Peanut Cookies

On Monday night this week, I suddenly got into a baking mood and whipped up a batch of Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies. Although I never really need an excuse to make cookies (or eat peanuts!), it was this stunning picture of blogger Penny's cashew cookies on her Instagram feed that convinced me that, yes, I needed homemade Chinese New Year cookies in my life, and fast! I love these crumbly, powdery, peanut-fragrant and ever-so-slightly salty little morsels so very much!

I googled the recipe on my phone on the way home from work, bought the ingredients at my local supermarket after dinner, and got baking! (Just quietly, we also made a batch of David Lebovitz' salted butter caramels that night... it was really a sugar frenzy!)

Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies

I ended up using a recipe from Bread et Butter, which she in turn got from Quinn's Baking Diary (not sure where Quinn got the recipe from!) Peanut cookies seem to be pretty ubiquitous though, with each cook having his or her own way of making them. I can't imagine any one person having 'created' the recipe, or having ownership of the idea, if that makes sense. Either way, I adapted Bread et Butter's recipe by changing up the method (processing the peanuts with the sugar prevents them from becoming an oily mess in the processor), and crucially, decorating them with salted peanuts.

Mmm... peanut sugar dust...

I also went with tradition, and used lard. I'd originally planned to use peanut oil (and I'm sure just reading those words is enough to send some people into anaphylactic shock!), but I saw this lard sitting in the fridge with the butter at my supermarket and thought: "Cute packaging, why on earth not?"

LARD

My weight-conscious, pork-averse teenage self would have never even considered using lard, but I guess times change! I know that even the word "lard" can be confronting, with all its "lard-arse" connotations, but as Nigella elegantly and correctly states in How to be a Domestic Goddess, did you know it's a less saturated fat than butter? I'm not necessarily encouraging greater lard-consumption, just that perhaps there's no need to be quite so alarmed about using it every now and then.

I'd never baked with lard before (and I'm assuming there are many of you out there who haven't either), so for interest's sake, here's what it looks like:

Lard

Yup, that's some serious white fat there! It softened much faster than butter - by the time I'd driven home from the supermarket it was already ready to use - and yes, it did smell slightly like a roast. (Nothing about the finished product smelled or tasted meaty though, so no need to be concerned in that regard).

The whole process is nice and easy - very few ingredients, the dough is all made in the food processor, and I found the dough a dream to work with. It wasn't sticky or messy at all, and rolled into neat little balls very compliantly. Indeed, the longest part of the whole process was roasting the nuts in a frypan before grinding them!

Pre glaze, pre baking

Some people just decorate the cookies by making an indentation on the top with a chopstick - I much prefer decorating them with salted peanuts. Firstly, this makes them look like the peanut cookies I enjoyed as a child. And secondly, the salt on the peanuts really takes the biscuits to another level, bringing out all the other flavours. I actually used 2 brands of salted peanuts (one packet ran out halfway through), one saltier than the other, and I found that the biscuits with the saltier salted peanuts tasted much better. Incredible, in fact! They just sang! That saltish tinge (as Malaysians would say) is truly addictive, and makes these biscuits extra special. So, if you can find a super salty salted peanut for your decoration, go with that!

Biscuits cooling

These are great. Really great! They're so tender and fragrant - I kept them in an airtight container, and the next day, when I opened it, that fabulous roasted peanut smell just came out and walloped me. So good! I know I'm tooting my own horn here, but, you know, deal with it! I dropped a few off at my parents' house the next night, and got a text from my dad the next morning:

"Just had one of your peanut cookies. Amazing. So fresh, so delicate and a perfect balance of sweet and salt... Yummmmy".

Yay! I'm 99% confident that this batch of 40 will all be gone before Chinese New Year on Sunday. And on that note, I take no responsibility if you make these and eat the whole batch in one go. It's entirely possible. ENJOY!

Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies
Adapted from a recipe at Bread et Butter, which itself was adapted from Quinn's Baking Diary

Ingredients
2 cups unsalted raw peanuts
1 cup icing sugar
2 cups plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 cup lard (approx 250 grams), at room temperature
Salted peanuts, for decoration
1 egg, beaten

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
Roast the peanuts in a dry frying pan or wok, stirring frequently, until fragrant and lightly browned. Tip the peanuts onto a plate to cool slightly.
Tip into a food processor fitted with the double blade and add the icing sugar. Whizz up until you have a delicious-smelling peanut powder. Don't make it too fine - you still want some larger peanut chunks remaining.
Add the flour and salt and whizz briefly to combine.
Now it's time to add the lard. Start with half the amount specified, whizzing to combine, and keep adding more until the dough comes together. (You may not need all the lard - the exact amount will vary depending on the weather, the other ingredients etc.)
Roll the dough into small balls (hehe!) and place on the lined baking tray. Press a salted peanut into each ball. Brush the balls with beaten egg to glaze.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly golden and cooked through. Allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes about 40

Alternatives
As much as I revel in these little sugary, peanutty, gluten-filled, lard-laced biscuits, I do know that their ingredients do make them inaccessible for many people. So, with y'all in mind, here are a few adaptations I think you could make to suit different dietary requirements. DISCLAIMER! I haven't tried any of these alternatives myself, so can't vouch for how tasty they would be. Think of them as an educated guess, rather than strict guarantees.

