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CNN Live At Daybreak
Interview with Ming Tsai
Aired August 30, 2002 - 06:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: You know it's always difficult to come up with delicious new recipes that are actually good for you. I know. I know you know that -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.
COSTELLO: But with the hectic back-to-school season getting started, we decided to help you parents out. Culinary expert Ming Tsai has a new book out called "Blue Ginger" that is packed with the great East-West cuisine.
The Emmy award winning cooking show host joins us live this morning from Wellesley, Massachusetts.
MYERS: It's Ming!
MING TSAI, HOST, "EAST MEETS WEST": Hello.
MYERS: Ming, good morning.
TSAI: OK, how are you guys doing?
MYERS: Good. Where's your dad?
TSAI: How's my dad?
MYERS: Because he's always out there with you sometimes. I love how you kick him out of the kitchen sometimes.
TSAI: Yes, well, he was grabbing the tofu with his hand, you know. Come on, you got to be sanitary.
Thanks for having me.
COSTELLO: Oh, we're thrilled to have you.
So, first of all, explain to people who don't watch your show on the Food Channel what is East-West cuisine?
TSAI: You know East-West cuisine in a -- in a nutshell is a combination of Eastern and Western techniques and ingredients that produces a food that is most importantly bold in flavor. I love contrasting textures and temperatures. And at the end of the day, inherently healthy...
COSTELLO: Oh, see that's the key word.
TSAI: ... and fun to make.
COSTELLO: So you take...
TSAI: Yes, I think...
COSTELLO: Out of the American cuisine you take the fat stuff out and put in the Asian good stuff.
TSAI: Exactly. You're not going to take all the fat out now, you don't want to make it dry. But -- and for example, this is where all the flavors in this dish. This is a Hoisin chicken marinade. It's made with the traditional Hoisin paste, has a little bit of sambal, which is that nice spicy chili paste, and garlic and ginger and scallions.
COSTELLO: What's that stuff in that bowl?
TSAI: This is just chicken breasts.
COSTELLO: Oh!
TSAI: Two or three chicken breasts. If you have the large ones cut up. And all you do is you marinate this chicken. I mean I'm making this light. You're going to see how easy this is to make.
MYERS: Ming, I...
TSAI: Let this sit for 15 or 20 minutes. Yes.
MYERS: I found, I think it's called Marukan or something. I don't know how to say it, the seasoned rice vinegar. Absolutely...
TSAI: Yes.
MYERS: ... love it.
TSAI: I love that stuff.
MYERS: I can put it on a salad, a little bit of olive oil and I need nothing else.
TSAI: Oh God, yes! You should be doing this segment.
MYERS: I mean do you use that kind of product too?
TSAI: Oh absolutely! I think Marukan's a great vinegar.
MYERS: It's not hard to find.
TSAI: And I couldn't -- it's...
MYERS: Used to be hard to find.
TSAI: No, it's naturally brewed. And that's the most important thing, make sure you always use the naturally brewed stuff.
MYERS: I do cook, by the way.
TSAI: So I got the onions in.
COSTELLO: OK.
TSAI: I'm going to add this chicken.
MYERS: Yes.
TSAI: Now keep in mind chicken's going to take in general about five to seven minutes to cook. And we're going to add a little of bell pepper. I'm going to show you a quick trick here that I learned from my French chef. Take off the two ends of the bell pepper, and you're going to take your knife and kind of roll it across that pepper. You see that?
MYERS: Sweet!
COSTELLO: Wow!
TSAI: And if you do that, you end up with all the seeds out. Pretty cool, huh?
COSTELLO: Very cool.
TSAI: That's what they learn you and after 15 years of college.
MYERS: But I can never get a knife that sharp, my friend,...
TSAI: You know this...
MYERS: ... no matter how hard I try. How do you do that?
