Is this the best way to make Egg Foo Young? | Pork Egg Foo Young | The Woks of Life

Hi everyone! Doesn't everybody love egg foo young? Only if it's restaurant style egg foo young, right? So we posted a while back a shrimp egg foo young that was immensely popular. We posted two methods on how to make your egg foo young. One was deep frying, which is how all the restaurants do it, and then the second version is pan fried. For those of you who kind of shy away from deep frying, and we even did a taste test. Check out that video and see what the results are. But today we are making a roast pork egg foo young, and actually that was the egg foo young that I've always wanted to post because it is so delicious because it is based on roast pork char siu, which is one of our most popular recipes on the blog. And there's a reason for that, because this stuff is addictive. It's surprising that we have leftovers. We have to consciously leave the leftovers, otherwise it all gets eaten up. Today I'm also going to show you a method, because this kind of looks complicated, you know, like anything else. If you do the proper prep, it's going to be a snap at the stove, all right? So this is the gravy station here, and you just get all your ingredients ready. I would just go down the ingredients list and just take out everything that you need. And then on the egg foo young patty side, pretty simple. We have bean sprouts, mung bean sprouts, which you can get at the store. And we also have metric measurements if you have a little digital scale, which I love actually. We give it in cups and measures, but we also give it in weight. So you just put this plate on a scale, zero it out, throw the bean sprouts in there until you reach that number. So easy. Same thing with the onions, right? Medium onion. Do I measure it out in cups? What do I do? No, I put the bowl on, I zero it out, I cut my diced onions, and I cut them until I reach the desired weight. So easy. They've done this in Europe. We're starting to do this in the U.S., okay? We have also some chopped scallions for some garnish, and we have our eggs, which we just took out of the fridge. Important to have the eggs in the fridge cold because as the eggs warm up, the whites will get a little bit watery and it won't be as cohesive, if you will. It won't stick everything together. That's basically what you do. You cut your char siu into little half inch bites. You dice your onion and measure it. You take your bean sprouts out. You cut your scallions, your eggs. That's it. This is done, and it's not hard. All you need to make the egg for young gravy are 10 pantry items, and oh, you also need some fresh ingredients, some shallot, and garlic. So you're going to start with all-purpose flour, and you're going to add turmeric and paprika. Then you're going to make the cornstarch slurry using three tablespoons of cornstarch mixed with a quarter cup of chicken stock. This gravy uses both flour and cornstarch, which actually helps the thick texture last longer, and we just think has a really nice balance. Next, prepare the gravy base. That's three cups of chicken stock mixed with two teaspoons light soy sauce, two tablespoons of oyster sauce, half a teaspoon of dark soy sauce, half teaspoon sesame oil, and a quarter teaspoon of white pepper. Mix it all together, and now you're ready to go. And this is the base of our gravy. Next thing what we're going to do is we're going to go to the stove. We're going to make the roux in a little bit of oil. We're going to fry up our aromatics. We're going to pour the gravy in. Then we're going to use our cornstarch slurry to thicken everything up, and your gravy is done. And then we're going to fry the patties, and then you're going to pour the gravy over, and you're going to have pork egg foo young. How's that? Now that we've prepped everything, it's a good time to go make your rice, bring everything to the stove, and start making the egg foo young. Okay, so let's get started on the gravy. So I'm going to turn the fire up to medium high, add about two tablespoons of oil because we're going to make roux here, and then I'm going to stir. It's just like making any kind of gravy. Pour that all in there, stir it, and in this step, if for those of you haven't made roux, you're cooking the flour, and that'll help thicken your gravy, and you can see how those spices are toasting now and giving a nice color. Next, I'm going to turn this up on high and just gradually pour in the sauce. At the bottom, stir everything up. There we go. So you're making a roux and your cornstarch mix? That's correct. That's why there's so little cornstarch, otherwise I'd have