Cooking Crusade

Do you guys have a family favorite Chinese restaurant? I think everyone has one. Its kind of a tradition, isn’t it?

I’ve been going to the Golden Singapura since I was knee high to a grass hopper. A family fave, we still occasionally frequent this place, although I have to admit, less frequently in the recent years, mostly because my Mum is less of a fan of takeaway foods these days. (She’s become a staunch vegan in the last year or so.)

Ever since I started dating my fiance, we discovered a new place close to his family’s home which has quickly become a favorite. Even though it’s not close to his place or mine, whenever we visit his family, we love visiting this place!

I still remember the first time I ever visited Eastern City Chinese restaurant – we were with some friends from Mike’s church who frequently there and after that first time, we were hooked. We had many Sunday night dinners which quickly through the years turned into countless family and birthday dinners.

Oh Eastern City Chinese restaurant, I heart you!

Here are some recent pics of a yummy dinner there recently Pics are a teensy bit dark, sorry bout that peeps!

Honey chicken

Peking Style Beef Strips – Amazing! We order this every time we come..

Mike’s brother’s fave, Mongolian Lamb

Salt and pepper tofu

The chef always makes these amazing little carrot carvings with the dishes – so much detail!!

Who could forget dessert?
Deep fried ice cream with caramel sauce

Vanilla Ice Cream with Lychees

My absolute fave dishes have to be:
Peking style beef strips
Sweet and sour fish
Pan fried snake beans (we generally ask for these without pork, but they do come with them by default)

Eastern City Chinese restaurant is located at:
7 Hillcrest Road
Pennant Hills NSW 2120
Phone number: (02) 9875 1411

They’re also a stone’s throw from the Pennant Hills Train Station if you’re traveling by public transport and as a side note, they also do takeaway!

If you’re in the area, definitely give this one a try!

xoxo
Christine

Every once in awhile, I’m hoping to post up quick tips to help you guys around in the kitchen.

This post is the first of it’s kind in the Quick Tips segment.

On today’s quick tips segment, we have ………Cake decorating tips and our fabulous rice-shaping technique, guaranteed to make your rice look well, as pretty as a picture. Remember those Sunrice ads when we were little – the rice used to shape itself into all kinds of magical shapes? Well.. this is sorta like this… but not as cool. Sorry.

Ok starting off with cake-decorating tip of the day. This isn’t anything special or complicated. In fact, it only involves 1 decorating tool – strawberries.

I made this cake for my boyfriend’s mother’s birthday. I did *attempt* to try and make swirly patterns in the icing, but it wasn’t the right consistency, so it kinda fell out. You can kiiiinda see them in there. That’s a lesson for another day, folks.

Ok, so after you ice your cake, wash and halve strawberries. You can remove the leaf part at the top if you like, but I think the green and red go together very prettily and its easy enough to just pick off. Then place your strawberries, leaf side up on the cake in a pattern around the cake until you have reached the other side of the cake. If you have some spare strawberries, you can arrange them in the centre, as I have done. If not, it still looks equally impressive. Super-super easy. This goes just as well over a cheesecake or any other cake of your choosing – but I think it goes quite well with a chocolate cake. The best thing is how easy it is and it seriously makes the cake look way better than just plain (or my usual decoration of……sprinkles. lol.)

Next up is our rice shapin’. This one is in the shape of a heart. I was lucky enough to get these adorable heart-shaped Maxwell & Williams bowls for Christmas from my boyfriend’s grand-parents. I love them. They come in three different sizes and I use them all the time. They’re handy for dips and snacks when we have people over, but I also like to use them for this.

(Sorry this photo is a little dark. I took a couple with the flash but it overexposed and you couldn’t see the outline of the rice as well, boo.)

Anyway, getting back to the post…

Making this rice-heart shape is so incredibly easy. You don’t have to use a heart shaped bowl either. My mum uses small round Chinese bowls to shape the rice to a perfect round bowl-shape, like they do at some Chinese restaurants. Just pack the rice into the smaller bowl that you are using (you can use a the rice paddle or just a metal spoon) until it is quite compressed. Then place the bowl gently down on your plate and bam, pretty rice. It’s important to pack the rice into the bowl so you don’t get stray grains going everywhere. You could also make shapes with fried rice, which also looks quite good.

Hope these tips have helped! What kind of handy or special tips do you have in the kitchen? I’d love to hear about it in the comments

xoxo

Christine

I got the inspiration for this one from Anh’s food blog, specifically her recipe for roast hoisin chicken and I came up with this chicken cashew nut salad.

I made a chicken marinade using hoisin sauce, grated ginger, sugar, some maple syrup and some soy sauce. I used about 1/2 jar of hoisin sauce, a couple tablespoons of soy, about 2-3 tablespoons of brown sugar, a good sized heaped teaspoon of grated ginger and a dollop of maple syrup. I poured everything into a lee kum kee hoisin sauce jar I had leftover and shook the whole mix up, ensuring the sugar would incorporate with the mixture. After shaking it for about a minute, I marinated chicken thighs in several tablespoons of it (so they were thoroughly coated) in a glass bowl for about an hour, then roasted them in a shallow dish for about 1 hour at about 170 degrees in a hot oven until they were a lovely dark golden colour and cooked through. Keep the rest of your marinade in the fridge for next time!

I allowed the cooked chicken to rest for about ten minutes, then I sliced the meat into strips and placed them on top of a green salad (I used a simple Coles bag o’ salad, but you could just use a mixture of rocket, spinach and whatever else you fancy. I also added one chopped up cucumber.) Dress the salad with a simple mixture of balsamic and honey and sprinkle with cashew nuts. Serve. Yum-yum! Low-carb, high protein

Give this one a try!

xoxo
Christine