Brent Young heads to Wenwen in Brooklyn where chef-owner Eric Sze serves Taiwanese dishes inspired by his childhood. Young learns to prepare some of the restaurant's signature dishes, including beef fat chile oil, pork belly with cuttlefish, and the famous BDSM chicken — a whole bird brined and deboned in soy milk. Brent's top tip: Get there early because they only serve five chickens a day!
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00:00You look extremely cool right now, right?
00:01Hold off time, hold off time.
00:03Yo Brent, why is there a walk-on fire?
00:05Don't worry about it.
00:07We're here in Greenpoint at my friend Eric Z's
00:10Taiwanese restaurant, Wen Wen.
00:12Eric described Wen Wen as a restaurant
00:14based on homesickness.
00:16This place is a love letter to Eric's mother, Wen,
00:18the dishes he grew up eating,
00:20and to his Taiwanese heritage.
00:22Today I'll be learning the ins and outs
00:24of how to make Wen Wen's most popular dishes,
00:26like the BDSM chicken.
00:28Don't worry, it's not what you think.
00:29The beef fat chili oil noodles,
00:31and a very special one-of-a-kind dish
00:33that you can only get here.
00:35Are you sold?
00:37Are you entertained?
00:38This is so awesome.
00:39I'm Brent, and this is Brent Meats World.
00:48Where's my chicken?
00:50The day begins with the BDSM chicken,
00:53which means brined, deboned, and soy milk.
00:56Since this is a labor-intensive process
00:58and they have a tiny kitchen,
01:00they can only serve five of these a day.
01:03The first step of the process is to debone the chicken.
01:06All right, let me walk you through,
01:08but you're good enough to do a hands-on thing, right?
01:10Why would you give me a cleaver?
01:12The cleaver in the Western-style butchering
01:15is like the very fat, thick one
01:17that you chop through bone, right?
01:18Right, that's it.
01:19Yeah, the Chinese-style cleaver
01:20is designed to also chop through bone.
01:23As you can see from the back here,
01:25it's very thick, so it has girth,
01:26and it has weight.
01:27At front, it's actually very thin,
01:29so you can do a lot of vegetable work,
01:31and you can also do thinly sliced protein,
01:33et cetera, et cetera.
01:34So this is designed to be universal.
01:35One knife to rule them all.
01:37Where do I start?
01:38First thing you do is chop off the head.
01:39Chop? Chop.
01:41Okay, save that.
01:43Break the legs.
01:44Break the legs, but we're keeping them attached.
01:46But keeping them attached?
01:47Yes.
01:48Sound guy.
01:50Where did the idea of this dish come from?
01:53I mean, I knew that we needed to have
01:55a sort of centerpiece of a dish for Wenwen
01:59before we opened.
02:00One day, I was like,
02:01why aren't people frying whole chickens, you know?
02:03I think there's an appeal to a massive piece of protein
02:06that is one whole dish.
02:10I don't see a lot of people deboning the chicken whole
02:13and keeping everything attached to the skin.
02:16I think most of the deboning chicken
02:18that we think about conventionally,
02:20it's separating the legs from the body,
02:22and then separating the breast,
02:24keeping the rib cage, et cetera, et cetera.
02:27But this is completely different
02:29because we're essentially having the whole skin attached
02:33to the entire carcass of the body,
02:36but just the flesh, no bones.
02:38It's different than a traditional conventional chicken.
02:41There is a ton of extra fat in here
02:45that you're kind of not used to seeing
02:47on the inside of the bird.
02:49It looks amazing, but I do feel a little blind.
02:53Real talk, how do you think I'm doing?
02:54I think you're good, you know?
02:56Yeah, am I missing anything?
02:57A lot of incisions where there shouldn't be,
02:59but who am I to judge the massive butcher?
03:02The beautiful thing is after we dredge it and fry it,
03:05you can't really see the incisions.
03:06If anything, it makes it a little bit more flavorful.
03:09You're creating nooks and crannies.
03:10Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's totally intentional.
03:13Yes, yes, yes.
03:14Is this really how you're doing your chickens every day?
03:16No, we use the boning knife.
03:19But we're not trying to challenge our cooks every day,
03:22but you need a challenge every now and then.
03:24Life's too good.
03:25Yeah, life's too good for a friend.
03:28So a good judge of whether or not we're keeping this chicken
03:30is how much skin did we break?
03:33So technically, this is okay,
03:35because this is extra fat that we're going to trim,
03:37and it's presented like this.
03:39So you can say that one more time?
03:41Yeah.
03:41So it actually looks really good, is what you said?
03:44Wow, this is one of the better chickens I've ever seen.
