May is Asian Heritage month. The City of Richmond and Richmond Food Security Society once again present Chef Mr. Ian Lai in demonstrations of healthy, fun, affordable and locally sourced Asian inspired cooking. Cooking demonstrations that will inspire you to create fresh and tasty food from the best Richmond and Lower Mainland ingredients. This is Ian Lai’s third year involvement in this event.

Ian Lai shared with us why he keeps coming back to this event. As an Asian with heritage from Canton, China but grew up in South Africa, Ian continues to search what it means to be Asian. He even made a trip to Beijing recently but still unable to find his answer.
Ian realizes that he identifies his Asian heritage through food as he spends a lot of time cooking and enjoying food with Asian flare.

The first recipe that Ian demonstrated is a Mixed Vegetable Chicken Soup. It is a light broth loaded with lots of seasonal vegetables.
Ingredients
- chicken bones from 1 chicken
- 2 pieces star anise
- 2 pieces dried tangerine peel
- 1 chunk of ginger, cut into half and smashed
- 8 to 10 fresh shiitake mushrooms, remove and reserve the stems, slice or quarter
- 1 package of enoki mushroom, remove ends and loosen the needles
- 1 medium zucchini, rough chopped
- 4 to 5 new potatoes or red potatoes (not russet), diced
- 6 to 8 baby bok choy, cut into half
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup oyster sauce
- chopped green onions and cilantro for garnishing
- sambal oelek, optional

Source: Ian Lai
P/S: some of the ingredients above are for another recipe.
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