>> MING: Hey, it's Ming Tsai here, welcome to Simply Ming at Home.

Today's show, awesome-- starting with my favorite cocktail, a ginger margarita.

Then two types of raviolis-- one, my master shrimp mousse in a watercress nage And then a vegan version.

It's going to be a shiitake edamame ravioli in a Thai curry broth.

Both are delicious and both are super easy to make.

Tune in right now on Simply Ming at Home.

♪ ♪ >> Simply Ming is brought to you by Subaru of New England, proudly celebrating 50 years of love.

Authorized retailers at SubaruOfNewEngland.com Here's to the next 50 years and beyond.

>> MING: Let's get started.

All right, you guys have seen me make lots of cocktails, right?

So here, we're going to start with a margarita.

You have ice, ginger syrup.

So ginger syrup is this, guys.

Check it out.

This is ginger syrup that I made and it's sliced ginger reduced down by 50%, right?

So this is twice as full, one part water, one part sugar, reduce it down by half.

You can see how nice and soft the ginger gets.

All right, that is ginger syrup and that's what I have here.

Nice and cool, all right.

So, we're gonna do one part ginger syrup... one part lime.

This is a recipe that Julio Bermejo, my buddy, he owns Tommy's in San Francisco.

He showed me once the best way to make a margarita.

It's 2-1-1, that's two parts of great tequila, 100% agave tequila, one part sweetener.

He uses agave syrup, I'm using, of course, ginger syrup and one part fresh lime juice.

Then, get a great 100% agave tequila.

So again, 2-1-1, so I need two parts of tequila to that one part of sweetener.

All right, and to that one part of lime juice, right?

Get it in, give it a good shake.

Really good shake, get it nice and cold.

All right, then-- always fresh ice, you know this, right?

Start a cocktail with fresh ice, because this ice is burnt, so to speak, take this off.

Just be careful, it's nice and tight.

There we go and just go like this.

And pour it right on like that and there is an awesome margarita.

Of course, you need a lime garnish.

Always need a lime garnish.

This is how we can charge you $12 in a restaurant-- no, I'm just kidding-- there's a margarita.

All right, let's give it a chance-- santé!

Super easy and make as much ginger syrup as you possibly can because you're always going to use it.

Oh wow, it's delicious.

Please trust me-- just, actually don't trust me.

please go make it.

Non-alcoholic version, tons of ice.

Same thing, guys, I'm going to take... juice of half a lime.

Get it in there, because I love lime juice, lime in water, right, sparking water.

obviously a no brainer.

Then to this, you're gonna take... sparkling water.

This happens to be a Mexican sparking water, which I love.

Don't fill it all the way to the top, because of course we're gonna drizzle ginger syrup.

Right, then we have our ginger syrup, and that gets put in like that.

And, yes, you need a lime garnish, of course.

Right, so here, another little wheel of lime like that, and this is an awesome ginger ale.

Ah, that's really good, too.

Okay... ♪ ♪ First, we're gonna make a ravioli with shrimp and it's gonna be in a watercress nage.

All right, what we're gonna do is we're first going to knock out some shallots, and so I have a pan here, I'm going to go ahead and put this on high and just regular sliced shallots, right.

This is all gonna be buzzed, guys, so I don't care if it's not perfect, doesn't matter what it looks like.

Three huge shallots.

All right, then I'm gonna take all this garlic-- this is garlic for both of the dishes, so I'm gonna go ahead and mince it all now.

So this slice is fine.

Again, this is all gonna be minced.

So I'm just gonna slice this garlic, all right?

And we're gonna use this for the nage.

And then the last three cloves, I'm gonna mince them, since I got my cutting board already dirty with garlic.

Do all your knife work, right.

Let me go ahead and get this going.

Little bit of grapeseed oil.

Okay, we're going to take all of the shallots and garlic.

(pan sizzling) Oh yeah, you got to hear that sound, guys.

You hear that sound, you know your pan is nice and hot.

All right, so of course, no surprise, a little salt, a little pepper.

Get in there.

And black pepper.

All right... so we're just going to really get this mixed around.

So as that's going, we're gonna use a little bit of minced garlic, as well, so since I'm here, this I'm gonna smash with a knife and just mince this up.

Okay, okay, now we have our minced garlic.

All right, there we go.

So now, while we're here, we're gonna go ahead and slice our scallions.