03:46It looks presentable.
03:48What you said?
03:49It looks presentable.
03:50Since I passed the butchery test,
03:52we are now finished with the D part of the BDSM chicken.
03:56We're onto the soy milk brine,
03:57or the remaining letters of our BDSM experience.
04:01So this is essentially our corn marinade.
04:03Most of the flavor is coming from this guy, this furu.
04:06Okay, what's furu?
04:07It's fermented soybean
04:09that's sort of pressed into a tofu shape.
04:11It's extra funky, very fermented, incredibly savory.
04:14I want the furu to sort of be the star
04:17in terms of the flavor,
04:18but everything else needs to complement it
04:20because the furu itself is very, very pungent.
04:23So we want it to,
04:25we want to bring out the funkiness and the essence of it
04:27without having it overpower everything else.
04:29It looks like blocks of tofu.
04:30Right.
04:31But they're, it's soybeans pressed into that shape.
04:34It's delicious,
04:36but I see what you mean that we gotta,
04:37we gotta round those edges out.
04:39Yeah.
04:39So we add in a pretty liberal amount of furu,
04:43but as you know, a little goes a long way.
04:46And then we have a little curry powder,
04:48mostly for color, but also for flavor.
04:50Important, this is unsalted Chinese rice wine.
04:54So vinegar, a little bit of soy sauce here.
04:57And last but not least,
05:00just to sort of emphasize the flavor of soybeans,
05:03we add soy milk.
05:04Beautiful bird, delicious marinade.
05:07And we just let that soak and sit for two nights, minimum.
05:10So do you reserve these?
05:12How do I, how do I get one of these?
05:13It's first come, first served.
05:14Okay.
05:15Yeah.
05:16How quickly do they sell out?
05:17A little over a weekday, maybe like 30 minutes.
05:19Okay.
05:20On a weekend, like five minutes.
05:21Cool.
05:22Yeah.
05:23These birds are done.
05:24The last step in the process is making a batter,
05:26which they will go in right before service.
05:28Our BDSM journey is over.
05:31And now, executive chef Cathy Chen
05:33is preparing the beef fat chili oil noodle,
05:35which just so happens to be the most popular item
05:38on the entire menu.
05:39Okay, so where do we start?
05:41This is a boneless short rib.
05:43Okay.
05:44You're gonna trim the fat,
05:45and then you're gonna portion it.
05:47Great, with a cleaver again?
05:48Yeah, but there's no bones,
05:49so it's far, far, far simpler.
05:51We portion it.
05:52It's not as simple as just kind of like
05:54slicing it into blocks.
05:55We are gonna kind of open it up
05:57so that it's more of like a flat steak.
05:59Okay.
06:00Yeah, and then a lot of this fat that we're taking off,
06:01that actually will get rendered into the beef fat
06:05for the beef fat chili oil.
06:06This is actually our most popular shared dish.
06:0990% of our tables are getting this dish.
06:11Why?
06:12It's hard to beat.
06:13You kind of can't beat steak in chili oil.
06:16Yeah.
06:17All right, we good to go?
06:18I think these are great.
06:19These are beautiful.
06:20Now we just marinate them.
06:21All right.
06:22So we're making a miso baijiu chrysanthemum marinade.
06:25So this is baijiu.
06:27This is Taiwanese and Chinese hard liquor.
06:31It's distilled from sorghum.
06:33It can be pleasant.
06:34I would not say this is the most pleasant one to drink.
06:37It's still good.
06:38It's actually, and it's also really,
06:39really great to cook with.
06:40But honestly, it's still pretty fun to drink.
06:43So if you'd like to join me at 1230.
06:47We're cooking.
06:48We gotta know.
06:49Cheers.
06:50Thanks.
06:50You're welcome.
06:55Easy.
06:56Easy.
06:57The brand here is actually pretty simple.
06:58We've got chrysanthemum, miso, white pepper, sesame oil,
07:02and of course our early morning pick-me-up,
07:05that incredibly strong baijiu.
07:07This needs to sit for at least two days
07:09before it's ready to take on the steaks.
07:12So this is our marinade that has sat.
07:14You'll taste a lot more of the chrysanthemum
07:16than you will in that one,
07:16because it's fresh.
07:17And this one will be a lot sweeter
07:19and a lot less baijiu-forward.
07:22Yeah.
07:23Still baijiu-forward, but sweet and baijiu-forward.
07:26Yeah, just take it, do a little dip.
07:28Do a little dip?
07:29Yeah.
07:33The next part of the process
07:34is to prepare and render the beef fat.
07:38This is beef fat.
07:39This is beef fat?
