice in this.
02:24And the easiest and fastest way to do it is with a peeler.
02:27And we'll go ahead and peel a tablespoon or two.
02:30And of course, when the carrot gets too skinny to peel, we will stop and have a chef's snack before
02:36we finish up with some optional sliced ham or, in my case, Canadian bacon.
02:41And this really is fantastic if you use only vegetables.
02:44But for obvious reasons, the ham works perfectly in this.
02:48And yes, you always want to test a small piece to make sure it's good.
02:52And that's it.
02:53After just a couple minutes of prep, we can move on to mix up our eggs,
02:56which starts first by adding a little bit of cornstarch into the bowl, along with a little bit of cold,
03:01fresh water again.
03:02Plus, we can also add some soy sauce at this point.
03:05And we'll give that a quick mix.
03:07And in the sauce, we used a slurry to thicken it.
03:09But here, we're adding it as a little bit of a binder.
03:12But also, and more importantly, it's going to help crisp up the edges of our egg foo young when we
03:16pan fry it.
03:17And once that's mixed, we'll dump in two large eggs.
03:21And then we'll season this up with a pinch of salt, some ground white pepper, which is traditional.
03:26But black pepper is fine.
03:28We'll also do a few shakes of cayenne, followed by a little bit of garlic powder.
03:33And then we'll finish up with a little bit of sesame oil before we add in our veggie mixture.
03:39At which point, we'll take a fork and give this a good mix.
03:42And I know it might look like we have too many veggies, but that's okay.
03:47Right, to me, this is almost more of a vegetable dish than an egg dish.
03:50With just enough egg to keep everything together.
03:53And that's it.
03:54Once mixed, we'll head to the stove, where we have three or four tablespoons of vegetable oil
03:59that we've gotten nice and hot over medium-high heat.
04:02And what we'll do is divide this mixture into three piles in the pan.
04:06And when I say divide the mixture, I'm really talking about the vegetables and ham.
04:09Okay, the eggs are going to do what the eggs are going to do, which is going to run in
04:14between
04:14the piles.
04:15But that's exactly what we want to happen.
04:18Because once we've transferred everything in, we'll take a spatula and we will cut in
04:22between the three portions.
04:24And then we'll sort of fold and flop that egg over the top.
04:27And just folding from the bottom up over the top usually works pretty good.
04:31But we can also simply just cut off pieces and place them on top.
04:35Okay, it really doesn't matter, as long as somehow, someway, we end up with three sort
04:40of round, relatively even portions.
04:42And while we're doing this, which is going to take about a minute or so, that bottom side
04:47should be getting nice and golden brown.
04:49And we'll go ahead and flip these over, doing a little fine-tuning first if we want.
04:54But please, unlike me, don't fuss too much.
04:57Okay, in a restaurant, these portions would be deep fried.
05:00And they're generally not even close to being in nice uniform shapes.
05:04But anyway, we'll let that second side cook for a few minutes.
05:08And if you want, you can keep these nice and light and golden brown.
05:11But not me.
05:12I like these deeply browned and closer to what you'd get if you did deep fry them.
05:17And if a few of those onions on the surface happen to char a little bit, that bothers me
05:21not at all.
05:23Okay, I just think this is a better way to go.
05:25And you're going to get even crispier edges.
05:28So that is looking just about perfect to me.
05:31And after turning, I'm going to let that first side cook for another few seconds, just to
05:36brown up a little more.
05:37And basically, once they spring back to the touch, and they're as brown as you want, we're
05:42ready to serve, which I'm going to do next to some sesame rice.
05:46And once those gorgeous patties have been plated up, we will apply our hopefully still warm
05:51sauce, which if it's not still warm, you can heat up.
05:54And after ladling over a very generous amount of that, we'll finish up with some freshly
05:59sliced green onion tops, which we cut at an angle.
06:03Because as you know, people love pointy food.
06:06And that's it.
06:07Our egg foo young is ready to egg foo enjoy, which I'm going to do with a fork.
06:12Okay, if you ever want to really frustrate yourself, make this when you're really hungry, and then
06:17try to eat it with chopsticks.
06:19All right, some people can do it.
06:20I can't.
06:21And that, my friends, really is incredible.
06:24All right, what we have here is a crusty outside with crispy edges, and then an inside that's
06:29moist, light, and tender.
06:31And while this would still be pretty good served as is, that quick and easy gravy we made really
06:36does elevate the experience.
06:38And by the way, the amounts are going to make a fairly generous amount of sauce, which you
06:42can use over the rice in this meal, or save it and use it on rice for another meal.
06:47But anyway, the point is, the few extra minutes it takes to make the gravy is totally worth it.
06:52And it really gives our egg foo young a beautiful shine.
06:56And as I mentioned earlier, you can use anything in this.
06:59So as usual, I encourage you to experiment.
07:03I mean, you are after all the Tim Gunn of your egg foo young for one.
07:07And if something's fashionable to put in an omelet, it will work here.
07:11Right, things like mushrooms or peppers come to mind.
07:14And if you're wondering about cheese, I've never tried it.
07:17But if you happen to do egg foo young for one, au fromage, I would love it if you leave
07:22a comment and let us know how it came out.
07:24But whether you customize yours or not, this is retro Chinese American comfort food at its
07:30finest.
07:30And I really do hope you give it a try soon.
07:33So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much
07:39more info as usual.
07:41And as always, enjoy.
07:44And as always, enjoy.
08:00You
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