♪♪ -"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook, and we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

♪♪ Today on "Cook's Country," Bryan visits Oakland, California, and shares his version of sisig and garlic fried rice.

Jack talks about the importance of Knorr's Liquid Seasoning in Filipino cuisine.

I tell the backstory of America's favorite bar snack.

And Julia and Bridget make soy sauce chicken wings.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

♪♪ ♪♪ -Almost half a million Filipino Americans call the San Francisco Bay Area home.

So it's no surprise that this is where you'll find some of the best Filipino food in America... -So, I'm adding a tad bit of a -- Ooh!

Love it.

[ Laughs ] -...with a new generation of Filipino chefs putting their own spins on classic dishes.

-It just smells so good.

-There's excitement in the air about what it means to cook true Filipino cuisine.

-Filipino cuisine.

What is that?

-We're still figuring it out.

-It's just a boiling pot of Spanish, Chinese, even American, you know?

And then, from there, we just created our own take on certain dishes, and that's Filipino food for us.

-That's what brought me to Oakland, California, where I visited Jan Dela Paz and Bobby Punla, former fine-dining chefs that have come together to open Likha, their Filipino pop-up.

-"Likha" means "to create."

-We're creating our culture, creating food, creating, like, a narrative.

It's like a lot of dots to connect, whether it's from our personal stories and just, like, other people just like us wanting to know about theirs.

-Their story comes alive in their menu of Filipino classics made with modern twists, including sisig, a rich and tangy pork dish that's a popular bar snack in the Philippines.

-It's not your typical Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner.

You're not going to bring that.

It's -- It's definitely a Friday-night thing.

-It's a bar food, late night after drinking.

It's -- It's a snack.

[ Laughs ] -Even though they worked for years in high-end kitchens, cooking many different cuisines, it took years for Bobby and Jan to have the confidence to tell their own story through food.

-I would have never guessed that, like, our culture at that time was like, "You know, we could do Filipino food.

We are good enough to, like, serve to the public."

-I mean, honestly, I think it all boils down to having this colonial mentality that cooking Filipino food is not as prestigious as, say, cooking new American, Italian, and new French cuisine.

-I just put the dry stuff that's been marinating.

You just stick it in.

-Filipino food is full of bold flavors and bright colors.

It's a vibrant cuisine that Jan and Bobby love to share with their guests.

-So, this is our 24-hour marinade of our sisig, the shoulder and the belly, and just going to get it charred, cooked all the way through, get the crispy bits.

The most important part.

-The flame's definitely jumping up and licking it.

-Oh, yeah, definitely.

[ Laughter ] -So, now we're just cutting it into smaller cubes.

-Yeah, I'm ready.

-There you go.

[ Laughs ] -And then, while my grill is still going, with the little cast-iron skillets that we have, I'm going to put it over the charcoal.

When you hear something sizzle, it's always the -- someone's always going to break their neck.

It's like, "Whoa."

[ Chuckles ] -Alright, so, once the meat's cut, you can add some chopped garlic and then the mayo and just mix it all up together.

It's like a pork salad.

[ Laughter ] Sizzle platter coming in nice and hot.

I'm going to put the sisig in there.

-Yeah.

[ Sizzling ] -And then Bobby will crack the egg.

And then, from here, it's kind of like teamwork.

-For Bobby and Jan, the path to connecting their culinary pedigree and their culture wasn't always visible.

-It just smells so good.

-But today, they're one of the strongest promoters of Filipino cuisine in the Bay Area.

-At the end of the day, I was like, "We're two Filipinos cooking our culture."

And as far as I'm concerned, the word "authentic" gets bended and twisted in so many ways.

But, hey, we're both Filipino.

-For us, it's Filipino food.

-Yeah, we both are Filipino, making Filipino food.

So that's what's authentic to us.

-And any authentic dish is best served with friends and beers.

Yes, sir.

-Yes, sir.

That is so good, man.

-Mm-hmm.

-Everything I've been craving.

-Smells like home.

-Goes perfectly well with beer.

-Yeah.

-Indeed.

-I'll do that.

-Cheers, guys.

-Thanks, guys.

Thank you so much.

♪♪ -And now it's our turn to make sisig here in the "Cook's Country" kitchen with Bryan.

And hanging out with Bobby and Jan, they look like cool dudes.

-Yeah, there were a lot of fun to hang out with and really talented chefs.

-Alright.

-So, we're going to start with our pork marinade.

We have 1/2 cup of cane vinegar.

This is used a lot in Filipino cooking.

It's derived from sugar cane.