07:40We get it from you, I'm told.
07:41You're welcome.
07:42So maybe you tell us about the beef fat.
07:45I mean, this is just beef suet,
07:47which is kidney fat that we run through the grinder once
07:51to get it in this super cool shape,
07:53which just helps it cook a little faster.
07:55We're gonna add back in our trim.
07:57Pieces of beef are gonna give it extra flavor,
07:59and then the beef fat will give it just some extra fat.
08:02There you go.
08:03This beef fat will cook until it's completely rendered down.
08:07Once it's ready, we will then transform the fat
08:10into the chili oil.
08:12This is Sichuan dried chili.
08:13Okay.
08:14This is gonna add, you know, all the spice.
08:17Garlic.
08:18We keep them whole so they won't burn.
08:20And then a variety of spices.
08:22Bay leaf, cardamom, fennel, coriander.
08:25This recipe is kind of based off of hot pot.
08:28So in China, when they eat hot pot,
08:30the spicy pot is most often done with tallow.
08:33So that's how they repurpose all the fat
08:34from the cows in China.
08:36Most of the popular hot pot in China are tallow-based.
08:39So we'll throw it in the oven, it'll cook slowly,
08:41and then afterwards we'll pull it out and we'll blend it.
08:44All right.
08:45Now we're gonna make the pork belly and cuttlefish.
08:47Okay.
08:48This dish I ate growing up at home
08:51because my mom used to make it.
08:52I've not seen it anywhere else.
08:53It kind of is a melody of all these different cuisines
08:57within the big Chinese cuisine diaspora.
09:00To me, it's the quintessential braised pork dish.
09:04Oh, this is a beautiful piece of pork.
09:07This knife I got in Taiwan.
09:09Okay.
09:10This is a sha zhu dao,
09:12which in Mandarin translates to pig-killing knife.
09:15It's crazy heavy, carbon steel is a nice patina.
09:18It's for pigs and tuna.
09:20If you think about those two animals, very thick skin.
09:22Right.
09:23That you gotta really be able to cut through.
09:24Well, I guess first thing we gotta do
09:25is take off the nipples, right?
09:27Nothing wrong with the nipples.
09:28People tend to not like to see it.
09:30They're unmistakably nipple-y.
09:32You wanna use this knife?
09:33I do, I really wanna use this knife.
09:35So just feel how differently it cuts through pork skin.
09:38Kind of like butter, but you really know you're cutting meat.
09:42It's got a weird curvature to it, not weird,
09:45a very intentional curvature to it.
09:46No, I was gonna say super intentional,
09:48like that was extremely easy.
09:51All we gotta do now,
09:52cut it into about inch and a half thick cubes.
09:55So this is something that you grew up with?
09:57Yes.
09:58So when would your mom make this dish?
09:59It's mostly for Lunar New Year.
10:01Yeah?
10:02Yeah, it's a very festive dish.
10:03Okay.
10:04It takes a very long time to cook,
10:04and it's a lot of steps, especially for a home cook.
10:06So she's not out here making it every single night.
10:09Right.
10:10But every time she would make it,
10:12it would just be my favorite thing ever.
10:14Okay, the next thing is the cuttlefish.
10:16The cuttlefish really is just like squid on steroids.
10:19But when you're cooking squid,
10:20it's mostly a very quick cook, right?
10:23You're frying it for calamari in your sauce quickly.
10:26Overcooked squid is rubbery and kind of gross.
10:29Right.
10:30Think about that overcooked squid, but imagine it tender.
10:32The main takeaway here for the cuttlefish
10:34is that you want to discard the beak.
10:37It's cartilage, it's tough,
10:38and you don't want to bite into something crunchy
10:40when you're not expecting it.
10:42Once these are broken down,
10:43we have to fry the pork before it gets cooked off
10:45in the wok.
10:47Regular fryer, regular oil.
10:49So this is really just to make sure
10:50that they hold their shape?
10:52You know when you're braising like a pot roaster
10:55or a beef bourguignon,
10:56you're always searing your beef beforehand?
10:58Right.
10:59Same idea.
11:00The quick fry gives the pork enough stability
11:02to hold its shape before it's slowly braised in the wok.
11:06To establish the glaze,
11:07the pork is cooked in three sugars,
11:09palm sugar, rock sugar, and black sugar.
11:12And this is where you really want to be careful
11:14because black sugar comes in powder form,
11:17so it burns way faster.
11:18So we have about like a five second window
11:21on even the slowest heat to pour in our water
11:24to cool down the sugars.
11:25How long are we letting this go?
11:27So we're going to reduce it by about one thirds
11:30before adding our fourth other.
