Bangkok 2014 Day 2: Chatuchak Weekend Market

Day 2: 4 May 2014 (Sun)

Day 2 was going to be a long day of shopping as we were going 3 places. From Erawan Shrine, we walked back to Chit Lom station and took BTS to Mo Chit station to Chatuchak. No change of train is required.

Chatuchak Weekend Market

At Mo Chit station, you don't need any directions as everyone will be going to the same place on weekend. Coming out of the station exit 1, follow the crowd and here we are - Chatuchak Weekend Market. Not yet, you need to pass through the row of stalls before reaching.

It is one of the world's largest weekend markets covers an area of 27 acres, divided into 27 Sections, with more than 15,000 booths selling goods from every part of Thailand. Look at the map! I doubt you can read it cos the place is just too large and you will be in a maze of stalls once you enter the small lanes.

It is opened on Saturday and Sunday only, from 9am-6pm. Do come earlier as when comes to noon time, you will be sweating like mad. To maintain your sense of direction, use the clock tower as the landmark. As first-timer to Chatuchak, we stayed close to the main roads, wandered into the smaller lanes when something interests us. Still we think we only see like 10% of the shops only? Haha!

Not many photos here as busy shopping around.

Things were cheap here. It's not easy to bargain though, maybe we were not so good. The discount they gave was miserable, still cheap though!  It's a wonderful place for shopping except for the heat and sweating. Wear light and have strong legs. :)

Met many Singaporeans here, you will know when you hear Singlish during shopping and eating. :)

Many food stalls here too. We didn't try a lot as a bit worry about the hygiene, you know the food are just displayed outside.

The green skin orange juice is a must try here. Very sweet. 30baht (~$1.19) for a small bottle.

It rained a while during noon time. We had Mango sticky rice 60baht (~$2.38). Too hungry and ate without taking photos. Because of the rain, we went into shelter and stumbled upon this Noodle soup with Chicken stall that was filled up with customers.

I had to try this for sure! A bowl costs 50baht (~$1.98). One braised drumstick, some knuckles, very QQ noodles and the herbal soup tasted heavenly! I don't even know the location. It was only after I came back and googled and found that it is a popular stall at Section 21 Soi 29 facing Soi 47.

Back at the main road near the chicken noodle soup stall.

Sample drinks to try.

We walked left towards the direction of Kamphaeng Phet MRT Station. Spotted the Indonesian milk tea.

Which is beside the famous coconut ice cream. A bit regret that I did not try it. Why??

After spending like 4 hours plus at Chatuchak, we surrendered to the heat and tired legs and off to another location nearby.

Next: Or Tor Kor Market and Asiatique The Riverfront

Bangkok 2014 Day 2: BTS and Erawan Shrine

Day 2: 4 May 2014 (Sun)

As a first-time visitor to Bangkok, of course I must visit all the must-see places here. Since my second day was a Sunday, the only place to go would be the Chatuchak Weekend Market and also stopover at the Or Tor Kor Market nearby. Before that, we would make a visit to pray at the Erawan Shrine first. All these places are accessible by BTS, so we bought a One-Day Pass for unlimited rides in 1 day. To make full use of the pass, we would also visit the Asiatique The Riverfront night market.

BTS

This is a map of the National Stadium BTS station. See the red arrow I made in the map? That's how near our hotel is from the station. The hotel states that it is 90 steps walking distance to the station. Never counted haha!

If you notice, there's an escalator sign too. The escalator happens to be going upwards, lucky! Why lucky because after taking BTS for 1 whole day, I realize that there are only very few escalators at the stations. And the escalators don't come in 2 directions. For example at this station, only exit 1 has one escalator going up, other exits from 2-4, only stairs. As a result, we had to climb "a bit" of stairs. I must say my mum is really fit for her age. Although slow, she managed to climb all the stairs, I wonder if I can be as fit as her when I reach that age. Lol! Enough complaints, Singaporeans are very lucky right? But the good thing is all the BTS stations and shopping malls are connected by the skywalk. You can walk and shop all the way in the shelter and have a good view of the city standing above.

So first thing in the day, we got up the station and bought our One-Day Pass at 130baht (~$5.02) for unlimited rides on the date of issue.
You can check the fares and travel times online here.
For maps around the BTS stations (like the map above), you can visit here.

Erawan Shrine 四面佛

We were going to Erawan Shrine by taking BTS from National Stadium to Chit Lom. We had to change train at Siam station. Pretty easy as there are only 2 BTS lines. The view of Siam Paragon from Siam station. Can't believe we stayed so near but didn't have time to shop here and Siam Square in this trip! Good excuse to go back again!

After alighting at Chit Lom, look for exit 2, walk along the skywalk and take the stairs down.

Continue to walk straight until you see a row of stalls selling flowers and incense for praying and you are there.

We bought 2 sets for praying which cost 20baht (~$0.79) each. Each set comes with 1 candle, 12 joss sticks and 4 mini garlands to be offered to the four-faced God.

At the entrance of the very famous Erawan Shrine housing the four-faced Brahma God.

The neverending crowd of people coming here to pray, hoping for wishes to be fulfilled.

Lighting the candle and the joss sticks.

It is said that the four-faced God will grant all good wishes. So if you have a wish in your mind, you can pray and ask for it. Do be precise in what you want to get and also what you want to return if your wish is fulfilled. It is a must to come back to either make offerings from flowers, fruits to elephants or hire Thai dancers if your prayer is answered.

What each face of the God represents: 1 career, 2 love, 3 wealth, 4 health.

If you want to know more about how to pray, you can check out some YouTube videos in Chinese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLCxZn1EXOc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwYcO7TXASc

For us, as we do not have any wishes, we just pray for good health and safety for this trip. Not sure if it's the correct way. We place the candle at the first God, pray and offer a flower garland and joss sticks to each God. Continue praying in clockwise direction to all 4 Gods.

Offerings for the God.

Worshipping with the Thai dancers.

Toss some coins and wash your hands and face with the holy water.

BTS passing by.

From here, you can continue to walk to Big C, CentralWorld and even further to Platinum Fashion Mall. But we had other plans today, so had to skip these areas. Cos we were going to the biggest weekend market - Chatuchak!

Next: Chatuchak Weekend Market

Neapolitan Chiffon Cake

My forever boring chiffon cake. ;p

Sorry if I really bored you with my bakes. Cos whenever I feel like baking, chiffon cake is always the first in my mind. Unfortunately, I love baking and eating chiffon cakes most of the time.

Maybe it's not so boring... Look!

Inspired by the Neapolitan ice cream which was is still my childhood favourite, I make a Neapolitan version of chiffon cake made up of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate layers.

I'm glad that the layers turn out quite well and even. Will share a little trick later.

Neapolitan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients: (17cm chiffon tin)

3 egg yolks (about 60g)
20g caster sugar
50ml vegetable oil
50ml milk/water
90g cake flour, divide into 3 portions 30g each

1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp strawberry powder
1 tsp cocoa powder

4 egg whites (about 160g)
50g caster sugar

Method:

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until the sugar dissolves.
2. Gradually add in vegetable oil, followed by milk/water.
3. Divide the batter in step 2 into 3 equal portions. (My batter weighs about 180g, so divide into 60g portion each).
4. For vanilla batter - add in 30g flour and vanilla extract.
For strawberry batter - add in 30g flour and strawberry powder.
For chocolate batter - remove 1 tsp of flour from 30g flour, add in the remaining flour and 1 tsp cocoa powder.
5. Mix all batters well and set aside.

6. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until foamy. Add in sugar gradually and continue whisking until stiff peak form.
7. Divide the whisked egg white in step 6 into 3 equal portions. (My egg white batter weighs about 210g, so divide into 70g portion each *see below*).
8. Gently fold in the egg white into the egg yolk batters (in step 5). Be gentle but quick to avoid the egg whites deflating.

The 3 batters

9. Pour the batters into an ungreased chiffon tin layer by layer. Give the tin a few slight knocks on the tabletop to remove air bubbles. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 35 minutes or 160 deg C for 40 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and invert the tin immediately onto a cooling rack.
11. Unmould the cake only when it is completely cool.

** For step 7, instead of dividing the egg whites equally, I divided them in 60g, 70g and 80g portions. Add the lesser 60g portion to the vanilla batter which is at the bottom of the tin during baking, 70g portion to the strawberry batter, and 80g portion to the chocolate batter which is at the top of the tin during baking. This is to get the layers as even as possible. You may adjust depending on how you want which colour to be in which layer. You may also omit this step.

