Roasted Chestnuts

Have you ever had fresh roasted chestnuts? I don't think I've ever had them before. I've eaten them from a Korean supermarket where they came in a foil sealed pack, already roasted and scored for your convenience. I really liked them when I had them, sweet, nutty, slightly crumbly when eating and I just generally enjoy eating foods that require peeling like mandarins, shelled peanuts or oranges. Not crustaceans though, that's a different thing.They are too much trouble for what you get.

Such a pretty colour

I got excited when I saw these so cheaply at the Rocklea markets so I decided to buy some. They were a huge tray of them for, I think about $5 a kilo. I had no idea how to pick them but I did a lot of on the spot googling and my Boyfriend called his parents and the trick to it is, a nice glossy, unblemished shell, a heavy weight for their size and nice firm feel. I also read on one Italian site, that you should the younger ones should be able to bounce when thrown on the floor. I've not read that on any other site, so I don't know how true it is haha.

Ready for stabbing

These ones that we picked were a little on the small side with most of them being around the size of a 50 cent coin. It makes sense to pick the largest ones possible when you consider the amount of work involved, risky knife slashing, roasting, peeling the darn things and then eating them.

Like this, with a hand supporting cause I can't take a photo with my mouth

Anyway, all you do is cut a cross into the chestnut with a knife. As wide and as long a cut as possible. This allows steam to escape the nut when roasting and prevents it from exploding at you. I found the easiest way for me to do this with the flat side up, was to firmly hold the pointed end of the nut down against the bench whilst wrapped up in a tea towel and slice downwards. I had a very small sharp fruit knife with a sharp point, I basically poked a hole through the shell before slicing downwards.

There were actually a lot more

I put the oven up to 180C for about 15 minutes. My house started smelling like roasted chestnuts, their skins had curled back and I pulled them out to wrap them into a tea towel. This allows them to steam a bit and allow the skins to be easier to pull off. I just kept putting them back into the oven when they got a bit cool so that they warmed up and were easier to peel.

Yay~

The same day I roasted chestnuts, we also washed all the windows on the outside and inside of our house, so Siri was kicked outside in case she knocked over a window when we took it out of the frame. She wasn't very impressed and didn't understand why she had to stay outside while we were inside.

):

);

She kept sleeping on the ledge and opening one eye to stare at us, as if to see if we were letting her in yet, before she fake slept again.

Peanut Brittle

I love peanut brittle, as a person who hates sweets, peanut brittle is my kryptonite. I can't pinpoint what I love most about it. It lasts forever when you're eating it, it has a lovely golden colour, there's a great snap when you shatter it into smaller chunks, a beautiful glossy toffee which is buttery and sweet and then again you get these salty chunks of peanut that you can crunch down on.

Oh peanut brittle <3

Oh peanut brittle, the first one I ever had was from the now, mostly defunct Darrell Lea company. You could get a huge bag of them for like $3, it was beautiful stuff, exactly like I described the reasons I loved peanut brittle. That was the only thing I missed when they ran out of business. The peanut brittle I've brought from other places like the Nut Shack's, dark golden, bitter with undercooked nuts and the very expensive Brittle Co's which has tiny shattered peanuts but has a great toffee.

Darrell Lea of course

The Brittle Co's

I have not had any since Darrell Lea ran out of business. I keep reading on blogs that peanut brittle is easy to make but I'm pretty dodgy at caramels, half the time when I make caramel sauces or kettle corn I manage to burn the pan. After that I spend about half an hour scrubbing pans to get rid of the scorch marks. What happens if I manage to ruin my one true love in sweets by my terrible cooking?

So one day, I decided to bite the bullet. VGirl and JGirl were coming over for my Korean feast of vegetarian japchae and bibimbap, recipes to come later, and I thought I'd just go ahead and make this peanut brittle. I'm really glad I did.

There were a few hairy moments when cooking this but problem solving is a strong suit of mine. I didn't realise I didn't have a pastry brush any more. My gas burner ran out of gas so I had to move to the stove top inside, probably a good idea since it was easier to control the heat indoors. I was so busy snapping photos of the butter addition that I managed to slightly burn the caramel as I was pouring it out of the pan. As well as that I didn't realise the toffee was such a small amount too, so I had way too many peanuts there, with the original recipe calling for 1:1:1/2, peanuts, sugar, water.