If you can't find that, you could use rice vinegar or I've even used cider vinegar.

We'll add 1/3 cup of soy sauce.

And then we're going to add our liquid seasoning.

It's 1 1/2 tablespoons of liquid seasoning.

You could find this brand from Knorr or Maggi.

4 teaspoons of granulated garlic.

And 4 teaspoons of onion powder here.

2 teaspoons of kosher salt.

So, this is gochugaru, or Korean chili flakes.

They add a really nice floral note, a nice grassiness, but with none of the heat that you get from red pepper flakes.

So we'll whisk our marinade together, just to combine.

Okay, so, now we can come over and talk about pork.

So, this dish is traditionally made with pig's heads and liver.

Bobby and Jan rethought this dish and used pork belly and pork butt.

So this is about 1 1/4 pound of pork belly.

We've gone ahead and frozen it slightly, so it's firmed up a little bit, and it's easier to slice when it's nice and hard like that.

-Yeah.

And doesn't have any skin on it.

-Right.

Skinless.

We want to cut this into about 1/4- to 1/2-inch-thick slices.

So, we'll go ahead and just drop these into our marinade.

-Alright.

-Oh.

-And then we can cut up our pork butt.

Same thing, about 1/2-inch thick slices.

This one tends to be a little bit more tricky to slice.

So it's okay if it gets a little bit thicker.

Give this a toss in our marinade.

You want to let this sit for at least 12 hours.

This could go for up to 2 days, but 12 hours will do the trick.

Then, we're going to transfer it to a zipper lock bag.

This just smells so good.

-It does.

-We'll drop the rest of this marinade in there.

Perfect.

I'm going to remove the air from that.

And we can just drop this in the refrigerator.

We'll let it go for at least 12 hours.

But if you're going to be here in a couple of days, you know, I'll let it go for a couple of days.

-Okay.

-Alright, Julia, it is a beautiful day for grilling.

-It is a beautiful day.

-We have our fire set up.

And what I have here is a half-grill fire.

I've cooked down in the chimney 6 quarts of charcoal briquettes till they get coated with a light gray ash.

I pour them over half the grill.

The reason for that is because we're cooking very fatty meats today.

So, it's pork belly and pork shoulder.

-Mmm.

-And as that meat cooks, it'll drip the fat into the fire, it can cause flare-ups.

So I like to have, like, a safety zone here on the side with no coals, so I can move in case there's a massive flare-up.

-I love it.

The safety zone.

-The safety zone.

So, we're going to start off by cleaning our cooking grate.

Then, we're going to lightly oil our grill with a little bit of vegetable oil.

-Mm-hmm.

-And now we can go ahead and put our pork onto the grill.

We're just going to lay it down.

So, we're going to cook our pork in two batches today.

In case there's a flare-up, I don't want to have too much meat on the grill so it's hard for me to kind of control what's going on.

We do want some charring on this meat, so lightly brown crispy edges.

-Mm-hmm.

So, you mentioned they cook this on a hibachi... -Right.

-...which, you know, is flames.

It's basically charcoal.

What about gas?

Because you're not going to get the flames licking the meat like that.

-No.

You know, you can definitely do it on gas.

It just takes a little bit longer, about 6 minutes per side instead of the 4 minutes that we're working with here.

You can find instructions for that on our website.

Alright, so, you can see nicely charred and crispy, sizzling.

-Mmm-mmm!

-So we'll add the second batch of meat to the grill, and then we'll finish up and go inside.

-Alright.

♪♪ -Knorr Liquid Seasoning is a key ingredient in countless Filipino dishes.

Now, as you can see here, it looks a lot like soy sauce, and it has some flavor characteristics that are similar because both soy sauce and Knorr Liquid Seasoning start with soy.

But what's different here is there's sugars, so it's sweet, and there's MSG, which really ramps up that beefy savory note.

Now, Knorr Liquid Seasoning can be used both as an ingredient in the kitchen and as a condiment on the table.

You can marinate in it, you can use it in sauces, or just put it on as a finishing.

Now, you may be thinking Knorr doesn't sound like a Filipino name, and you're right.

It's actually from the same company that makes the bouillon cubes.

It's a German company that started in the 19th century.

And as they spread across the globe in the 20th century, they created local products designed as convenience shortcuts for home cooks to make dishes that they were already making less complicated.

And that's the origin of Knorr Liquid Seasoning.

It became so popular in the Philippines, they came up with flavor variations.

So you can buy garlic, barbecue, calamansi, which is a very sour citrus fruit, chili versions of this.

There's a lot of flavor in this little bottle.