Adapted from: 好吃戚风蛋糕轻松上手

Mooncakes 中秋月饼 2014

It's Mid-Autumn again!

I have made some mooncakes since last week. Before that, a shopping trip to Kwong Cheong Thye is a must. They have so many different types of mooncake pastes, some quite unusual. You can try the samples before deciding which flavour is suitable for you. Best of all, they sell in 500g packets so you can get more varieties. They have all other ingredients to complete the mooncake-making shopping, including the moulds and packaging too. The location is few steps away from Aljunied MRT, along the shophouses.

These are what I got here. This year I bought Hong Kong low sugar white lotus, chocolate and the special red dates and longan flavour!

I also made a trip to Kitchen Capers because I wanted to get the mooncake mould badly (see below). So pretty! :) Bought the snowskin premix wanting to make snowskin mooncakes this year. But but but... I couldn't get shortening. Blame myself only went to buy 1 day before making. The places I went to all sold out. Stupid me never get kaofen also as it is needed for dusting. So the plan failed! Mum said she likes baked mooncakes better and can keep better, so I ended up making all baked ones. Lol!

Using the same recipe as last year from Anncoo Journal. Getting ready to start. Just mix and leave the mixture to rest.

I am making the very popular Baked Chocolate Mooncakes too!

While waiting, steam the salted egg yolks and weigh and wrap the lotus pastes.

My chocolate mooncakes. They smell heavenly even before baking with the Valrhona cocoa powder.

Using my favourite design plates 中秋 and 莲蓉 for the traditional mooncakes.

The new mooncake mould. Have been using plunger type and not used to this mould. Didn't do a very good job. I used 140g (50g skin, 75g paste, 15g yolk) but not quite enough to fill the mould up. Perhaps can try 150g next year. Added charcoal powder to one mooncake.

The mooncakes freshly baked. Need to rest them for at least 2 days to soften.

The mooncakes after 2 days! Time for photo-taking before sending away. :)

The left one is red dates and longan. A new flavour which my mum and her friends like very much. Middle is low sugar white lotus, not sweet and very smooth. The right is chocolate, my nephew and nieces (and me too) love love love! Guess it's a must to make chocolate mooncakes next year.

The bigger mooncake which can put in a whole egg yolk. but as I didn't fill up the mould, the yolks look a bit crushed. Nevermind improve next year.

Baked chocolate Mooncakes

Ingredients: (I make 12pcs, each 20g skin 40g paste)

113g Plain flour
18g Cocoa powder (I used valrhona cocoa powder)
85g Sugar syrup
25g Peanut oil
1/2 tsp Alkaline water
480g lotus paste, divided into 12 portions

Method:

1. Mix sugar syrup, peanut oil and alkaline water together thoroughly.
2. Sift plain flour and cocoa powder in a bowl. Make a well in the center and pour sugar syrup mixture. Using a rubber spatula to mix and form to a soft dough. Cover with a cling wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.
3. Divide dough into 12 portions, 20g each and roll into balls. Wrap the dough around the lotus paste.
4. Roll it into ball and dust with some flour. Press firmly into mould, unmould and place on a lined baking tray.
5. Bake at preheated oven 170C for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and rest mooncakes to cool for about 15 minutes. Then bake the chocolate mooncakes again for another 10-15 minutes.
6. Leave mooncakes to cool down completely before storing into an airtight container. This mooncake can be eaten immediately and taste cripsy. Wait for about 3 days for the mooncakes for skin to soften (回油) before serving.

Recipe from: Anncoo Journal
Original from: Cass @ 揾到食

Wishing everyone Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

但愿人长久，千里共婵娟，中秋节快乐！

Pandan Chiffon Cake & Pandan Sponge Cupcakes

Few weeks ago, mum chopped off her old pandan plant and we were left with a big bunch of pandan leaves. So I took some from her and made some pandan cakes.

Use about 15-20 pandan leaves (the more the better), wash and cut into small pieces for easier blending.

I use electric blender, blend the pandan leaves with about 300ml water. Although we do not need so much pandan juice, we need to add water to get the blender to work, if not the pandan leaves will get stuck without moving for my blender.

