Food Safari

There's an intensity to an Asian kitchen

that makes your heart beat faster.

The roar of the wok burners, the cleavers working overtime,

billowing clouds of steam and the fire section -

sometimes inside the restaurant, often outside.

This is where special dishes really come alive.

Welcome to Food Safari Fire,

and the intricate world of Asian charcoal and flame.

Do you want to fan it, Mum?

In this episode, a Vietnamese mother and son

fire up the barbecue to cook a Hanoi favourite...

Yum.

..the secrets of Korean tabletop cooking,

sizzling skewers from Xinjiang,

Japanese fish cooked over binchotan,

and sensational Thai grilled chicken.

There's nothing better than a mother and son team in the kitchen.

I taught him the taste.

Taste. Yeah.

Palate. Most important. The palate, yeah.

Angie and Dan Hong don't cook together professionally.

She's the dynamo who simultaneously ran

three beloved Vietnamese restaurants before retiring.

Going to table five.

He's a the high-profile chef in the Merivale restaurant empire,

including the hugely popular Mr. Wong.

When I'm at my mum's house, I'm usually just the soldier.

I just sort of... She tells me what to do and I prep it.

So you're happy to be the assistant?

I'm happy to be the assistant.

So tell me what we're cooking today.

We are cooking bun cha,

which is a kind of a street food in the northern part of Vietnam.

Here is the pork belly.

Mm.

And then this is the pork neck, which I just cut in half.

And this is also pork neck.

You get the butcher to mince it for us.

Is this how thin you want it? Like...?

Um... No, a little bit thinner, please, Dan.

OK. Yep.

While Dan is slicing the pork I'm going to pound some shallots,

which I'll put in here,

and I will add just one teaspoon of salt,

just to help it with...

Mm.

For every teaspoon of salt, you add two teaspoons of sugar.

Just a pinch of...

Yep. ..Five-spice powder there.

And then we do fish sauce.

How much fish sauce?

Probably about this - tablespoon.

So this is oyster sauce.

So I put in one, and then I probably put a teaspoon...

Kecap manis?

Yeah, kecap manis, that's it. That's the word.

You divide in two.

Black pepper.

Some green onion, and then just mix it and we can...

OK.

The one dish I definitely remember in Hanoi was eating bun cha.

You could smell the grilling meat on the street as you walked past.

Yeah! It was awesome.

Like keftedes, only different.

No, I think it's mainly to get it cooked quickly.

And then we're nearly ready to grill them.

So we just do one lot with the minced pork and the other lot...

Ah, with the belly. Yeah, with the belly.

This a Vietnamese style... Got the nice hot coals on.

Just on top. You want to fan it, Mum?

You can hear the sizzling sound.

You can hear that. Mmm!

The sound, that smell, the smoke

and the fat dripping into the wood or the charcoal,

it just creates this magical flavour.

Even as chefs now, we're going back...

..most chefs are going back to cooking with either wood or charcoal.

And also it just creates that warm, that closeness,

that, you know, like, you don't get it when you cook with gas.

Yeah, yeah.

They're ready.

Just put them in...divide them in three bowls.

One meatball each.

To serve, the sliced pork and grilled meat patty

are combined with raw garlic...

Put some garlic. You have to have garlic.

..semi-dried minced chilli...

The minced chilli.

..sliced carrot and green papaya.

You need this crunchy texture in it.

Bun cha always has a nuoc mam pha, or dipping sauce,

so to hot water, Angie adds equal amounts

of white vinegar, sugar, and fish sauce

and finishes with some black pepper.

So this one will go on the stove to keep warm.

Soup, almost.

The nuoc mam is poured over the grilled meat

and assembled with fresh rice noodles and Vietnamese herbs.

And then put the sauce in, a piece of meat, a little bit of that.

There you go, Maeve. Oh, thanks, Angie.

Beautiful.

Yum.

Mm! Beautiful meat.

Really juicy, tender.

Well done, Mum.

Thank you, Dan, for being a good kitchenhand.

Mmm.

You have to love a cuisine where you cook in front of you.

It allows you to have that wonderful, sensual experience

of seeing, smelling and anticipating what you're eating

and cooking it just the way you like.

The Koreans mastered this type of barbecue centuries ago,

and it's still going strong.

Korean barbecue restaurants have found fans around the world,

the style of cooking adopted by the Japanese postwar

and now very popular in Australia.

Korea is the king of the barbecue.

You used to use your drum, oil drum. Oh, yeah.

Put some sand inside and then make the table outside.

That's where we start it.

The olden days. Now this is a new technique.

Chef Chung Jae Lee grew up in his mother's restaurant

in southern Korea,

spent his early 20s being a judo champion

and simultaneously training as a chef,

opening up a restaurant in Adelaide

and now heading Soul Food and Little Miss Korea in Darwin.

Thank you. The whole in your mouth.

All of it? Yep.

Chung Jae says special cuts of meat are crucial in Korean cooking.

Fine slices of marbled beef are essential for the beloved bulgogi.

And skilled butchers butterfly beef ribs for the grilled classic kalbi.

All the flavour of the meat, from here to there, is different,

and there is different, and there is different.

Ahh. Three different flavours coming out one meat.

Gee, and this one's the most delicious.

No, to me it's here. Oh, that.

And so you're actually eating on the bone.

That's right. Like American ribs.

First of all you have to get the short rib,

but we're soaking for two hours already.

Why is that?

I've never seen soaking meat like that.

See that? Ah! Look at that.

Still got juice inside, but all the bone,

there's no blood whatsoever in the bone.

That's fascinating.

Yep, still got moisture.

Looks very tender too. Yep.

OK, now I'm going to show you how to butterfly.

Take off the fat bit.

OK, now here.

OK, one go...go... OK, and then turn around.

Ah.

Go, go, go.

So you're slicing, what, a couple of millimetres thick?

That's right.

Now, you make it look easy.

OK, and then after that you just...

With the... Other way. Back of the knife, yeah.

Yep.

And then this is ready. Ready for marinade.

Korean nashi pear.

So nashi pear's actually used as a tenderiser for meat?

Yep, make it juicier. Ah.

OK, you don't put the seeds inside,

but you put it in there, break it.

OK, and then you put the onion in there,

and then garlic.

Soy sauce.

And then plum.

Plum wine? Yeah.

Is it sweet? Yeah.

Rice wine. Rice wine.

And sesame oil, alright?

A little bit of sugar and a little bit of honey. That's it.

Quite a sweet marinade.

It is. But with good balancing with the soy.

OK. Caramel sauce.

Because caramel sauce, it make the meat more darker colour,

people think it is more charcoal flavour.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

OK, and then pepper.

OK. Yes, chef.

Emulsion.

Alright, sesame seeds.

One of the favourite flavours of Korea.

Yes.

So you've toasted them up in a pan.

Dry toasted them. Yeah, that's right.

OK, and then...put it in there. Ah.

And now...

OK, and then we roll.

Ah, so every bit gets that flavour. That's right.

That's it.

And how long do you leave that for?

For normally half an hour.

Alongside the barbecued ribs,

Chung Jae likes to serve pa muchim,

a fresh leek salad that's spicy, sweet and textural.