♪♪ -While our pork is resting, we could prep up some of our other garnishes for the sisig.

-Okay.

-So, I have a serrano pepper here.

I just want to go ahead and slice it very thin, in thin rings.

So, we're going to take half of this and save it for our garnish of our finished dish.

-Alright.

-And the other half is going to go into our pork mixture.

And then we're going to need about 1/2 cup of onion all day.

That's about 1/2 cup there.

So we'll put about half of this into our pork mixture.

And then the other 1/4 cup will go into this bowl.

So we'll add that to our sisig as it cooks in the skillet.

Alright, now our pork is cool enough to handle, so we can go ahead and start chopping that up.

So, we're going to cut this into about 1/4-inch pieces.

Again, you know, like our slices, doesn't have to be perfect.

-Oh, it smells good.

-Alright, so, our pork is in the bowl.

We can go ahead and add the rest of our ingredients.

I have 6 tablespoons of mayonnaise.

So, 6 tablespoons here.

3 minced garlic cloves.

Nod to Bobby and Jan, a little bit more of that liquid seasoning -- 1 1/2 teaspoons here.

And then 1 1/2 tablespoons of calamansi juice.

-Calamansi.

-Have you ever had calamansi?

-No, never.

-Alright, so, this is what calamansi looks like.

-Okay.

-Either shades of orange or green.

The flavor of calamansi is a cross between lemon, lime, and orange, all at once.

It's very sour.

See how adorable that is?

-Oh, yeah.

-Give that a taste.

-Ooh!

It doesn't taste like I thought it would at all.

I was expecting it to be more orangey in nature, but, no, it's lime and lemon.

-Yeah, very floral, right?

-Mm-hmm.

-So, that's in there and we can just mix this all up.

[ Spoon tapping bowl ] Alright, so, that's all set.

To accompany our sisig, we're going to serve garlic fried rice.

This is 4 1/2 cups of cooked jasmine rice.

-Mm-hmm.

-And one of the things I like to do with leftover rice is, it tends to have big clumps in it, so I like to put it in a fine-mesh strainer and I run it under cold running water.

And this way I could break up the clumps with my hands.

That water will stick to those grains.

So when you start to fry the rice, it'll kind of rehydrate and be tender.

So the star of the garlic fried rice show is actually fried garlic.

So we have a skillet here with 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil.

We're going to turn it to medium heat.

We're going to add 8 minced garlic cloves to this.

We're going to let that go until the garlic begins to sizzle and turn golden brown.

That takes about 3 minutes or so.

-A lot of recipes, you see, you don't want the garlic to turn golden because it has almost a slight bitter garlic flavor.

But here you welcome it.

-Right.

It's going to infuse the oil.

It'll give you a nice crunch in the rice.

So our garlic is mostly all browned.

Nice and crispy.

It starts to get sticky and stick to the spoon a little bit.

So we can go ahead and add our rice, along with a teaspoon of kosher salt.

So, we're going to let this rice cook for about 2 minutes.

And what we're trying to do is, obviously, heat the rice up and also distribute that fried garlic throughout the rice.

And once it's done and nice and hot, we can just put a lid on it and set it off to the side.

Alright, our rice is nice and hot.

-Ooh!

I can smell the garlic from here.

-That's a good sign, right?

So we're going to just drop it into a serving dish.

Just give it a little garnish with some sliced scallions.

So, we have here a 12-inch cast-iron skillet that's been heating up over high heat... -Mm-hmm.

-...for a good 10 minutes.

It's really hot.

You can see it's almost starting to turn a little bit white.

-Yep.

-And that's what we want.

So, into our hot skillet, we're going to drop our pork salad mixture.

And you can see how it smokes immediately.

-Yeah!

-Okay, so I want to spread this out into a nice even layer.

And then go ahead and make three little divots for our eggs.

[ Sizzling ] The remaining 1/4 cup of onion.

3 sliced scallions.

-Oh, that looks good.

-Then, we could drop our eggs into our little divots.

And we'll top this with about 1/2 cup of broken chicharrón.

-[ Laughs ] -Fried pork skin.

-Garnish the pork with a little more pork.

-You can never have too much pork.

And then, finally, some thinly sliced serranos -- the remaining half of our serrano pepper.

-Goodness.

-So, and we'll garnish this with a couple of halves of our calamansi like this.

-Mmm.

-Make it real pretty.

And we can drop it over here on this trivet.

-Okay.

-This is the presentation of it.

-Wow!

-And then with the eggs, the skillet still retains a lot of heat.

You always want to keep that handle covered.

