Blue Ginger: East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai
by Arthur Boehm, Ming Tsai
List Price:
Our Price: $9.97
You Save: $25.03 (72%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $5.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Arthur Boehm, Ming TsaiBrand: PBS
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-11-09
ISBN: 0609605305
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Book Reviews of Blue Ginger: East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai
Book Review: Excellent Fusion cooking for amateurs. Buy It!
Summary: 5 Stars
`Blue Ginger' is fusion celebrity chef Ming Tsai's first book and the name of his Cambridge, Massachusetts restaurant. It also happens to be a slang name for the Asian spice root, galangal. It has taken me a long time to get to this volume, in spite of the fact that Tsai's second book, `Simply Ming' was one of the first cookbooks I reviewed. But, since I have seen a number of new cookbooks from oriental / fusion chefs lately, I though it was time to catch up with one of my favorite Food Network chefs from the `golden age' when Ming was doing oriental and Mario Batali was doing real Italian cooking.
To put it in a nutshell, this book is both better than many other recent Oriental celebrity chef cookbooks and it is even better than Tsai's second book, which is great if you are cooking for a large family, but less useful if you cook three times a week for only two or three people. Tsai's recipes in this book are, on average very easy for an amateur cook to accomplish and they do not require very many expensive or hard to find ingredients except for those few recipes in the chapter entitled `Over the Top'. What I like best about Tsai's recipes is that they generally use very familiar western cuisine dishes and techniques with Asian ingredients. There are a fair number of exceptions, especially in the `Dim Sum' chapter, but there are virtually no recipes which require a wok, especially since American kitchens are simply not set up to work effectively with a traditional round bottomed carbon steel wok.
Tsai opens his book with a chapter on `East Meets West Pantry' that I find especially helpful and useful compared to similar sections in other books.
His chapters of recipes are:
Soups featuring an Asian gazpacho, a Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup, and a Corn Lemongrass Soup.
Dim Sum with two spring roll recipes, two dumpling recipes, Shu Mai, wontons, oyster corn fritters, and even some sushi and sashimi.
Rice and Noodles with the technique for doing sushi rice and a traditional fried rice recipe and maki rolls.
Seafood with several shrimp recipes plus scallops, mussels, snapper, skate, and trout.
Birds with braised and roasted chicken, quail, and duck.
Meat with an excellent pork loin and tenderloin recipes plus beef, short ribs, and braised oxtail.
Over The Top with caviar, foie gras, truffles, scallops, sea bass, and duck breasts.
Sides with veggie dishes, especially cabbage and mushrooms.
Oils, Dips, and Seasonings with oils, dips, and seasonings.
Desserts, using green tea, glutinous rice, and jasmine rice.
Where Tsai uses a specifically oriental technique, he typically provides a photographic walk-through for the entire method. These are good, but would have been better if the pics had been numbered and the instructions were keyed to the numbered pics.
Otherwise, this is about as good as celebrity chef cookbooks get for amateur cooks who are looking for doable recipes with a new twist and some celebrity cachet.
Very highly recommended.
Summary of Blue Ginger: East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai
John Mariani has called Ming Tsai "the foremost interpreter of East-West cuisine in America today," and the appreciative diners at Blue Ginger, Ming's celebrated restaurant in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and fans of his top-rated Food Network show, East Meets West with Ming Tsai, agree. Now, in his first cookbook, Ming shares the technique and philosophy behind his exciting cross-cultural fare.The key, Ming explains, is retaining a healthy respect for the traditions of each cuisine so that diverse elements can be combined in a harmonious way. His trademark Foie Gras and Morel Shu Mai, for example, elevates a traditional yet simple Asian preparation with a luxuriously sophisticated Western ingredient and transforms a humble dish into truly elegant fare. Prosciutto and Asian Pear Maki is a playful reinterpretation of a Japanese favorite, while Classic Roast Chicken with Sticky Rice Stuffing gives the holiday staple a savory new spin. The result is food that's inventive yet not trendy, complex in flavor but surprisingly easy to prepare.
In chapters devoted to Soups; Dim Sum (irresistible starters and bite-sized party fare); Rice and Noodles; Seafood; Birds; Meat; Sides; Oils, Dips and Seasonings; and Desserts, Ming proves again and again how delicious the coming together of East and West can be: Gingered Beef with Leeks and Asparagus, Hoisin-Marinated Chicken with Napa Slaw, Asian Gazpacho with Cilantro-Jicama Cream, and Wok-Flashed Salt and Pepper Shrimp are all quick and straightforward preparations that provide big flavors in every bite. And when it's time to pull out all the stops, a chapter dedicated to Over-the-Top recipes will guide home cooks through an array of showstopping dishes that dazzle with innovative techniques and presentations. Beverage suggestions accompany each recipe to complete the dining experience.
Filled with Ming's tips for working with unfamiliar ingredients and preparations, Blue Ginger is an outstanding introduction to the pleasures of East-West cooking.