I was so relieved to see the colour turned out fine regardless and I immediately soaked the pan in hot water so the burnt bits came right off. When my mum came home I showed her the peanut brittle and she ate a third of the smaller pan, saying it was better than the shops and demanding to tell her how I made it. High praise, coming from my notoriously picky mum. Then my sister came over later for my Korean feast and she said it was very good and asked if she could take the remainder of the peanut brittle left behind in the cake tin!

Peanut Brittle

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of unsalted cooked peanuts
1 1/2 cup of white sugar
3/4 cup of cold water
50g of cubed butter
1 tbsp of salt

Uses:
Bribing your mum and sister

Warning:
Sugar clings and burns when heated, always keep a bowl of cool/cold water handy in case you get some on you. If this happens, douse the sugar in water as soon as possible, this will cause it to harden and in most cases snap off. Don't try and smear it off, as it'll just spread it further.

Instructions:
1. Line your baking tray of choice with enough baking paper so that there is at least a 2cm overhang on all sides. You don't want there to be empty spots on your tray where the brittle can flow, hardened toffee is a pain to clean up.
2. Scatter your peanuts at the bottom and try and maintain good spacing between them. You can't really move the peanuts once the brittle is poured over, so make it pretty now! The pictures I've taken have way too much peanuts, but you can learn from my mistake!

Too many peanuts!

3. Combine the sugar and water in a heavy based saucepan, heat on a medium-low heat that isn't a boil. Keep doing this until the toffee is super saturated with sugar and the sugar has all dissolved. Expect this to take 5+ minutes. Stir with a wooden spoon so that the bottom doesn't stick and its easier to clean off a wooden spoon, metal spoons get hot too quickly.

This

To this!

4. Brush down the edges of the toffee with a wet pastry brush to prevent sugar crystal formation, it bakes on hard.
5. Once the sugar has all dissolved, pump up the heat to a steady medium-hot. Allow to boil fiercely for a good 10+ minutes. Continue stirring with your spoon.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble!

6. You are waiting for a light golden brown colour, the shade of good honey in sunlight! When this happens, quickly throw in your butter and it will foam up everywhere. Continue stirring vigorously until the butter fully incorporates with the caramelised sugar.

At least this shade, or a bit lighter even. Depends on how fast you work

GOD DON'T TAKE A PHOTO MID MAKING CARAMEL

7. Quickly take it off the heat and pour over the peanuts. If possible, scrap over as much excess toffee as you can, it spreads slowly and cools very quickly, do this as quickly as possible! Or you won't get the chance to redo this, fully expect some peanuts not to be covered with the wave of molten toffee.
8. Allow to cool somewhere for at least 2+ hours before breaking it however you want, I recommend tapping strategically with a spoon!

I left mine in a huge chunk so you can break off tiny pieces and nibble at it.

This marks the return of my solid computer! My Boyfriend kindly loaned me his old laptop, which is still significantly newer than any piece of technology I own barring USBs. I still went out a lot during my hiatus so expect a lot of posts in the near future!

Kettle Corn

I've always wondered about the Popcorn Man stall at the Jan Power Markets. They're a very distinctive red and yellow booth with bags and bags of fresh kettle, caramel and butter salted popcorn made in huge metal vats with rice bran oil and stirred with a long stick. This is their website.

I've always wondered what kettle corn tastes like since its touted as having a lightly glazed salty and sweet flavour. One day, when my Boyfriend and I were planning what to pick for a picnic at the Botanic Gardens, I decided to get some as a snack while we were shopping.

Our first kettle corn

Admittedly, our first taste of the stuff wasn't the best. Alternatively super sweet, and buttery salty, it was like someone had mixed a batch of movie popcorn and caramel corn together and not quite amalgamated the pair. We ate the entire cup but we weren't sure if we liked or disliked it, because we would get a good taste of one flavour, to have the next kernel of corn spoiled by the other flavour and so on. The popcorn itself was fantastic, crunchy, light, fluffy with a predominately lovely mushroom pieces and not many of the butterfly around.

