Culinary Chef Fame – Ed Harris From Chopped

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Chef Ed Harris’ unending passion for cuisine has come from working in top New York kitchens, especially his ten years at Buddakan serving as Executive Sous Chef and Dim Sum Chef. Today he is a Consultant Chef, and his eclectic background allows him to play an active role in the planning, creating and supervising new restaurants. I share highlights from my interview here.

Harris’s family moved to New York when he was a teen, and he smiled to share the story of how he got to culinary school. “I had culinary classes in high school, and at that time I didn’t realize how good I was, according to my teachers who encouraged me to look into being a chef,” says Chef Ed Harris.

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“I loved working, and between jobs, I would get cabin fever, and I just had to go find a job. I used Time Out New York as my guide with every restaurant listed, and I would pick the neighborhoods and the restaurants that I liked, and then I would send my resume to them,” says Chef Ed Harris.

“I’d always wanted to work in an Asian restaurant at the time,” says Harris who launched his career at Buddakan based on temp work in the kitchen and the drive to gain experiences where he learned something. And learn he did, working for five years along side of Chef Yang Huang Master Dim Sum Chef at Buddakan who he says, “taught him everything.”

“What I found at Buddakan; it was like home. [When I left] it was really emotional, because we’re all a family there, and I built these relationships at this amazing place to work,” he says. It was Chef Brian Ray, who also helped him get a Chopped Chefs interview.

“Food Network has an office in Chelsea Market, and we’d see each other in the hallways. One producer approached Chef Brian Ray, he knew it would be amazing for me if I got it, and he even trained with me,” says Chef Ed Harris. “My training was more along the lines of having random ingredients given to me and using my brain to come up with something quickly that is a cohesive dish,” he says, adding this approach provided life-long learning, too.

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And even the ingredient combinations proved challenging. “The dessert round was the most challenging. They gave us cheese, rutabaga, frozen cranberries and English muffins,” he says, adding a creative idea of adding brie to whipped cream saved him, by stabilizing the whip cream so it didn’t melt on the plate while waiting for judging in the hot kitchen. For the dish that won Chopped chefs Season Four, he did a traditional Asian technique on steamed fish with aromatics and hot oil paired with purple cauliflower with wasabi roasted on the outside.

Competitions have informed Chef Ed Harris’s menu design, and he says really knowing how to treat vegetables has been his inspiration. “Before I even turned vegan-ish—I like to say that because I’m not a hundred percent vegan—but a lot of people don’t realize that vegetables can be really delicious and appealing. If you’ve been eating over-cooked, gray vegetables prepared by someone that doesn’t know how to cook them, you kind of get tainted.

“My big thing after competing on Chopped Chefs is convincing people a new way of understanding how to treat vegetables and how to cook them without overcooking them. They can still be vibrant in color and properly cooked,” he says.

Plus, eating vegetables promotes our immunity from disease. “Your gut flora does its thing way better when you’re getting a lot of fruits, vegetables and fiber in your diet, because that’s what it feeds off. For me, I’m always cooking with ginger, chilies, garlic and onions, that provide so many nutrients, benefits for the immune system as well as tons of flavor,” he says.

Even though he’s a skilled culinary chef, when Chef Ed Harris is off the clock, he keeps the cooking simple at home. “There are a few things we always have. My wife is Nigerian, so they do a tomato sauce, but it’s called stew. We always have that in-house, and I make pasta with that. We eat steamed Jasmine rice, sautéed spinach with lots the garlic.

I do a quinoa salad with charred corn and tons of mushrooms. I love mushrooms, and they’re so good for you,” says Harris, who moved to Atlanta in 2012—a great place to source local ingredients. “I have a local farmer and all he does is grow mushrooms—the most impressive mushrooms I’ve ever used and eaten,” says Harris who goes to Buford Highway Farmer’s Market. “It’s an international market, and they get produce from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, you name it.”

“There’s nothing like it at the moment. Its vegan food done very clean without the heavily processed items people lean toward when vegan,” he says, noting progress on the restaurant halted with Coronavirus.

His time is focused on creating recipes for clients and an occasional special pop-up experience. When Chef Ed Harris is not in the kitchen, he is working with his wife in their hair business taking pictures. They also take time to give back by doing makeovers and donating wigs for women with cancer. Then he cooks for the women with their husbands or families. In his spare time, he works with Autism Speaks, his church and currently homeschooling his three quarantined kid with his wife.

And speaking of quarantine, Chef has a number where people can text him and get vegan recipes or quick tips to make life easier in the kitchen with audio coaching at 404.838.4405. His best advice? “Cook ahead, pre-chop veggies and make sauces you can freeze. Just eat vegetables and fruits. Juice if you can. Build your immune system up. It’s better if you can get it fresh produce, and if not get it dried, not canned.”

And remember, in life, what Chef Ed Harris learned at Food Network works for all of us: keep calm when the heat is on, focus on the ones you love most and following your passion is the spice of life.