Just go ahead and take the eggs and kind of stir them in... -[ Laughs ] -...just right at the end.

-So, they would do this tableside.

-Yeah.

-My goodness, that smells good, Bryan.

Oh, the smells coming out of that skillet are incredible.

-So we're going to get it while it's hot.

So, portion out some rice here.

Okay.

-Thank you.

There are so many smells going on here.

-I know, right?

-I can't wait to taste it.

-Alright, let me portion you out here.

Sure you get a little bit of everything.

So, you can imagine, like, you know, if you have guests coming over or, you know, even in a restaurant setting, just having this in the center of the table, just kind of like a real centerpiece.

And then a little calamansi for you.

-Oh, thank you.

I like how it's warmed up in the skillet, so it's super juicy.

-Nice and juicy.

-Yeah.

I'm really excited to try this, Bryan.

One bite, all in.

That is so good!

-Right.

-There's so many flavors to work through.

But through it all, you taste the heartiness of the pork, and then you taste the garnishes that are nice and fresh.

And then you get the marinade.

Yeah, you get... -Wow!

-...that sourness of the vinegar, that subtle backbone of the garlic and those chili flakes, that kind of grassiness of the serrano pepper.

-I love the base of garlicky rice underneath.

That's just a really nice foil for all the flavors on top.

I can't stop eating this.

It's kind of like the -- every bite, it just gets a little better.

-That means it's working.

-Mmm!

Mm-hmm.

Bryan, this is incredible.

Thank you for showing me how to make it.

-Thank you.

-If you want to make this fantastic, sizzling, spicy Filipino dish, start by marinating pork belly and pork butt in a potent mixture of cane vinegar, Knorr seasoning, and gochugaru.

Char the meat over a hot grill and finish cooking in a ripping-hot cast-iron skillet.

From "Cook's Country" with a big help from our friends Jan and Bobby.

Sisig with garlic fried rice.

This is incredible.

-It's all Bobby and Jan. -Oh!

♪♪ -Buffalo chicken wings are a beloved snack in bars across America.

But the debate about who invented them is a hotly contested topic in their hometown of Buffalo, New York.

One person who claims the popular wings is John Young, an African-American restaurateur who opened Wings and Things on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo in 1966.

His wings were served whole, breaded, and drenched in a spicy, sweet-and-sour tomato concoction called Mambo sauce.

But just mention buffalo wings, and a snack of flats and drumettes doused in hot sauce and butter is usually what comes to mind.

That's the version that many claim was first served at The Anchor Bar in Buffalo in 1964.

There are several variations of the origin story, but they all involve owner Teressa Bellissimo whipping up the wings as a late-night snack for a group of hungry patrons.

Buffalo Mayor Stanley Makowski put his finger on the scale by declaring July 29, 1977, Chicken Wing Day and naming Anchor Bar as the originator.

But a mural across town commemorates John Young, the King of Wings.

Whoever invented the popular snack, wings flavored with spices and seasonings became a national obsession beginning in the 1980s.

And today at "Cook's Country," our simple and tasty soy sauce chicken wings were inspired by our colleague Jessica Rudolph's family recipe.

♪♪ -I don't think you can have too many wing recipes.

Well, we're going to test that notion today because I've had fried, roasted, grilled even.

And I've eaten more wings with my friend here than I could probably count.

-It's true.

-But today Julia is here, and she's going to show us a new way -- at least, to me -- to prepare wings.

-Mm-hmm, I'm really excited to share this recipe with you.

And it's really simple.

It's marinated in soy and it's roasted.

-Mm-hmm.

-You can basically do this with your eyes closed.

-You're ticking all the boxes here.

-You need about 3 pounds of chicken wings.

And I'm just taking the tips off, but saving them.

This, for me, is freezer gold, especially if you like making homemade chicken broth.

And to cut a wing down into its various parts, you just want to cut it right through the joint.

There you go.

Alright, just going to wash my hands real quick.

Here, I have 3/4 cup of soy sauce To this, we're going to add 1/4 cup of brown sugar.

That brown sugar adds a lovely, sweet, caramelized flavor, but it also helps the wings brown a bit in the oven.

-Nice.

I bet it helps with clingability, too.

-Mm-hmm.

Alright, we're going to add a little bit of oil.

This is 1/4 cup of vegetable oil.

And some cayenne.

This is 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne.

So, I'm just whisking this to dissolve the sugar.

We're going to add some garlic.

This is 12 cloves of garlic.

-[ Whistles ] -So, we're just going to smash the garlic, put it in the marinade, and then it's easy to remove the wings from the marinade before cooking.