Mushroom vs butterfly

Read up the Wiki article on it for a more in-depth understanding of the difference. It basically boils down to, mushroom are less fragile, are small/compact, tend to weight the same, have more hull pieces and are better for lots of stirring like with caramel/kettle corn. While butterfly are more tender, melt in the mouth texture, they take up a lot of space and have way less hull. Hull being that shiny brown stuff that sticks in your teeth or braces!

So I was really surprised to find myself craving it again the week. That time it was perfect! A wonderful crunchy mixture of salty/sweet caramel like salted caramel! It was amazing. Then I realised, four dollars for a cup of popcorn was ridiculous.

So then I had a brain wave. I knew that one of my friends, NZ-A, knows how to make popcorn the ol' fashioned way, with a hot oiled pan, some popcorn and a deep saucepan. If she could make it, and she said her kids loved making it, then I would do fine as a relatively solid cook. I vaguely remember seeing a packet of popcorn kernels sell quite cheaply at around $1-2 per bag. I googled quite a few recipes as well as the history of kettle corn, good work North American Dutch settlers.

The first batch I made was at my Boyfriend's house. It was terrible, I used a tiny saucepan and a quarter of the popcorn burnt with nowhere to expand into. There was a terrible charred caramel base at the bottom and despite all this, we ate it all.

That saucepan eventually came clean

Not bad looking. Noticeably smoky notes

The second batch I made, scorched the bottom of my saucepan and my mum declared it ruined. She then ate all my popcorn and said it was pretty good, she didn't like the hard kernels leftover but she still ate them. My aunt said the same thing, about how lots of fibre isn't good for her, she has diverticulitis, but she still sat there eating it whilst complaining.

Second batch. Notice the more caramel notes. More shaking required

The third batch was for night shift. This was by far, the most perfect batch I've made to date. Evenly coated, golden brown popcorn pieces with a good combination between salty and sweet. On coming home from work, my mum shoved her fist into the box and ran off to her room with about a third of the box in her hand. When I was shouting at her that it was for work and that she couldn't have any, she was yelling back at me, "JUST GIVE ME A LITTLE. ITS SO GOOD."

Dat popcorn.

Anyway, this is the slightly tweaked recipe I stole from this random blog I found.

Kettle Corn

Uses: pre picnic snacks, night shift snacks, feeling fancy with popcorn

Ingredients:

1-2 tbsp of oil, high smoke point oil is preferable
1/3 cup popping corn kernels
1/4-1/3 cup of sugar*
3/4-1tsp of salt

Ingredients.

*Brown gives a better colour, but clumps, which is hard to separate over burning hot oil. White is easy to distribute. Raw sugar is halfway between both.

Random stuff:
The biggest goddamn saucepan with a lid you have. Preferably cast iron, or something with a heavy heat retaining base. Something that doesn't burn easily.
A hot stove, like induction or gas burner. 
No loose handles.
Oven mitts or a tea towel, so you can hold down the lid without burning.

Instructions:
1. Fill up your saucepan with oil and half the salt. Heat over medium to high heat
2. Once the oil is just starting to smoke, throw in three kernels of popcorn. Put on the lid.
3. Once popped, throw in all your corn.
4. Then throw all your sugar/sugar on top, as evenly as possible
5. Put your lid back on, hold on tight and start shaking your pan. After 2-5 seconds of shaking, put back on heat for another few seconds until it starts popping.
6. Expect nothing to happen for the first 10-30 seconds? Once the kernels start popping, start shaking more vigorously, in a fancy arse tossing salad type motion. Try to do it away from you, so if the lid comes off, you don't get a face full of burning caramel.
7. Once the kernels stop popping every 1-2 seconds, take off heat and keep shaking until the popping slows down. Pop it back on the heat for another few seconds if the popping stops and once the popping restarts, keep shaking.
8. Dump in a large bowl immediately, do not keep it in the pot or it will continue to burn. Eat ASAP or it will go soggy, still delicious but not as delicious as it could be.

There are no pictures of the process because of how fast it cooks. Also my Boyfriend didn't think to help me with making this.

Also! In other news, I've risen to the top 50 of Urbanspoon's Brisbane blogs yay!

Random stats for my blog show that my first post, "Becoming a Cat Lady", is the most popular post. The next most popular food related post is my Cirque review.

The most commonly used search words to get to my blog are, "Crazy cat lady." With 56 hits.