MATT BROUSSARD HAD CHOPPED a lot of onions in his career, but one in particular helped set him on the road to fame.

The timing: Peak pandemic, 2020. The scene: Broussard had been laid off from his dream job at Tom Douglas Restaurants as the Seattle restaurant empire temporarily shut down. He posted a how-to video of his expert onion-chopping technique, racking up millions of views in hours. “Wow, that’s crazy,” he remembers thinking after seeing the notifications on his phone.

That viral post ultimately led to millions of followers across the internet, varied pop-ups including Tex-Mex dinners in Seattle, national celebrity collabs and a whole new career for a restaurant chef. Potato gratin stacks, perfect seared steaks, the frijoles charros Broussard ate as a child — his fans on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram literally ate it up.

“I went from freaking, like, cooking at Tom’s to cooking at Jessica Alba’s house that same year, which is a crazy segue,” he says, sitting at the Vivace cafe on Capitol Hill, which is both his old and new stomping grounds.

The Texas native who came to Seattle in 2014 now has a new cookbook and is getting ready to open his own Seattle restaurant near Cal Anderson Park. The book, “Now We’re Cooking: All-Purpose, Laid-Back Recipes” (Simon & Schuster), written with Erin Ryan and Rick Rodgers, debuts Aug. 11 with blurbs from stars like Marcus Samuelsson. It sails forward on Broussard’s reputation for fun, approachable but legitimately educational cooking — restaurant skill with homemade chill.

The restaurant-in-progress is Char the Chicken, aimed at fast-casual family meals. (The new spot is a partnership with the Conscious Hospitality Group and will occupy the old Mt. Joy space.)

Cooking at home for a video audience is “living the dream” at one level, Broussard says, but “Seattle has been good to me, and … I want to give back.”

Tattoos on Broussard’s arms tell part of his life’s story. One is the stylized chicken image from Douglas’s Palace Kitchen. Another reproduces the message Broussard’s grandmother wrote on a Post-it note tucked in his Seattle suitcase in 2014: “Forge your own dream, anything is possible.”

Broussard grew up in Brownsville, an isolated town that was, he writes in the book, “like its own country.” His interests were broadened in his Syrian grandmother’s kitchen, where a mix of cultural influences came together, including his grandmother’s fondness for Italian food and his mother’s slow-cooked beef tongue, and by his own curiosity as “a mixed-race kid of a single mom living on the border.”

His kitchen career started on the line at a Mexican restaurant at age 16, which led to working at a country club, attending culinary school in Austin and opening a burger tavern for a Texas businessman.

What he’d heard of Tom Douglas’s restaurants — local ingredients, fresh presentations, creative without trying too hard — made him think he needed to work for them. Arriving in Seattle with $500; his cat, Ladybird; an interview opportunity and no backup plan, he landed the job — and stayed with the company for six enthralled years.

By the time his onion video went viral, Broussard had been experimenting with videos for years, sharing his kitchen work with friends and family and eyeing a broader audience.

What made @ACookNamedMatt a hit? Forbes writer Leslie Kelly, who dubbed him “the most fun chef to watch on TikTok” in 2020, wrote that it was impossible not to be entertained and inspired by Broussard and the way he connected with viewers. Themes like “Good Soup” and a penchant for flaky salts were visual hits. And, unlike many viral food influencers, he was a professional as well as a natural.

Veering from video to print wasn’t in Broussard’s plans, until he congratulated friend Joanne Molinaro, aka “The Korean Vegan,” on her own remarkable cookbooks and Molinaro said he should try his own. “I don’t think I could. I’m not there yet,” he remembers telling her. But she convinced him a snapshot of his current journey was enough.

Broussard calls the cookbook a group effort, including photographs by Sarah Flotard, whom he met when she worked for Douglas. The restaurant is also part of an overall goal, maybe unusual in the remote world, to surround himself with good people.

“Grandma always taught me positive, you know? She always showed me the smiley faces growing up. My favorite movie growing up was “Forrest Gump,” I don’t know if that tells you anything.”

The real challenge for him, developing the cookbook’s focus, was figuring out how to define his own food. He envied people with a distinctly defined identity.

“I could never claim anything. Maybe that’s my upbringing,” he says. A Hispanic kid with a white-sounding name, a Syrian grandma making him dolmas in a border town. “I don’t fit in, you know? So I guess that’s what I always felt with my food.

“I just cook everything. I just say ‘American.’”

I love melon season. I try to eat melons all the time during the Seattle summer, so I end up buying a lot and letting some get too ripe. This is the soup to make in that scenario. With a pretty garnish of chili flakes and fresh jalapeño, it’s a choose-your-own-adventure of spice, and flavor is layered in every bite. It doesn’t even need cooking — just be sure to serve the gazpacho ice cold. In fact, you might want to pop it in the freezer for an hour or so to give it a deep chill. — Matt Broussard

Serves 6

1 large ripe cantaloupe (about 3 pounds)

½ medium yellow onion, coarsely chopped

½ cup packed cilantro leaves, including thin stems

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 jalapeño chile, seeded and coarsely chopped

1 serrano chile, seeded and coarsely chopped (optional)

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon ground guajillo chile

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Garnishes

¼ cup thinly sliced cilantro leaves

1 teaspoon gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) or additional ground guajillo chile

1 jalapeño chile, cut into thin rounds

Extra virgin olive oil

Prepare the cantaloupe: Peel and seed the melon. Cut enough cantaloupe into a small dice to measure about 2 cups; transfer the diced cantaloupe to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate until ready to use for garnish. Cut the remaining cantaloupe into 1-inch chunks. You want about 6 cups chunked cantaloupe.

Make the gazpacho: Process the cantaloupe chunks, onion, whole cilantro leaves, oil, chopped jalapeño, serrano (if using), lime juice, guajillo, and salt in a heavy-duty blender or food processor. Transfer to a covered container and refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours, or up to overnight.

Garnish and serve: Combine the reserved diced cantaloupe, the sliced cilantro, and Korean chile in a small bowl. (The mixture can be covered and refrigerated for up to 4 hours.)

Ladle the soup into six chilled soup bowls. Divide the cantaloupe garnish among the soups. Top with a few jalapeño rounds, drizzle with oil, and serve immediately.

(From “Now We’re Cooking: All-Purpose, Laid-Back Recipes” by Matt Broussard)