After done, filter and squeeze the mixture through a sieve to get the clear pandan juice. Discard the remains. Leave the pandan juice in the fridge overnight or few days even better. I forget to take a photo, but you will get a distinct 2 layers of juices, the top is a clear layer while the bottom is a denser green layer of pandan juice which we will use for the cakes. It's called the homemade pandan extract.

First and always, my favourite chiffon cake.

I use a recipe that is very popular on FB originated from Caryn Man Yoke Peng. There is some similarity between this and the Okashi's recipe, both yield very soft chiffon cakes!

Pandan Chiffon Cake (20cm chiffon tin)

Ingredients:

5 egg yolks
30g sugar
50g oil
70g homemade pandan extract
83g cake flour

5 egg whites
70g sugar

Method:

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until the sugar dissolves.
2. Gradually add in vegetable oil, followed by homemade pandan extract. Mix well.
3. Add sifted cake flour. Mix until just combined. Set aside.
4. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until foamy. Add in sugar gradually and continue whisking until stiff peak form.
5. Gently fold in the egg white into the egg yolk batter (in step 3) in 3 batches.
6. Pour the batter into an ungreased chiffon tin. Give the tin a few slight knocks on the tabletop to remove air bubbles. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 35 minutes. (If your oven is hot, try 160 deg C for 40 min or 150 deg C for 45 min)
7. Remove from oven and invert the tin immediately onto a cooling rack.
8. Unmould the cake only when it is completely cool.

See how I'm 'torturing' my chiffon cake. Hehe! It's super soft

Pandan sponge cupcakes made 100% extracted from pandan leaves and all natural colouring.

This cake uses beating the whole egg method which I actually don't like to make. Cos I always find it hard to fold in the flour nicely. However, this time I did it without much problems, maybe more experience now. The result is also moist and fluffy. A good alternative if I feel lazy to do egg separation method.

Pandan Sponge Cupcakes (about 10 cups)

Ingredients:

2 large cold eggs
50g sugar
pinch of salt
65g cake flour
25g homemade pandan extract
15g oil

Method:

1. Whisk eggs, sugar and salt at high speed until white and fluffy, about 15 minutes.
2. Fold in sifted cake flour gently until the mixture is smooth and no traces of flour.
3. Mix homemade pandan extract and oil well. Scoop some batter from step 2 into the pandan mixture. Mix well. Then pour the mixture back to the batter. Fold in gently till smooth and well combined.
4. Scoop the batter into paper cups until almost full.
5. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 20 minutes. (adjust time according to the size of the baking cups)

Recipe adapted from: Butter . Flour & Me

Non-spicy Kid-friendly Curry Chicken with Roti Prata

I have been cooking this instant curry chicken almost every week cos my choosy nieces can finish their meal very fast if they eat this! I admit I love it too cos it's so quick and easy. Instant sauces are perfect for me who can't cook very well!

I bought this Prima Taste Nonya Curry Paste from Giant at $1.75 for a 80g packet. The spicy level stated is mild. So I think the kids will be able to take it. Indeed, it is not spicy at all and very kid-friendly and for those who die-die want to eat curry but cannot take spicy food (me lor, hehe)! Maybe not shiok enough for spicy food lovers though.

I don't really have a recipe when it comes to cooking. Just roughly followed the instructions at the back of the packet. I believe you can always adjust according to your own preference.

Ingredients & Method for 2 small servings:

1. Dissolve 1 heaped tablespoon of curry paste in 220ml of boiling water in a pan. (please add more paste if you prefer a thicker version, mine is totally served for children.)

2. Add in 4 mid-joint chicken wings (marinated with 1/2 tsp salt), 2 small potatoes cut into bite sizes, 2-3 stalks of curry leaves. Cook till boiling and reduce to lower heat, cover and cook for 10 minutes.

3. Add in 80ml coconut milk (I use 1 tbsp milk powder dissolved in 80ml water). Add in 1 tbsp of sugar and 1/2 tsp salt. Cook uncovered for another 8 minutes or till chicken is cooked, potatoes are softened and gravy thickened.

4. Pan-fry frozen roti prata on both sides till golden brown. And serve!









My Instagram video. Can you smell it?

Another photo of my homecooked curry chicken with roti prata. The Fairprice roti prata quite good. Thin and crispy. Delicious meal!