This is one bunch of scallions, I need it for both dishes, right?

Same thing again, so I'm gonna just take off these ends.

Here I'm gonna-- again, always when I slice scallions, I like to let the knife get through it and I'm gonna keep the white and the green separate, but the white part is really strong, and the green part is less.

So I'm gonna throw some of this white in with my shallots that are already caramelizing, just to give another allium level, right.

So here I have the white again.

We're gonna pop this in here, too.

Okay, all the white and some of these bigger pieces, I'm gonna put in.

All right, perfect, a little bit more here, there we go.

So now, give this a little stir.

Oh, yeah, see that?

That's looking good, you can see it's starting to brown just a touch.

Right, so now to this, I'm going to add about three cups of chicken stock.

Store bought is fine.

And I'm going to reduce this by half, all right.

And once it's reduced by half, I'm gonna buzz it.

And as we as we say, then we lift it with butter.

Now, shrimp mousse.

Easy, easy, easy.

On ice, I have frozen butter, you can see how these are frozen.

And I have shrimp that's been washed and deveined.

So, get a food processor.

Shrimp... pop those in.

When you're making shrimp mousse, guys, definitely buy the small shrimp like these, or even smaller.

Why?

I'm pureeing it.

Why would you get beautiful large shrimp and then puree it, right, they're so much more expensive.

So do the small ones.

We're gonna add one egg, gonna add a little salt and pepper to this.

And we're gonna buzz this smooth.

All right, like that.

And a little pepper.

Okay.

Then we're gonna take this, we're gonna buzz this smooth.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

All right.

See how nice and smooth that is?

So, now to this, I'm going to add this frozen butter, not a ton, half of this butter is going to be for the nage and the other half is for the moose.

And the reason-- this is a pastry trick, guys, right?

The reason this is frozen is I want to pulse this until there is just little pieces left of butter.

And that happens-- when it cooks, the butter melts, right?

Leaves little holes, which makes the mousse tender.

And it also flavors it with butter.

All right, so, we're gonna do this... and pulse.

I'm looking for little pieces of butter.

All right, see what this looks like.

Okay, so, you can see these little pieces of butter, that's what I want.

I want pieces like that, all right?

So, now, what I'm gonna do is take some of the shrimp mousse out and I'm gonna make some raviolis with this, okay?

Perfect, so now, what we're gonna do is make some raviolis, all right?

Cut that off.

This is some wonton skins, store bought.

That's not cheating, it's smart, right?

They're beautiful, look how beautiful these are.

All right, and I have some ginger that I'm going to just-- just a little bit, guys, right.

I'm just gonna take a little bit of ginger.

I want a little bit of freshness.

As you recall, because it's minced, gotta peel it, right?

Back of the knife, take your time.

In theory-- I guess I could have called this a ginger show, right?

Because we've got ginger margarita, ginger in both raviolis.

So, do a little minced on this.

I use-- flatten it out, so I can make super thin slices like this.

All right.

And this I'm going to use half for this mousse, the other half we're gonna use to make the vegetarian ravioli.

Nice mince, nice and small... like this.

Perfect, so now we have our little bit of mousse, gonna add a little bit of ginger, got a little bit of our scallions, and then this we mix up.

And that is our shrimp mousse.

So now I'm gonna turn this on medium low, I just want that little bit of simmer.

I want this to reduce by half.

All right, let me get my wonton skins here.

I have one more egg here, right?

We're gonna make an egg wash-- I'm gonna grab a little bit of water here.

Egg wash is simply one egg and about a tablespoon... of water.

That's it.

Give it a good mix.

You just want to loosen it with the water, because when it loosens with waters, it's easier to stick.

All right, so... raviolis-- boom.

Like this, okay?

And this is one on top of each other.

Okay, so here, like that.

Okay, we're gonna make three.

All right, this mousse can make you at least 20 raviolis.

All right then, using your fingers-- it's okay-- on all four edges.

Okay, egg wash. Take the next wonton skin, put it on top.

Now here is key.

You really want to push it and seal it, right?

The egg, when it gets hot, is a sealer because it's protein and it will seal it tight.

You have to have a perfect seal-- why?

Because if you don't, the water gets into your ravioli and that will destroy the mousse, it will melt the butter, the butter will render out.

You will have an overcooked ravioli with no flavor.

It will taste like water.

So this is so key.

All right, there we go.

We got water here, hot water.