11:31Okay.
11:32That looks amazing.
11:33Right?
11:34Just like this, straight up.
11:36Looks like candy bake.
11:37Yeah.
11:38Another key ingredient, kuai diao wine.
11:43I wonder if it flames up.
11:49So this just helps burn off the alcohol quicker
11:51and it makes me look more badass.
11:53Definitely.
11:54All right, we're going to let this go for an hour.
11:56Very slow heat.
11:57Doesn't even really need a lid.
12:06So we have our chicken.
12:08We tried it and then we've got it in this batter
12:10that we made.
12:11Pick it up by the feet and then lay it in.
12:14You want maximum batter.
12:16And we have to do a timer for three minutes.
12:17So 328, we take it out.
12:19We fry it here and we have to slice it
12:21all the way over there
12:22because there's no space to slice it.
12:24That's why we can only do five.
12:25Lucky five.
12:26The people on the internet were like,
12:28oh, they definitely got some extra chicken back there.
12:30We don't.
12:31We don't, look around.
12:32We just don't.
12:34So I'm going to lift this over our barrier.
12:38Now it rests.
12:39The chicken will rest briefly
12:40before going back in the fryer one more time.
12:43Once it's out, it gets lightly dusted
12:45in what Eric calls Taiwanese seasoning.
12:47It's then sliced and ready to be plated.
12:57Our steak, marinated for two days,
12:59sous vide for a minimum of four hours
13:01to make sure that we break down any of the fat,
13:04make sure that's really soft.
13:05And now we're just going to give it a little fry.
13:09Usually a steak's getting cooked
13:10in a cast iron skillet or on a grill.
13:13If you take a look around, you will notice
13:15we don't have a grill.
13:16Noticed.
13:17We don't even have a regular four-top burner
13:19or anything like that.
13:20Right.
13:21So we make do with what we have.
13:22And what we have is these two very lovely lox.
13:27So because it's sous vide, it's already fully cooked.
13:30We're going to heat it up and we're going to develop
13:32a very nice crust on it.
13:35Oh, wow.
13:35That looks amazing.
13:38And that's how you want a steak to look.
13:39You know, you want a fully-foamed crust all around.
13:54So what we have here is the BDSM chicken,
13:57the beef fat chili oil noodle,
13:59and pork belly and cuttlefish.
14:02All of this is amazing.
14:03And it's all really celebratory.
14:06This BDSM chicken has really been hyped up.
14:08So we're going to start there.
14:10Get here early.
14:11It's worth the wait.
14:12That's worth the hype.
14:13This is some fantastic fried chicken.
14:16Most fried chicken that you're getting
14:18is like conventional chicken.
14:20Okay, the breading's really good
14:21or it's really crispy on the outside.
14:22That's great.
14:23But this really tastes like chicken
14:27and you can taste how superior it really is.
14:30Next, we have our beef fat chili oil noodle.
14:33First, I just want to try the steak.
14:35We said before this is boneless short rib,
14:37but what was short rib really isn't a steak.
14:40It's something that you like braise for a long time,
14:42which they did with a sous vide,
14:44but this eats like a even more tender New York strip steak.
14:49It's fatty, delicious.
14:51And that wok sear is kind of insane.
14:54The baijiu really does cook off
14:57and there is a nice floralness
14:59because of the chrysanthemums.
15:00Wow, that's awesome.
15:02All right, so this pork belly and cuttlefish,
15:04remember, is only served here at Wen Wen.
15:07This is the only place you can get it in New York City.
15:09It's hard to beat big chunks of fried pork belly.
15:13All of the caramelized sugars in that cooking wine
15:16really help make it tender, delicious.
15:18This is like really one of a kind.
15:20It's super special.
15:22The cuttlefish, that's so good
15:26because it's so specific
15:28and the two of these proteins really complement one another.
15:32Like Eric said, cuttlefish is like squid on steroids.
15:36It really is.
15:37It's got a nice bounce to it,
15:39but it's toothsome, really takes to the braise really well,
15:42and it kind of balances out the fattiness
15:45of the pork itself.
15:46So my tips would be come with some friends,
15:49come with family, bring a bunch of people,
15:50and share a lot of this food.
15:52It's all really celebratory,
15:53and you want to try all of it.
15:55Come early, get the BDSM chicken,
15:57and for everything else, order big so you can share a lot.
16:03And don't skip this pork and cuttlefish.
16:05This is chef's childhood in a bowl.
16:08Both the pork belly and the cuttlefish
16:09complement each other really, really well.
16:12It's really special,
16:13and it means a lot to this restaurant.
16:18Did you get that?
16:19Yeah.