AS a child, Michelle Tchea remembers pretending to host her own cooking show in her kitchen with shredded paper as mock pasta.

Perched on a chair behind her kitchen bench, she even had her own signature sign-off down to a fine art.

Fast forward to today, and the 27-year-old Knox resident will next month release her first cookbook, Building a Perfect Meal , describing it as a combination of her Chinese heritage, love of eating, and background in biomedical science and chemistry.

"The experimental scientist comes out when I'm in the kitchen," she said. "My mum's family is in the food business and my grandfather started his own noodle business in Taiwan many moons ago. His small restaurant in California still churns out more than 1000 handmade dumplings a day."

Tchea's motivation was sparked when the dining-at-home trend kicked in a few years ago.

"I noticed that most of my friends could not cook simple dishes. Mashed potato came out of a packet, beans were not tailed. I thought, my friends need help."

And so began her bid to create simple recipes that can be whipped up into a tasty meal to entertain friends. On the menu are Japanese-inspired tapas, Indian curry puffs, Sunday morning crispy crepes and desserts for the sweet-tooths.

Tchea is now travelling through Europe where she hopes to learn some tricks of the trade from some of the world's best chefs.

She also is still aiming to live out her childhood dream of having her own cooking show. "More female chefs and cooks need to be on television," she said. "I will definitely be writing more books, but I hope to bring my recipes and travel stories to the television."

Building a Perfect Meal will be available at major bookstores from February or online at amazon.com.