Traditional Irish Soda Bread

I couldn’t find any buttermilk around the neighborhood so I replaced it with skim milk.

My traditional Irish soda bread has a rough surface cos I didn’t knead the dough and smoothen it with flour.

It’s a little too heavy but overall does taste like bread and its goes very well with kaya and butter.

Ingredients
- 2½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 - 1¼ cups buttermilk

Preparation
- Preheat oven to 350F (177°C).
- In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients and stir together.
- Make a well in the center and add 1 cup of the buttermilk, reserving ½ cup.
- Combine dry ingredients and buttermilk with a fork.
- Gradually add more of the remaining liquid until a soft dough is formed.

- Knead the dough lightly on a floured surface for 1 minute.
- Form into a slightly flattened circle.
- Place on a parchment lined (or silicone baking mat) cookie sheet.
- Mark a large ½-inch deep X with a sharp knife and bake soda bread for 40-45 minutes.
- The bread is ready when it is golden and sounds hollow when tapped

Lunch @ Alexandra Village

Our sumptuous lunch with luo han guo herbal tea @ $1.50.

Mutton @ 50 cents each
Pork @ 40 cents each

Kway teow prawn soup @ $3.

Bee Hoon prawn soup @ $3.




Busy busy busy...
One of the best satay around.



Prawn fritter from Lina Confectionary.

MK Restaurant, Bangkok

Finally I got down to edit and uploaded this clip that I captured on Day 5 at MK restaurant in Bangkok.

At 1pm Bangkok time, the waiters and waitresses started to dance for about 1 min.

Dippin'Donut

James bought Dippin’Donut from VivoCity last night.

While I find them ordinary, James has a lot to comment about the quality and presentation.

And their website is forever under construction.


Dono wat.

Chocolate and coconut flakes.

Cinnamon.

Chocolate with something.

Peanut butter.

Sharing...

Dinner

The tempura didn’t turn out as expected partly due to the soda water. I happen to have a can of ‘Anything’ and I assumed it was white cos the previous can was white!

Turns out its dark brown… tasted just like coke.

Anyhow, I used it for the tempura batter and everything turns out brown. Taste wise, it’s pretty close to tempura.

I also forgot to make little cuts on the inside of the curved prawn so that they look nicer with straight posture.

Tempura Batter
- ½ cup corn flour
- ½ cup plain flour
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- ¾ cup cold soda water

Instructions
- Sift flour together
- Add egg & soda water and mix until combined
- Allow batter to stand for a few minutes
- Dip prawns in batter and allow excess to drain away
- Deep fry prawns until batter is lightly browned & prawns have turned pink & are cooked through.

Another tempura recipe:
- 1 egg
- 1 cup ice water
- 1 cup all purpose flour

Instructions
- Beat an egg in a bowl.
- Add ice water in the bowl.
- Be sure to use very cold water.
- Add sifted flour in the bowl and mix lightly.
- Be careful not to overmix the batter.


Deep fried prawns coated with tempura batter.

Deep fried fish fillet coated with tempura batter.

Steam pomfret fish with oil, light soya sauce and ginger.

Old cucumber, potato, veg, dates and wolfberries soup.

Credit Cards

I called HSBC to waive my credit card annual fee. Before I could tell her that I wish to cancel the card (if she had refused to waive), she offered 2 options that I could take to waive the annual fee.

The previous year, they probed further as to why I wasn’t utilizing the card as much and offered to let me hold on to 1 card (instead of 3).

Option 1: Use the card for 3 transactions regardless of amount within the month of November.

Option 2: Use my rewards points (60) to waive off.

So far, I have only used the card to purchase movie tickets at Golden Village to enjoy $1 off. And I seriously doubt I will be using it for any other purchases next month.

Since my miserable 60 rewards points are useless, I used it to offset the annual fee. No harm keeping the card for another year.

Not too long ago, I called OCBC to waive the annual fee of one of my cards and they too encourage usage of the card after waiving off the fee.

Very soon will be UOB’s turn.

I think all the credit cards issuing company will have to adopt MayBank’s brilliant strategy – No annual fees ever (except for Platinum). Just charge xx times in a year and the annual fee is waived.

TV Licence Advice

James received a mailer from MDA asking if he has a TV set installed in the property… I don’t mind if they are going to us one.

MDA is informing us that as of 18/10/2007, there is no TV Licence issued to our property.

Shocked! We committed a crime! We have been cheating on the government, watching free "free-on-air" TV programmes for almost a year!

Can’t recall what went wrong but we happily assumed it was automatically deducted together with the property tax. At least that was what they did with my soho’s TV licence i.e. after first applying at the post office.

We have to pay a prorated amount of $21.01 for the rest of year.

In the meantime, I shall have to fake ignorant and tell every stranger who come knocking on the door… “… wat u wan? I dono… Sir no in…”