Thanks to his cooking program on the Television Food Network, Ming Tsai has gone from chef to culinary celebrity, taking recipes from his Massachusetts restaurant, Blue Ginger, and using them to introduce cooking with Asian ingredients in a most appealing way. Beyond being attractive, serene, and engagingly articulate, Ming Tsai makes cooking with Asian ingredients look easy. This book, a companion to his television shows, offers the same approach and low-key instructions that viewers have come to love. To fill in the visual details for those who have not viewed the cooking series, the book includes step-by-step black-and-white photos for filling potsticker dumplings, rolling sushi, and preparing sushi rice, as well as glorious color shots of many of the completed dishes.
Tsai's specialty is bringing ingredients and techniques of Asia and the West together. It's not surprising to find Tsai using Asian banana leaves, French foie gras, and Southwestern chipotle chile peppers all at once. In fact, it's only natural for the Ohio-raised son of Chinese immigrants, who trained at the classically oriented Cordon Bleu in Paris and has cooked at U.S. restaurants from San Francisco to Santa Fe. His ability to create easily reproduced, globally influenced dishes is exceptional, and results in delights such as Smoky Turkey Shao Mai (dumplings filled with a chipotle-heated filling) and Asian Gazpacho spiked with ginger and Thai basil. Keeping it simple, Tsai offers a quick roll-up of Prosciutto and Asian Pear Maki. Lemon Basmati Rice, flavored with lemon zest and ginger, or couscous blended with a sauté of onion, scallion, and currants--both are side dishes made in minutes that can dress up a store-bought chicken, grilled meat, or Tsai's salmon teriyaki, creatively flavored with orange juice.
Blue Ginger offers many ways to spice up family meals and dishes to surprise guests without too much effort. Cooking from this book is an opportunity to take Asian ingredients you may have eaten in restaurants and master using them in your own kitchen. --Dana Jacobi
Asian Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Asian Books
Everyday Asian: Asian Flavors + Simple Techniques = 120 Mouthwatering Recipesby Patricia Yeo, Tom Steele
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2005-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
Momofukuby David Chang, Peter Meehan
Clarkson Potter; Published: 2009-10-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.50
Price in other shops:
Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Townby Nir Avieli
Indiana University Press; Published: 2012-04-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.95
Notes from Madras. by A.R. Kenney-Herbert (Great Food)by A. R. Kenney-Herbert
Penguin Books; Published: 2011-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.62
Price in other shops:
Dishes from Indonesiaby Yohanni Jones
David & Charles Publishers; Published: 1978-06; Hardcover; Book
Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United Statesby Andrew Coe
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2009-07-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.64
Price in other shops:
Kylie Kwong: Recipes and Storiesby Kylie Kwong
Studio; Published: 2007-09-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.83
Price in other shops:
Sichuan Cookeryby Fuchsia Dunlop
Penguin Books; Published: 2003-12-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.11
Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape: 100 Recipes Inspired by Asia. by Gordon Ramsayby Gordon Ramsay
HarperCollins; Published: 2011-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.56
Price in other shops:
Ching's Chinese Food in Minutesby Ching-He Huang
Harpercollins; Published: 2009-09-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.74
Similar Books and other products
Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchenby Paul Prudhomme
William Morrow Cookbooks; Published: 1984-04-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.36
Price in other shops:
Asian Dumplings: Mastering Gyoza, Spring Rolls, Samosas, and Moreby Andrea Nguyen
Ten Speed Press; Published: 2009-08-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.98
Price in other shops:
Asian Flavors of Jean-Georgesby Jean-Georges Vongerichten
Clarkson Potter; Published: 2007-10-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $24.90
Price in other shops:
Simple to Spectacular: How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophisticationby Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Mark Bittman
Clarkson Potter; Published: 2000-10-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $23.99
Price in other shops:
The Asian Kitchenby Kong Foong Ling, Ming Tsai, Cheong Liew, Luca Invernizzi Tettoni
Tuttle Publishing; Published: 2007-11-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.69
Price in other shops:
Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cookingby Masaharu Morimoto
DK Publishing; DK Publishing; Published: 2007-08-20; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.18
Price in other shops:
Simply Ming - The Complete Collection (Discs 1-3)PBS; Release date: 2005-06-07; DVD
Best price: $20.96
Price in other shops:
Ming's Master Recipes (based on the Public Television series SIMPLY MING)by Ming Tsai
PBS; Simply Ming; Published: 2005; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.93
Simply Ming: Easy Techniques for East-Meets-West Mealsby Ming Tsai, Arthur Boehm
PBS; Clarkson Potter; Published: 2003-10-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.90
Price in other shops:
Simply Ming One-Pot Meals: Quick, Healthy & Affordable Recipesby Ming Tsai, Arthur Boehm
Kyle Books; Published: 2010-11-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.35
Price in other shops: