A recipe from way back when

This recipe for peanut square is an childhood favourite of mine from New Zealand.  My mother used to make it regularly. She modified it from a recipe published in the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers Cookbook.  It’s not as posh as it sounds. It was an important way for women in the isolated country areas of New Zealand to join together and have some support, which I think meant that they made lots of jam and scones, and wrote this cookbook, well at least back in the 1950’s and ’60’s.  I love the cookbook as it dates back to the early part of last Century, therefore has all sorts of arcane sections, like the one for “Savory Gelatine Dishes”. Unfortunately, the copy I have comes from the 80’s, so has been updated to “include the use of electrical appliances“, as it says it the introduction.  I’d love to read the recipes for cooking things on open fires! Next time I head down to the farm in New Zealand, I’ll have to dig around to see if my mother still has one of the older editions.

Musings about coconut in New Zealand

Peanut square has dried coconut in it, just like many other sweet recipes from this time in New Zealand, such as mothballs and chocolate crackles.  This has always surprised me that dried coconut shows up everywhere, as it isn’t warm enough for coconut palms to grow in New Zealand.  My guess is that it was used so much because it keeps forever once dried, so was an easy product to have on hand.  Plus, the Polynesian Islands aren’t that far away and they DO have coconuts.  I imagine the boats from England may have stopped there on the way down to the ends of the Earth to gather more food for the passengers, and brought dried coconut with them.  On a tangent: can you imagine if you lived a Century or so ago, jumping on a ship in England to travel for months and months all the way down to a place that you’d never seen?  It must’ve been like it would be to move to the moon these days!

It’s all about the ratio of ingredients

You can use peanuts with the skin on or without for making peanut square.  I don’t think it makes that much difference.  I used peanuts without skin as that’s what I had in the cupboard.  In the recipe, it says to chop the peanuts roughly.  I didn’t actually do that either, as you can see by the photo above, but it worked fine! Remember that this recipe was originally with everything as a ratio, so if you use any kind of teacup to measure the ingredients, it will work fine.  For the those of you who are determined to bake with measurements, I have quantified everything. 🙂

Not so much a travel photo of the week

I’ll leave you with a photo that’s a little different.  It’s not exactly a travel photo of a beautiful landscape, but is a very typical photo of a New Zealand shearing shed in action.  This is taken in my parent’s shearing shed.  I know every knot in the wood there as I spent many hours sweeping and picking up wool there.  I’m very happy to hand my broom to the guys in the photo.  The work is hard, and in this shed, there’s no electricity, only a generator to run the machinery, so you can’t here anything but the buzzing of the cutters and the thumping of the generator all day.  I really admire the shearers and shed-hands (the people who sweep and sort the wool)!

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Peanut, Coconut, and Chocolate Slice

Course Dessert

Cuisine New Zealand

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 10 people

Ingredients

For the Slice:

• 125 g Flour 1 cup
• 200 g Brown sugar 1 cup
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 170 g Butter 6oz
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
• 1 Tbsp Golden syrup
• 90 -100 g Peanuts 3/4 cup
• 100 g Dried coconut 1 cup
• 30 g Cornflakes 1 cup

For the Icing

• 260 g Icing sugar 2 cups + 2 Tbsp
• 80 ml Boiling water 1/3 cup
• 2 Tbsp Cocoa powder
• 1 Tbsp melted Butter

Instructions

For the Slice:

• Roughly chop the peanuts. Slightly crush the cornflakes.
• Mix the dry ingredients together.
• Melt the butter and mix in the golden syrup and vanilla essence.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix.
• Press into a rectangular or square tart tin that has been greased with butter.
• Bake at 180ºC (350ºF) for 25 - 30 minutes until golden brown.
• Leave to cool in the tin before icing the slice with chocolate icing.

For the Icing:

• Add the cocoa powder and butter to the boiled water and stir until dissolved. If they butter doesn't melt completely, put the mixture in the microwave for a few seconds or on the stove-top.
• Add the icing sugar and whisk until you have a smooth, runny mixture.
• Pour onto the biscuit base and leave to set.
• When set, you can cut the slice into squares or bars. It keeps well for 2 -3 weeks in a closed container.