Yes, salt, right?

Water does not come seasoned.

Right, I'm going to cover it again, make sure it comes to a boil quickly.

It's literally gonna take two seconds and check out our broth, guys, this is almost there.

This is about a 30% reduction.

I'm looking for a five-zero, 50% reduction.

Okay, all right, so now you can see-- and this is what you-- it's okay, once it starts bubbling, raviolis, go down, bye-bye.

And bye-bye.

And here, feel free to cover until it comes to a boil again, and then remove the cover.

Right?

That's not gonna ruin anything.

The idea is to get it quickly back to a boil.

So here I'm gonna save this ginger, because that's going to go into my next dish.

All right, ravioli, stay.

All right, let me just wipe my board down.

Now, it's time to make the nage.

All right.

This you have to be a little careful because we have hot broth.

So what we're gonna do is we're going to take this nage.

Here, see how nice and thick it is now?

Right, super thick.

We're gonna take some of this nage, we're gonna pour it into here.

Right, now this you have to be so careful, guys, this is a hot nage with a lot of hot broth, so you can't-- you can't just put it on and seal it.

It's going to create so much vacuum and so much heat, it will pop out.

So, you see this steam coming out?

That's there, so air can escape, but when I turn it on, I don't want it to shoot out, so you got to cover it with a towel.

It's gonna be really noisy, I'm gonna tell you that now, but we're gonna go for it, okay?

All right.

Pureeing the shallots and the garlic.

I'm gonna go high now-- sorry, a little noisier.

Okay, so there's base.

Now, to this, I'm gonna add watercress, right, because this is a watercress nage.

Look at all this watercress.

All of this goes in.

I'm gonna save just a little bit for garnish, but the rest goes in.

Bye-bye.

And watch, this will turn this awesome chicken stock into a delicious watercress.

Again, let the steam come out, cover it.

All right, and then go high... hot broth cooks the watercress instantly.

Now I'll let this go for about a minute, all right?

I'm just taking this cover off, right?

Because I don't want-- I don't want it burning there.

See these raviolis?

They're still a little bit al dente, so they'll be another 30 seconds, which will be about...

Which will be perfect timing.

So the last thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn it back on and I'm gonna start dropping some butter.

Right, again, always cover when you turn it on, so it doesn't come out.

And now I'm gonna drop some butter in here.

Oh yeah, bye-bye.

Oh yeah... that just adds a nice viscosity and richness to the dish.

All right.

Awesome, all right, our raviolis are good to plate up.

Take these raviolis out.

It's a great appetizer.

You do five of these, it's a full meal.

You can take a thermometer, it's got to get to 160 in the middle because it's raw eggs and shrimp.

Come back here, boy.

All right, ooh, ooh-- boom.

Okay.

Then, all right...

This we can actually just pour right on.

Look at this.

Love you can see the pieces of the watercress.

And again, has that little bit of butter.

Right, so simple, guys-- it's really not a complicated dish.

You saw what we just did there.

And the last thing we're gonna do, because we can... let's take a couple of sprigs of watercress and pile it on like that.

All right, easy peasy.

There you go guys, shrimp ravioli, watercress nage.

While we're here, shall we?

Let me just show you what this looks like.

So when it's cooked all the way, you see, it's just the shrimp turns white... That little bit of butter.

I'm telling you guys, it's so good.

♪ ♪ So now we're gonna do the vegetarian ravioli.

So I dump a bunch of edamames in this.

So, again, I want to get it to a boil quickly, so I'll cover it.

So that's gonna be the beginning of the mousse.

In this wok, we're going to make the Thai curry broth.

So, let's talk about that, shall we?

Coconut milk, unshaken.

So you have this much coconut fat and the liquid is below.

Thai curry paste-- it's awesome.

Shiitakes, I'm gonna sauté, so we're gonna take these.

Let's move my finished dish, here.

All right, so just take the stems off.

You can save-- save the stems, obviously, if you're making a broth, not a problem.

And we're gonna just bang these shiitakes out, and then this will be folded in with the scallions in with the mousse that we're going to make from the edamames.

All right, so I'm just looking for a thick slice here, a little bit of texture.

So without touching them, I'm just going to take my knife and come across this way and try to make rough dice.

Okay, again, we're home cooking, guys.

All right, perfect, so in this hot wok, a little grapeseed oil, nice and hot, love it.