TSAI: Just -- you can buy this knife. This is a -- this is a clever knife. But you just got to go to a professional shop. We don't sharpen our own knives. We've got someone that comes here, knife expert with his van, and he comes and sharpens the knives for us.
MYERS: Oh, well!
TSAI: That's the way to do it.
MYERS: I see.
TSAI: So as that's cooking, I'm going to go ahead and start making this, as we call, wrap. Take just a regular tortilla. It can be a flour or a whole wheat. I like the texture a little different so I'm going to put just a little bit of lettuce leaf, little bit of fresh jasmine rice.
MYERS: Oh I love that.
TSAI: I love rice in my burritos. I used to live in San Francisco. They always put rice in their burritos. And here we have some chicken that's fully cooked. Going to add a touch here. MYERS: Well E.F. Gangs (ph) always does the little chicken wrap with the leaf of lettuce, and I love that little appetizer too.
TSAI: Oh yes, the Vietnamese, absolutely. And check that, I'm just going to wrap it up like this.
COSTELLO: Oh how simple.
TSAI: And I'm going to serve this -- going to serve this some potato chips. And this is actually one of the products that liked (ph) when I partnered with Target. We're like, you know what, we can do the Hoisin stuff, but you might want to think about doing stuff that maybe kids might like more. And we have some Asian potato chips.
Over here we actually have a whole bunch of other cool marinades and salts and spices. We even did a five-spice shortbread cookie and a double chocolate ginger chip cookie -- just awesome, guaranteed.
MYERS: Wow!
COSTELLO: Ming's -- this is Ming's plug time.
MYERS: So that's -- you're -- that's at Target you said -- Ming?
COSTELLO: Oh, Chad!
TSAI: That's at Target, absolutely.
MYERS: No, I would like to go there and find some of those products. I really would.
COSTELLO: Ming really loves you now.
MYERS: Hey, you know what,...
TSAI: Absolutely. You know the whole idea though is to easily bring East-West -- East-West cuisine into your household because all these great flavors, a lot of people can't find this stuff. And...
MYERS: Exactly.
TSAI: ... I get tons of e-mails at Food Network and it's hard to find this stuff. So here we've kind of taken that step out and it's easy to do. I mean you saw how hard that was, right?
MYERS: Ming, I go to my farmer's market and these guys have food from every country in the world. And I walk in there and I go...
TSAI: It's incredible.
MYERS: ... what am I doing, you know? And if you can make it easy for me, I appreciate that.
TSAI: And you know here's another dish that we knocked out. This is perfect for kids. This is what I call a burger dog. And I actually took regular meat, mixed it with a little bit of Asian lamb and meat marinade. Shape it into a hot dog form and cook it up and we serve it with some Asian slaw and a little bit of more chips.
COSTELLO: Yes, because you know with kids, you know you have to make food look fun, too, and they're more likely to eat it.
TSAI: Absolutely! And there's nothing better than having something in your hands. I think -- I think kids like to eat wraps and sandwiches. I'm a huge sandwich fan. I'll put anything, practically anything between two slices of bread.
COSTELLO: Got you. Good advice. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
TSAI: Thank you so much. Thanks, Carol, appreciate it. Have a good time.
MYERS: Thank you, Ming.
COSTELLO: You've made Chad days. Chad's day is made.
MYERS: You know I do cook. I cook probably 95 percent of the meals at my house so...
COSTELLO: Good for you.
MYERS: ... because I'm home first, you know. And when Sally (ph) comes in, the food's already ready to go. So always looking for something new.
COSTELLO: That is a perfect man -- Chad.
MYERS: No.
COSTELLO: Unbelievable!
MYERS: No, no, no, no.
COSTELLO: Hey, we're going to put up Ming's Web site.
MYERS: Oh good!
COSTELLO: If you'd like more on the recipes that Ming just demonstrated, all you have to do is log on to Ming.com. That's easy to remember.
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: Ming.com -- his Web site is packed with ideas and information. So if you want to know more, go there.
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