Chow Times » 2007

Kingford Seafood Restaurant in Richmond

Suanne — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Kingford Seafood Restaurant is located on 5890 No.3 Road, Richmond. You cant miss this restaurant as it’s huge glass windows allow one to see through to the chandeliers decorated interiors.

The South Arm Community Kitchen celebrated the end of 2007 session with a Dim Sum lunch at Kingford Seafood Restaurant. We were there around 11:30 am and there was not many customers at that time. I like the ambiance of the restaurant, warmly lighted. This restaurant can accommodate 30 tables.

The dim sum dishes in Kingford Seafood Restaurant are categorized by size, $2.98 for small, $3.98 for medium and $4.68 for large. Special is priced at $5.38. Quite pricey in my opinion.

We ordered quite a lot of dim sum (some in double portions) as we expected more company but some people did not turn up. We ended up with some left over to take away. Here are the dim sums we ordered:

Steamed Prawn Dumplings (medium), springy and delicate …

… Red Bean Paste Pancake (small), a sweet dessert …

… Mixed Mushrooms E-Fu Noodle with Teriyaki Sauce for $10.88 as filler, …

and more desserts to cleanse the palate at the end. The desserts are some red bean custard and some kind of jelly with young shredded coconut in it.

Click on the link to see more Dim Sum.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Kingford Seafood Restaurant in Richmond (156 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2008. | Permalink | 10 comments
Post tags: Chinese, Community Kitchen, Dim Sum, Restaurant Review, Richmond

Roasted Turkey with Stuffing

Suanne — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Jean made a 24 lbs turkey for the Gilmore Community Kitchen Potluck Party. She told us that she woke up at 4.30 am to roast the turkey as it takes 4 1/2 hours to roast such a big turkey. Jean, you are the best.

I know what you all must be thinking. It looked like the Roasted Turkey is all burnt right. But let me tell you, that is the best part. It is not the skin that is burnt but it’s the garlic. Oh yummy!

The turkey is flavourful and moist. Jean demonstrated how to roast the turkey in the kitchen but scale down to chicken for the time constraint.

Ingredients

a whole chicken
celery, diced
onion, diced
chopped garlic
poultry blend herbs which consist of sage, rosemary and thyme or poultry seasonings
lemon
butter
salt and black pepper to taste
bread

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Roasted Turkey with Stuffing (259 words)

Gilmore Park Church Community Kitchen Potluck Party 2007

Suanne — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:00:00 +0000

The Gilmore Park Church community kitchen held a potluck party on the last meeting last year. It has become a tradition for the community kitchen to celebrate the last kitchen of the year with either potluck or eating out.

Jean, who is the leader of this kitchen, made a huge turkey for the potluck. She also demonstrated it in a small scale, i.e substituting the turkey with chicken. I will blog about the Roast Turkey in the next blog.

The members of this group presented a little gift to Jean as an appreciation of her good work.

Here are the food that we had during the potluck:

Jean’s Roast Turkey ….

… and the stuffing from the turkey.

Minoo made Cranberry Sauce from scratch.

Winnie made a very beautiful platter of salad of apples, potatoes, egg, carrot, celery, tomatoes, mandarin oranges, sweet corn, can tropical fruit cocktail and egg roes.

Rowena made a pasta with prawns and ham.

Florence made a prawn fried rice. I’m sure Nanzaro and Arkensen will enjoy this.

Tanni brought some phyllo quiche … bought from Costco.

Habiba brought egg rolls, one of my favourite Chinese New Year cookie, light and crumbly.

I made Cream Cheese Cup Cakes.

Rice Krispies Squares from the kitchen.

Biscotti compliment by Karen, the community kitchen chef.

Lorna brought Frozen Yogurt.

Landa brought mandarin oranges.

Last but not least, Heidi brought drinks. We had a great time and we wished everyone a joyful new year and see you ladies and gentleman in the new year.

Chestnut Braised Chicken

Suanne — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Julie’s second dish is Chestnut Braised Chicken. Late fall and winter is the season for chestnut. I love the roasted chestnut sold at the sidewalk during the cold winter. The piping hot, soft, crumbly and sweet chestnut is so heart warming in a cold day.

The Chestnut Braised Chicken is great to be served with rice. I’m sure my family will love this. We normally just enjoy the chestnuts on its own by boiling them. Now, I learn to use it in a dish.

Ingredients

chicken, cut to pieces
chestnuts
broccoli, for plating
carrot, for plating
green onion, chopped for plating
ginger, minced
garlic, minced
dark soy sauce
salt to taste
rock sugar, few pieces
white pepper
cooking wine
sesame oil

Click on the link below for the instructions.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Chestnut Braised Chicken (327 words)

Shallot Pork Sauce

Suanne — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:00:00 +0000

On the last cooking meet at South Arm Community Kitchen in 2007, Julie demonstrated two Chinese dishes. The first one is a very traditional Taiwanese dish called Shallot Pork Sauce.

The Shallot Pork Sauce is very fragrant as it has lots of shallots in it. The shallots are first fried to crisp and braised with the ground pork.

This Shallot Pork Sauce is great with noodles or rice. Kids will love this.

Ingredients

lean ground pork
shallot (use about 10 to 12 shallots for each pound of ground meat)
dark soy sauce
salt to taste
sugar to taste
ground black pepper to taste
water

Click on the link below for the instructions.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Shallot Pork Sauce (230 words)

Rich White Cake

Suanne — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:00:00 +0000

With the left over egg whites from the Bistro Pumpkin Creme Brule, Karen decided to make a Rich White Cake. We baked the cake in the form of cup cake which is easier to share among us.

