Ming Tsai has always taken an East meets West approach to food. That passion has put the chef in the middle of a battle to become the next Iron Chef on the Food Network.
Chef Tsai, who started with a Boston restaurant called Blue Ginger, has a new cookbook, "Simply Ming: One Pot Meals."
Chef Tsai believes there are four basic needs in everyday cooking: taste, healthfulness, simplicity, and affordability. Broken down into seven techniques of one-pot cooking-- including braising, wokking, sauteeing, roasting, high-temperature cooking, tossing, and soups-- the book offers 85 recipes.
Every ingredient can be found at your local market and every recipe will track its salt and fat intakes, as well as allergens. Every meal will feed four for about $20.
Ming was raised in Dayton, Ohio, where he spent hours cooking alongside his mother and father at their family-owned restaurant, Mandarin Kitchen. His love of cooking and eating great food was forged in these early years, while also gaining valuable experience in front and back of the house.
Ming headed east to attend school at Phillips Academy Andover. From there, Ming continued to Yale University, earning his degree in Mechanical Engineering. During this time, Ming spent his junior summer at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris.
After graduating from Yale, Ming worked in kitchens around the globe. He trained under renowned Pastry Chef Pierre Herme in Paris and in Osaka with Sushi Master Kobayashi. Upon his return to the United States, Ming enrolled in graduate school at Cornell University, earning a Master's degree in Hotel Administration and Hospitality Marketing.
