Christine Ha - Recipes from My Home Kitchen Asian and American Comfort Food from the Winner of MasterChef Season 3 on FOX

For my parents, especially my mother, who lives on through me and these recipes.

Christine Ha walked into my life with a white cane and a brilliant dish on the first day of the third season of my FOX show, MasterChef. She was competing with 99 other home cooks for a coveted white apron and a place in the MasterChef kitchen... and she was blind. I thought Id seen everything in my 20-odd years in the culinary industry and 3 years as host of this globally captivating TV cooking competition for amateurs. But a blind contestant? All sorts of questions were running through my head. How would she handle hot stoves? What about sharp knives? Would she chop off her fingers?

But that first dish Christine made for usClay Pot Catfish with Quick Pickled Cucumbers and Carrotswas both unbelievable and unforgettable. It had a depth of flavor that tasted as though it had been cooking for hours, though Christine had created the dish from scratch in just 60 minutes. I was pretty intrigued and impressed that this dish had been made by an amateur, let alone someone without the ability to see what she was creating. It was unimaginable to me. It was clear that this was a woman who was using each of her other sensestouch, hearing, taste, and smellto elevate her cooking to an extraordinary level. I was really excited. I also felt immediately that, in Christine, we had a young woman whose unique story and life experience could be a powerful and inspiring tool to help others achieve their dreams. While there were often doubtful voices around me, I had faith that Christines blindness could, in a very strange way, almost be an advantage.

I am very pleased to say that I was right! Christine went on to eliminate each and every contender and nail the title of MasterChef USA. Her dishes just kept getting better and better. Her signature Asian-influenced comfort-food appetizers, entres, and desserts demonstrate an innate connection to flavor and texture that I rarely experience in professional chefs, let alone amateur cooks. An equally talented writer, Christines dishes immediately whisk you off into her imagination. She embodies the essence of what it takes to become a great cookery writer.

In the short amount of time since Christines taken the MasterChef crown, shes gone on to judge MasterChef Vietnam and inspire thousands of people around the world with her against-all-odds story, brilliant cooking demonstrations, and motivational speeches. Shes also turned in her masters thesis in creative writing at the University of Houston and, now this, her first cookbook.

I love Asian food. Ive enjoyed some of the best dishes of my life during my trips to Asia. But I know that these foreign flavors can often be intimidating to others who dont have that heritage or experience of traveling in the Far East. But have no fear. Christine has taken those flavors by her Texan bullhorns and created a huge array of delicious dishes with both Asian and Southern influences and turned them into simple recipes perfectly suited to the modern home cook.

I hope that you enjoy taking inspiration from Christines phenomenal first book. Ive had the great fortune of tasting many of her dishes. Now its your turn.

Gordon Ramsay

I did not grow up cooking by my mamas side. I am not one of those people who can say Ive always loved food and have been cooking since I was old enough to hold a spoon. Quite the opposite, actually. My aunts and uncles tell stories of how, as a child, I used to be an extremely picky eater, taking hours to eat a bowl of rice, often turning it into porridge with my tears. My mama forbade my leaving the table until every grain of rice was gone. One time, I snuck away and flushed my food down the toilet. You didnt eat all that food in 10 seconds, she said. My mama was no fool.

I left for college with only three recipes in my culinary repertoire: scrambled eggs with toast, frozen pizza, and instant ramen. When I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment next to campus, I was suddenly without the convenience of a cafeteria meal plan. Instead, I found myself standing in the middle of a 5-by-4-foot linoleum-floored kitchenette with faded Formica counters and a cracked ceramic sink. I purchased my first set of knives and cookware for less than 50 dollars. Then I went to a secondhand bookstore and bought an Asian recipe book.

I first tried to make a noodle soup in which the dumplings broke and the broth became cloudy with starch. My roommates pursed their lips and shook their heads, leaving me to eat my murky meal alone. My next cooking experiment was ginger braised chicken. The tantalizing aromas of onion, ginger, and fish sauce filled our cozy apartment. This time, my friends were more than eager to trust my cooking and even asked for seconds. The notion that I could create something that evoked joy in others was deeply fulfilling, and this became the impetus for my desire to master all things culinary. It is a lifelong journey, and I still learn something new in the kitchen every day.

Unfortunately, when I began my love affair with the culinary arts, I struggled with an equally disheartening diagnosis of neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and subsequent vision loss. I recall being home alone one afternoon in 2007, shortly after my vision had worsened to the level it is today. It felt as though I were floating through a continuous fog. I was hungry and so made my way to the kitchen by feeling along the walls. I retrieved what I knew to be peanut butter and jelly but had trouble spreading them onto the bread. Globs of strawberry preserves covered the counter, and only one corner of the sandwich was covered with a clump of peanut butter. In putting together the sandwich, I misaligned the slices and ended up with jelly dripping down my arm. I remember being so upset with myself and my incapability that I just tossed the whole thing into the trash and cried.

Only a few years earlier, I was preparing the entire Thanksgiving dinner for my family. And now, I had trouble making a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I thought I might have to give up cooking forever, and this broke my heart.

With the encouragement and support of friends and rehabilitation counselors, however, I eventually gained the determination and adaptive tools to cook again. I relearned how to use a knife with more precision and care. A talking thermometer, a beeping liquid measurer, extra-long fire-retardant oven mitts, and other tools helped me make my way around the kitchen safely again. Perhaps most importantly, I learned to rely on my other senses in preparing food. It took months, maybe even years, for me to relearn how to cook an entire meal, but when I think back to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich Id muddled 6 years ago, I am reminded of how far Ive come.