This cup cake is very rich as we used all butter instead of half butter and half shortening.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup milk
3 cups sifted cake flour (if you want to substitute the cake flour with all purpose flour, reduce 1 tablespoon of flour for every cup)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
6 egg whites

Click on the link below for the instructions.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Rich White Cake (320 words)

Low Fat Creme Brulee

Suanne — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:00:00 +0000

A Creme Brulee is a custard topped with a thin layer of melted sugar. The melted sugar provides a delightful contrast in textures – the silky, smooth custard against the crackle of the sugar candy top. A traditional creme brulee is a mixture of eggs and cream cooked until the proteins in the eggs coagulate.

This Low Fat Creme Brulee is made from milk, egg substitutes and reduced sugar which brings less guilt when we indulge in this deliciously rich dessert. But yet, it still maintains the silky smooth custard texture that we love.

Ingredients

1 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
2 cups 2% milk
1 cup low fat egg substitute
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar for topping

Click on the link below for the instructions.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Low Fat Creme Brulee (434 words)

Bistro Pumpkin Creme Brulee

Suanne — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:00:00 +0000

Lorna had requested a creme brulee making demo in the Gilmore Park Church community kitchen quite sometime ago. I can’t think of anyone who does not like creme brulee even though it is not exactly the most healthiest dessert around. Karen remembered Lorna’s wish in this week’s cooking meet. So, Karen made not the normal type of creme brulee but two: a Bistro Pumpkin Creme Brulee and a Low Fat Creme Brulee (yippee!).

The Bistro Pumpkin Creme Brulee is made on the stove top. However, this creme brulee does not have a silky smooth custard as traditional creme brulee but it’s quite grainy instead. It’s more like a pumpkin pie filling. Try it for a change particularly around Halloween. It’s a change from the normal creme brulee.

Ingredients

3/4 cup canned pumpkin or cooked mash sweet potatoes
2 1/4 cups whipping cream
1 vanilla bean, split in half or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 egg yolks
1 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 tablespoon finely chopped crystallized ginger

Click on the link below for the instructions.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Bistro Pumpkin Creme Brulee (404 words)

Savoury Muffin

Suanne — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 09:00:00 +0000

Andrea made some savoury muffins in the South Arm Community Kitchen. The savoury muffin is something different from the usual sweet ones like banana muffin, chocolate chip muffin, blueberry muffin and more which you can find in the quick bread category in chowtimes.com.

These savoury muffins are great for school lunch or picnic. It is a complete meal with all the basic food group like grain products, vegetables, milk and meat. What I like about this muffin is its portability. It can be easily fit into a lunch box and can be easily transported in a cupcake caddy.

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter, melted, cooled slightly
4-5 green onions, diced
3/4 cup red bell pepper, seeded and diced
3/4 cup cooked ham, cubed (about 200g)
3/4 cup grated cheese (Cheddar or Harvarti), about 100g

The buttermilk can be substituted with the following:

For each 1 cup buttermilk called for in a recipe, use 1 cup plain yogurt or sour cream or
1 tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar plus enough milk to make 1 cup or
1 cup milk plus 1 3/4 tablespoons cream of tartar or
1/4 cup buttermilk powder and 1 cup water

Usually, when a recipe use baking soda as a leavening agent, it needs an acidic environment for the chemical reaction to take place.

A little side note here, the South Arm Community Centre will be starting a cooking club for seniors in January 2008. It will be held in the South Arm Community Kitchen every 2nd and 4th Tuesday from 10am to 12:30pm. The cost for this program is $3 per session, to cover the cost of the ingredients. This cooking club is intended for seniors to come and meet regularly and cook healthy and nutritious meals. For those interested, you may contact Stella of South Arm Community Kitchen @ 604 718 8070.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Savoury Muffin (183 words)

Caring Place Potluck 2007

Suanne — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:00:00 +0000

The Caring Place Community Kitchen sessions for 2007 ended early this year on 15th November. This is because the kitchen is fully booked for Christmas-related events even five weeks before the Christmas. You know, I feel that Christmas starts earlier every year.

We had a potluck, as usual, to celebrate the closing of this year’s program. It is always great to enjoy each other’s food and chit chat about everything under the sky. I am going to miss meeting the ladies for the next couple of months. Anyway, here is what we had brought to share for the potluck.

Stella made some Banana Apple Walnut Muffins. The large pieces of walnuts studded from the top of the muffins make it very interesting.

Minoo made Lubria Polo which she had demonstrated in the Gilmore Park Church Community Kitchen.

I brought Steamed Rice Cakes (Pak Thong Koh).

Ada brought Mango Pudding.

Amy brought some mash potatoes.

Jean brought two items. Her Matrimonial Squares and …

… Devil Eggs.

Zoe is the best. She made four items, mini cheese tarts …

… peanut salad, …

… milk pudding, …

… and a coffee jelly to be served with coffee creamer.

Ladies (from left, Minoo, Jean, Stella, Zoe, Amy and Ada), thank you for sharing and I had a great time. Also, I had to thank Ruby for dropping by with some Chocolate Chip Cookies even though she is not able to attend the potluck.

I wish everyone a great year ahead.

OK, I am done for the next 1 month … Ben is supposed to start on his humongous New York series tomorrow. Being such a procrastinator, he had not blogged a single word yet. I know he is going to scramble to put it together tonight.

BTW, Ben changed a bit of the way the blog looked. There are some improvement but he had started to what-he-says-is-to “monetize” chowtimes. He had put up a few Google Ads for the last one week and it’s making some money! I hope the ads is not too distracting to you readers out there. Let us know if it does.