Now for something completely different

Here’s a recipe for Pad Thai: not Italian at all, but made with noodles, so I guess it vaguely enters into the category of distant cousin to Italian cuisine. Pad Thai is an all-in-one dish from Thailand and Laos.

Noodles are eaten at many festive occasions in Asia to signify long life.  It is an absolute no-no to cut them, therefore shortening your life.  I wonder if this tradition is the unknown reason why the Italians have a large aversion to cutting spaghetti.  “Italian” noodles did originally come from China, after all!  In fact, all noodles all over the world are said to have originated from the Chinese ones.

Why pad thai is called pad thai

In Thailand and Laos rice noodles are used to make this delicious street-food called Pad Thai that is also eaten at festive occasions. The dish was imported from China by Thailand’s prime minister during the Second World War, and given a Thai twist with the signature flavours that identify Thai food; lime, coriander, and fish sauce.  It was also renamed Pad Thai to help Thai nationalism and stop people from eating so much rice so that Thailand could export more of it (and therefore make more money!). Amazingly, the strategy worked and Pad Thai has become a nationally recognized dish!

The secret to making a good pad thai

The making of Pad Thai is more of a description that a recipe.  It’s very difficult to quantify as it depends on the taste of the cook who is making it.  A Lao friend told me recently that when making this type of dish, you taste it all through the cooking process then adjust the ingredients to suit. I have tried to measure the ingredients here, but generally I do it by the “handful”. This is quite a foreign concept in Western cooking.

The first couple of times I made this I rushed around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to cook it as everything cooks so quickly.  Since then I’ve refined my technique a little and have everything pre-prepared and lined up on the bench next to the wok in the order they’ll go into the Pad Thai.

So, here’s a little something different from me. I look forward to hearing if anybody tries it, and how it goes!

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

pad thai

Learn to make pad thai at home

Course Main Course

Cuisine Asian

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 25 minutes minutes

Servings 2 people

Ingredients

• 1 clove garlic chopped or crushed
• ½ block firm tofu cut into small cubes
• 150 g 5mm rice noodles 5.5oz
• 1 Egg
• 150 g prawns (or pre-cooked chicken) shrimp about ½ - ¾ cup
• ½ cup peanuts roughly ground
• Lime juice from 1 lime
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1 small bunch spring onions
• For the Sauce
• ¼ cup salty fish sauce
• ¼ cup sour Tamarind pulp
• 1 Tbsp white sugar or palm sugar
• Chili powder to taste

Instructions

• First prepare all the ingredients: chop the garlic, spring onions and tofu.  Have everything ready on the bench to be thrown into the wok.  I precook the shrimp as I can’t seem to get my wok hot enough.
• In a small pot, mix together the ingredients for the sauce and heat. Taste it to see if you like the salt/sweet sour combination.  Remember that the flavours will not be as strong when added to the Pad Thai.
• Soak the rice noodles in hot/boiling water for about 5 - 10 minutes.  When they’re ready to cook you should be able to wind them around your finger.
• Now, are you sure that everything’s ready?  The cooking goes fast, so there’s no time to prepare anything!  Right off we go then! Heat some vegetable oil in a wok until it’s very hot.  Throw in the garlic.  Let it sizzle for a couple of minutes, then throw in the tofu cubes.  Cook them, stirring constantly, until they are brown.
• Drain the noodles and add them.  Add half the sauce and stir until the noodles can be broken between your fingers….this may only take a couple of minutes.
• Push the noodles to the side and add the eggs.  Scramble them and then stir everything in together.
• Add the shrimp or chicken (precooked) and stir.
• Add more of the sauce all through this cooking period. Take off the heat.
• Add the beansprouts  and spring onions.  Add the lime juice. Stir.  Sprinkle with ground peanuts.
• Eat it hot!  After a couple of tries, it gets less nerve-wracking to make.  As long as everything is ready to go, it’s easier than pie! When you get confident, you can start throwing in handfuls of things: more or less of each ingredient, depending on your tastes.