Cuisine & Culture the Chinese Family Way
As Christmas is drawing near, Beefeater has launched their Festive Menu to get everyone in the mood! Of course, you don’t always have to have Turkey, you can pick delicious salmon, succulent steaks and many more. There is also a Children’s Festive Menu too! Visit their website for your local Beefeater opening hours, make bookings and check for offers.
Do you know how to lay the perfect Christmas Table? I bet some people will struggle like me just to try to identify the different types of knifes! As a Chinese person, we were brought up to use chopsticks and spoons. I always found it hard to work my way into those fancy cutlery sets while have a formal meal. Luckily through this event, I was able to learn and pick up tips from Simon Price, the fourth generation Arthur Price.
The Swiss Roll is one of my all-time favourite cakes and I usually buy them from the Chinatown supermarket or bakery shop! The recipe that I love is where the sponge is always very light and thick which makes it so tasty. Since earlier this year, I have been trying different recipes, watching YouTube channels for inspiration and after a few attempts, I think I have found a great recipe that bakes a great sponge.
Bubba Gump Shrimp Co is a restaurant that was first opened in California based on the film Forrest Gump and has since expanded to multiple locations worldwide including London! It is located near Piccadilly Circus tube station, which is very convenient and easy to find! If you happen to be out in the West End, why not visit this awesome place that is filled lots of Forrest Gump film props.
If you’ve had a hard day of shopping at the Birmingham Bullring, why not treat yourself to a nice Afternoon Tea at Chi Kitchen on the 3rd Level inside Debenhams!
Love cheese? Welcome to the club! We love cheese in this household especially Mr C and Mr K. They are huge cheese lovers, from eating cheese sandwiches to a tasty cheesy fish pie! I always try to cook at least one portion of fish each week to make sure my family get their omega 3 and other nutrients. And fish pie is one of our favourite dishes to eat during the week.
To celebrate the 3D Blu-ray™, Blu-ray, DVD release of Captain America: Civil War, which will be out on the 5th September, and with children going back-to-school, I was asked to come up with a healthy superhero back-to-school lunch box idea.
******** Please note – Permanently closed ********
Chi Kitchen is a contemporary Pan-Asian restaurant created as an exclusive departmental brand for Debenhams. Currently, there are two restaurants opened in London and Birmingham. The ground floor in Debenhams Oxford Street can accommodate up to 68 guests. While the third floor of Debenhams in the Bullring, Birmingham, can accommodate 108 guests, with both sites also featuring a welcoming champagne bar. Their menu, offers a great variety of tasty and exotic food influenced by Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean food.
Earlier this January, Robinsons launched the Enjoy Drinking More Water campaign as part of a mission to get brits to enjoy drinking more water. Have you joined in yet? We were thrilled to take part in this campaign at the London Wetland Centre and to learn the importance of enjoying drinking more water to keep us hydrated.
Hello Fresh not only deliver fresh ingredients but it also comes with a lot of inspirational recipes for you and your family to try out. I love that they supply you with the exact ingredients and different recipes each week. Also last year, they worked with Jamie Oliver to give their customers more options to try out Jamie Oliver’s recipes.
Making your own sushi is a great way to get your children involved in making and eating healthy nutritious food. If you have read my Jamie Oliver Food Revolution post, you would probably know why it is so important to get children involved and pass your skills to them. It is a life skill and it will help them in the long run.
Earlier this week, I was invited to attend the HelloFresh and Jamie Oliver Food Foundation event at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Restaurant. I got to meet Patrick Drake, Head Chef and co-founder of HelloFresh, Danny from Jamie’s Food Foundation and their team to learn more about the Food Revolution.
Every May, they hold Food Revolution Day to celebrate success, raise awareness and invite more people, businesses and governments to join the ongoing Revolution. They want this to be an ongoing, global campaign to provoke debate and inspire positive, meaningful change in the way we access, consume and understand food.
This month, they want you create a healthy omelette that symbolises your nation through the ingredients and methods used to create it. It could be a spice that originated from your country, leeks that are grown down the road, something from local history or even using veg that has the same colours as the national flag. The closing date is 3rd June 2016 using hashtag #FoodRevolution to enter via your social media platform.
Since January 2016, HelloFresh has been partnering with Chef Jamie Oliver by introducing Jamie Oliver’s recipes into their boxes. Now HelloFresh customers from UK, Germany, Netherlands and others will be able to cook up a storm using Jamie Oliver’s recipes! If you are not sure what Hello Fresh is, they are food delivery service who deliver a box of all the necessary ingredients direct to your door. There is no waste as it comes with exactly the right ingredients according to the number of people. Also the food is fresh! They will also donate to the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation per Meal Box sold during the partnership. What a great cause!
Starting from today until 14th May 2016, we are celebrating British Sandwich Week. Warburtons are challenging us to invent our ultimate sandwich recipe.
After trial and error, I finally managed to bake a moist and soft Date & Walnut Loaf! This is a Mary Berry recipe but I have personalised it to suit me. Everyone who tried it, loved it especially with the honey cream cheese spread!
Fish Pie is one of Mr K’s favourite meals and he was thrilled to learn he could even make his own fish pie! This is an easy fish pie recipe that does not require many ingredients. This is because we are using Schwartz Fish Pie sauce. This quick and easy pour over sauce comes with everything we need for the fish. It is a thick and creamy sauce with white wine, parsley and lemon that is enough for 4 servings.
Before we baked the fish pie, I cooked the carrot and potatoes to make a mash. Boil the carrot and potato until it is soft to mash. Then add milk, butter, cheddar cheese and pepper into the mash. Set it aside to cool down. Once it is cold, place the mash into a piping bag with a star nozzle to pipe the mash.