And it's already-- it's kind of smoking, so I'm going to actually add the mushrooms first.

So, salt and pepper.

Fantastic.

We can take this off now that it's boiling.

All right.

Sauté those.

Now, remember the ginger that we minced?

Yep, all of that-- in.

Remember the garlic that we minced?

Yep, all of that-- in.

And I have some scallions.

I'm gonna save a little of this also for garnish.

All right, here we go, cooking these soft.

Cool, so now, we have our edamames, I'm gonna add my chlorophyll, like that; drop that in.

The chlorophyll of the spinach and ten more seconds, look how green the spinach just got, right-- just by being in there.

Got super green.

I want to keep this boiling water, right?

So what I'm gonna do instead is just take the edamames and the spinach out of this because I need this water to boil the next raviolis, right?

Actually a little bit rogue edamames as I call it is actually not a bad idea because it could be plated up in with the shiitakes.

I want to get these chilled, so what I'm gonna do, actually, just take your knife, they're super soft now.

And I'm going to chop this up.

You see how soft these edamames are now, so I'm really trying to spread it out like that, get all the steam away, all right.

Then, I have my shiitakes.

Okay, so to this, guys, to finish the broth, the Thai curry paste, right?

Big old spoon, really spicy, really delicious.

Get that in, guys, look at that.

You want to cook your Thai curry paste a little bit 'cause it's raw.

Ooh, nice and spicy, I can feel it, I can smell it.

Then what I'm gonna do is take coconut fat, boom-- then add a little bit coconut water, too.

Okay, awesome.

This... melt the coconut fat.

Now we have a great-- look at that... coconut shiitake.

That's going to be my broth.

Now to this, I'm going to add some veg stock.

Right, about a cup, because I want it brothy.

I'm gonna let that come to temp, and that's our broth-- let's give this a try.

Oh yeah, that's really good.

Needs a touch of salt.

Super spicy, guys-- this Thai curry paste, it's like 15 ingredients, there's red, there's yellow, and there's green, so you can make them all that way.

All right, same step here, guys.

We're gonna make some raviolis.

But this time, I'm gonna make an appetizer size, so I'm just gonna make two.

But let me get myself just a touch of water.

I'm still gonna use an egg wash, right?

But this egg wash is going to be... using fake eggs.

So you still want the protein, right, because you want protein to help bind and be the... be the glue, right?

So I'm gonna add a little bit of fake egg, okay, to my egg wash.

So now we're going to take this... like this and like this, how fresh does that look, guys?

Now with the egg wash, that's fake egg, made from mung bean, actually.

We're gonna do all four sides.

Same technique, one is vegan and delicious and the other one shrimp, and delicious.

Then we'll take-- same thing, gonna seal them really well, you can't have these break open either, right?

And like that.

Seal these really well.

All right...

So now these in my boiling water, and I'm going to cover them to get these to boil really quickly.

All right, smells really good, guys, that Thai curry paste is unbelievably strong and delicious, has great flavor, deep flavor.

Let me grab another little bowl here.

I'm going to take my two ravs.

There we go.

I love it-- I love how they get translucent.

See that, you can see the spinach and edamame.

Right, and I had these rogue edamames.

I'm gonna garnish with a couple of them.

Okay, there we go.

Then, last but not least, we're going to take... this awesome shiitake, Thai coconut sauce slash broth, right?

Oh my God, how does that look, guys?

All right, so we have that there and last but not least-- because I think you need it, always-- is a little bit of fresh lime.

So I'm gonna take some fresh lime juice like this... and there you have it.

So there are our dishes, guys.

Raviolis... ginger margarita, and a ginger ale.

I hope you guys get in the kitchen, I hope you just cooked along.

Do anything, you can use any fish to make that mousse.

It doesn't have to be shrimp, it can be lobster, it can be halibut, it could be Chilean sea bass.

And obviously, it can be any mushroom, if you're doing the vegan one.

So I hope you get in the kitchen and cook.

I'm going to eat all this up.

I'll probably drink both of these.

I so appreciate you joining me and, as always, peace and good eating, ciao!

For more information on Simply Ming, including upcoming guests and more, visit us online at ming.com/simplyming.

>> Simply Ming is brought to you by Subaru of New England, proudly celebrating 50 years of love.

Authorized retailers at SubaruOfNewEngland.com.

Here's to the next 50 years and beyond.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