to use like a half a cup of cornstarch for all my... Now I'm going to add the cornstarch. Slowly drizzle it while you're stirring. You can see it start to thicken up. Notice I didn't add all the gravy or all the cornstarch to the gravy yet. Just checking the thickness here, and remember this gravy is going to thicken as it cools a little bit. So I ended up adding everything, and this gravy is done. I'm going to turn it off and make our patties. Perfect. Don't say one more word about it. Oh my god. What? Did I remember to say that before you start cooking, to get all the ingredients in front of you? This was left on the island, my aromatics, and I didn't put it in. You're supposed to put this in after you put the aromatics in with the roux. Don't fret. Put it in now, and you'll have a nice fresh taste of the gravy. No, baby. So I'm just gonna... Hey, this is actually a different type of flavor now. You're gonna have a nice fresh garlic oniony flavor. It's done. I'm gonna bring it back up to a boil later when we serve. All right, we're going to turn the flame on. We're going to heat this oil to about 325 degrees Fahrenheit. The amount of oil that you use depends on the size of your wok. So what I've got here is just about six cups of oil, maybe even a little bit less, because this wok is a round bottom wok, and I figure I can fit one, two, three patties. While the oil is heating, I'm going to make my patties. Got the onion, got the roast pork, got the bean sprouts, and then I'm actually going to put a little a few scallions in here and leave the rest for garnish. Now I'm Big fat shell just went in. Take that out. Oh, a double. Got a bonus. Bonus yolk. All right, we're measuring the oil temp, and we don't mix it until we're ready. All right, we're waiting for 325. All right, now that oil is up to temperature, we're going to mix the batter and mix it in a folding motion. That looks good. Okay, now make sure our flame is on. Okay, now take a scoop, which is about a cup, put it right along the edge, just like that. Nice and easy. We'll do the next one. Oh, we've got a rogue piece of char siu there, but don't worry about it. All we do is take that, put it back on, just like that. At this point, you want to probably turn up the flame a little bit because your egg-free young patties have just cooled your oil. Third patty in. Just want to hold it there until it sets. Those are our three patties. See the temperature? This has dropped to 280, 290, and now it's heating back up because I've turned the flame up. You want to heat this back up to 325. It's heating at a decent rate. I think I had to turn it up a little bit higher. Okay, should be fine. Looking good. You might be wondering how many minutes you fry this. A couple of minutes. This was the first patty. I'm going to turn it now. I believe this was the second patty. Turning it now. This is the third patty. We're going to give it another few minutes, another few seconds actually, and pouring the oil over the top kind of helps everything cook. There you go. At this point, you want to adjust the flame so you maintain 325. It's been going about a minute and a half now. I've got my metal wok spatula along with this spider. I'll put these patties up on top. Oops. Move very slowly and gently. We're dealing with oil here. Gently press. Gently press so the excess oil drips out. Give it a couple of little shakes. Those are your patties. I'm going to plate these. Since we've got an oval plate, I guess we're going to plate them like this. A little tricky. There you go. Got that nice crispiness on there. Just a note about taking care of your oil. You definitely want to use a fine mesh strainer and strain the oil out. You look how clean the oil is. This oil you can save for later, for cooking, or for frying again. Make sure you let it cool completely and then refrigerate it. It's canola oil we're using. I'm going to put a little rice on here on the side. You're going to want a lot of rice. Obviously more than one portion. One patty per person. This could be a hungry man portion. Nice. Okay. Now for the gravy. Our gravy is covered here. We're going to give it a quick stir and then pour the gravy over. Then we're going to hit it with some green scallion. Bam! All right. Let's go and serve. That is our roast pork egg for young. Okay. For some of you who are averse to deep frying, we're going to do a pan fried version. You could do either pan fried or in the oil. You be the judge which is better. We're using a nonstick pan and we're going to make three patties. I'm going to turn this up to medium because this is going to cool off. No, you don't need it. It's nonstick. I could put