So you get the garlic flavor, but none of the burny bits.

-That's a great idea.

-Yeah.

So, to smash it, peel the clove, flat of the knife, bap with your hand, and you're all done.

-It's easier than the forehead.

[ Both laugh ] In she goes.

-In goes the garlic.

And in go the wings.

Now, would you mind wrapping that up for me?

The magic marinating time -- minimum of 2 hours.

You can go up to 6 hours, but I wouldn't go longer than that.

They have a tendency to get too salty after 6 hours.

-Gotcha.

-So, 2 to 6 hours.

Give it a good old squoosh.

-Alright, squishing.

-Yep.

We'll put it on a pan.

This just helps make sure if there's any leakage, it doesn't go all over the fridge.

Here we have wings that have been marinating.

-Oh, yeah.

-Alright, soaked up all that goodness.

-Mm-hmm!

-Alright.

Now we're just going to get rid of the marinade and any pieces of garlic.

You can do this with tongs.

I like doing it with my hands, because, again, that garlic will burn in the oven.

I'm just going to place these on the sheet pan.

And of course, this sheet pan has been lined with foil.

And I sprayed that foil with veg-oil spray.

-Good idea.

Anytime you're working with anything with brown sugar in it... -Yep.

-...you better grease that pan.

-Now, you don't have to be this careful about arranging the wings on the pan.

They just really need to be skin-side up... -Okay.

-...so that skin can render.

But you know me.

I'm a creature of habit.

I put the flats in the middle because they're thinner, and I put the thickest ones -- you know, the drumettes with the thicker side -- I put that towards the edge just because that's where it's hotter.

Alright, quick rinse of my hands.

They are ready for the oven.

350 degrees.

Nice and moderate, in the middle rack, a little over an hour -- hour and 5 minutes.

Oho, Bridget, you are in for a treat.

Look at these.

-Mmm.

It smells good.

-I know, that gorgeous browning.

-Oh!

-All that sizzling.

And I didn't have to do a thing.

I'm going to give these a hot second just to chill out before we take them off the platter.

I'm just going to slice up some scallions.

I like scallions on everything.

Alright, that looks pretty good.

Ooh, these wings have settled down just a little.

Time to get them on the platter.

Beautiful, aren't they?

And sometimes, when I get them off, I like to swirl them around, because the fond that is formed on the tray.

-It almost looks like bacon.

-Yeah!

Oh!

-That rendered chicken fat.

Well, and it's the soy and the sugar.

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright.

-Oh!

-Gorgeous, yeah.

Some nice scallions over top.

-Oh!

-This, I mean, low effort... -Yeah.

-...high reward.

-Yes!

-Potentially.

-Yes.

-I'll let my palate be the true judge.

And I like what you brought to the party.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, because this is what goes with a nice wing like this.

-Oh.

-Salty snacks.

-Yeah.

-Carbonated beverage of choice.

-Mm-hmm.

I'm going to give you, yeah, two of each to start.

-Nice.

-Yeah.

-Ah.

-Mmm.

I just love how rendered the skin gets.

-Absolutely.

-It has that very almost sticky texture, super gossamer thin.

-It reminds me of bacon.

It's that somewhat rendered little crisp around the edges.

Sticky.

That meat is gorgeous.

-Isn't it?

-Let's go for the drumette.

One of my favorite bands of the '50s.

-[ Chuckles ] Well, because it's just roasted at 350, the meat is still nice and tender.

And the marinade that's reduced on the outside.

-Oh, my gosh.

-I know, right?

-I mean, the seasoning is all the way through into the meat.

It's not just on the outside.

It's got that sweet, savory, and there's that little creeping of heat coming up there.

Toast to you.

-Mmm.

Cheers.

-Cheers.

What a great recipe.

Loving it.

You're definitely going to want to make these wings at home.

It's so easy.

And they start with whole chicken wings, and split them yourself.

Marinate in a soy, sugar, and spice mixture, and bake for more than an hour to fully render the fat.

And of course, sprinkle some scallions over the top.

So, from "Cook's Country," the easiest chicken-wing recipe you'll ever need -- soy sauce chicken wings.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with product reviews and select episodes.

And those are all on our website, cookscountry.com/TV.

Alright, another bite and then another toast.

-Mmm!

Happy.

-Mm-hmm.

-Cheers.

-Cheers to you.

-Visit our website, where you can sign up for the free "Cook's Country" e-mail newsletter.

For even more of the recipes and stories you love from the magazine and the TV show, cookscountry.com/cooks.

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