more oil, but the whole point of this is less oil. I'm going to turn this up higher. First patty, second patty, third patty. Now what I got left over in here, I'm going to decide which one needs more. A little more liquid there maybe. This one could use maybe a little bit more. All right. I'm going to use our silicone spatula here to do a little housekeeping. Turn it down slightly. We want to scorch our patties and let these cook. You can see they're nonstick here. So the flip is just like flipping a pancake or an omelet. One motion. There you go. That's one. This is two. Tuck everything back in. And three. Give it a little room here. A little casualty there. It'll repair itself. The gravy will repair all. That's right. Gravy repairs all. Now you want to probably turn it down and let it cook. In the oil, these patties cooked probably for about two minutes on each side. Total four minutes. In the pan, it's going to take a little bit longer because the oil is much hotter and it penetrates much better and cooks faster. So don't try to rush this. Five to six minutes. Okay. Let's flip these again. Take a look at them. These look pretty done. I'm going to flip them one more time. Make sure they get a little bit heated on both sides. And then I'm going to plate this. I'm just going to give it about 30 seconds on each side. All right. This is the final plating. Patty number one. And the gravy. Lots of gravy. You can also serve this gravy on the table. Just a little tiny bit more. Okay. And hit it with the scallions. And that, folks, roast pork egg foo young or char siu egg foo young at home. Out of the pan. Give me a fork. I'm ready to eat. Let's go. So we got our pan fried and our deep fried. Both delicious, but this is undoubtedly more. Roast pork egg foo young. Two ways. We got the pan fried and we got the deep fried. So Sarah, I see you dug into that. Yeah. What do you think? It's delicious. It's very good. The gravy is tasty. And actually, I can't, I don't really taste that much sharp garlic considering that it got added later. So if you forget, it's not the end of the world, everyone. You just add it. So I'm going to try this pan fried and that's what you're going to, you know, I'm going to serve you a piece of this pan fried. But you know what? I say, I have to say that roast pork is my favorite. Me too. It tastes really good. So I'm going to try this pan fried method is like the gateway to making egg foo young on like a regular weeknight, you know, cause you're not like, oh, I have to like, it's like an omelet and make a whole pot of oil. Actually, the pan fried is really good. The gravy is really on point, which is why we have more. Yeah. When you make it at home, everyone, you have extra gravy, extra gravy, scallion. All right. Excuse me. Look at this. I'm actually, always want to do that. Do you feel like it's much better than the pan fried one? That one's lighter. It's lighter, meaning thicker, fluffier, but you can taste the fried that it's deep fried for sure. And you know, go ahead. The pan fried version. I feel like you can taste the ingredients more. You can taste the filling stuff more. Yeah. Shrimp egg foo young was one of the most popular, you know, it depends where you had it in upstate New York. I think it was a roast pork. And then, you know, when we moved to New Jersey, I think shrimp was more ordered more. But I tell you, my first memory of an egg foo young was, what's that? And I'm like, that didn't look that great. And then there was like a mistake, made an order that was canceled. And so I'm like, asked my father, can I have that? I was like 16, 17 years old, just in the kitchen. And I went into the dining room, took my break, had the egg foo young, I'm like, wow, this is actually really, really good. That was my first experience. Oh, yeah. Plowing right into this. And if you have toss you that was made in advance, and in the freezer, this, the prep for this is pretty easy. It's not too bad. Or if you have a local Chinese market that makes it, you could also just buy it. It makes things even easier. Although your toss is really easy to make. We have a chicken egg foo young that use fresh chicken. No reason why you can't use this recipe as a pattern. Take off a rotisserie chicken, eight ounces of rotisserie chicken, make your own egg foo young as well. If you like this video, and you like this dish, like and subscribe to watsoflife.com. No. Tell me about it. This house sucks. Are we filming? Yeah. Give us a classic. Pork egg foo young. Pan fried. That is classic. It was really good. Classic. Orange chicken. Shrimp with lobster sauce. What else you gonna do? Okay. Okay. Roast egg foo.