Vegetarian: Replace the lard 1 cup of butter.
Vegan: Replace the lard with 1 cup of vegetable oil, (dare I suggest peanut oil?); don't glaze the biscuits.
Gluten-free: Replace the plain flour with a gluten-free flour of your choice, e.g. cornflour or rice flour (I imagine these would make the biscuits even more crumbly, so go with caution!)
Peanut allergies: Replace the peanuts with cashews or walnuts (These are both popular for CNY!)
Nut allergies: I'm really, really sorry. Perhaps try a plain shortbread recipe for a similar melt-in-your-mouth crumbly biscuit experience.
Low sugar: Don't bother.
Low fat: No. Just no.
Low calorie: Are you kidding me?

A Day on the Green, Rochford Wines

How did y'all spend your Australia Day weekend? Did you BBQ? Did you Big Day Out? As for us, we headed across to Rochford Winery in the Yarra Valley, where we'd been invited to see Elvis Costello perform at A Day on The Green and enjoy lunch at the in-house restaurant, Isabella's.

Isabella's

Freshly baked soy and linseed ciabatta with housemade smoked olive oil butter - $4.00

Normally I have issues with restaurants charging extra for bread, but when it's warm soy and linseed ciabatta, baked in house with smoked olive oil butter - it's definitely worth it! After the meal, we had a chat with Chef Ciaran Butler, who, despite running a big operation that needs to cater to a variety of tastes, still enjoys flexing his creative muscles with molecular gastronomy techniques. A great example is the smoked olive oil butter which is not actually butter, but a kind of solidified olive oil. The smoky flavour comes from old grape vines - Chef Ciaran uses the old vines to smoke different ingredients at the restaurant, and the resultant white ash to flavour the olive oil butter. He showed us some of the powder, and it's really intense stuff - amazing!

Rabbit and pistachio terrine - deconstructed piccalilli - $14

I greatly enjoyed the rabbit and pistachio terrine, with the meaty richness of the terrine being offset perfectly by the crunchy-sour vegetables.

Ocean Trout - pan roasted fillet of Tasmanian ocean trout, asparagus, peas, broad beans, jamon serrano ham & baby potatoes - $34.00

I thought that I was going for a light option ordering ocean trout, but the dish was actually quite substantial, especially with the addition of jamon serrano pieces and a dark savoury jus. I really enjoyed the crisp skin on the trout as well.

Steak Frites - 350g grain fed yearling scotch fillet, with French fries, hollandaise sauce - $34.00

French apple custard rose - served with caramelized crumbs, Iranian fairy floss & tonka bean ice-cream - $14.00

Callebaut Chocolate Truffle with Sea Salt - served with salted caramel, chocolate dust, freeze dried raspberry - $14.00

The chocolate truffle was a lot lighter than it looked - rather than the dense ganache I was expecting, it was close to a light mousse, further brightened with the pops of salt, chocolate cookie crumbs and freeze dried raspberry. Very nice.

English Breakfast Tea with a Charlie's Cookie passionfruit melting moment

Yes, it's just a cup of tea, but it came with a Charlie's Cookies melting moment!

Cellar door

Wine tasting

Rochford Wines host three Days on the Green each summer, with different musical acts. (The next one is Neil Finn and Paul Kelly on 23rd February!) There are a few different options you can go for - there's general admission (bring your own picnic blanket and seats), various seating options, premium general admission (tapas included), and the one we enjoyed: the concert and dining package. This includes a three-course meal at Isabella's; wine, beer and soft drink; indoor bathroom facilities (yay!); and a private outdoor patio from which you get a great view of the stage.

Seating area for the Concert and Dining patrons, Tex Perkins

Lineup

Here's the lineup! The meal was served in stages between 3 and 6pm, and served in alternating courses (like at a wedding). We popped out in between courses to watch the bands.

Yo yo, January round-up! It didn't feel particularly busy, but here I am at the end of the month with a heap o' pictures to share! That doesn't even include the things I've already blogged (Shimbashi, Spring Street Grocery) or the things that I'll be blogging very shortly (a fab Australia Day concert/lunch at Rochford Winery, my endlessly Instagrammable breakfasts, round 2 of the Lobster Dinner...)

Here we go!

It was hot this month, I got obsessed with frozen yogurt - particularly Yo-Chi in Balaclava, which we visited a bunch of times. They seem to be constantly crazy busy, but the queues move pretty quickly, and the friendly staff seem to direct the crowd and clean up efficiently. I think Cacao Green has slightly higher quality products, but it's fun building your own fro-yo at Yo-Chi and adding all the different toppings. (Although it does get expensive if you go overboard!) Worth a visit!

Yo-Chi, Balaclava

I even had these big plans to do an epic comparison post between Yochi, Cacao Green, Tutti Frutti and Igloo Zoo... but then I OD'd on froyo and am totally over it. For now...

Speaking of obsessions - GLICKS!

Glicks Challah, Challah Bagel, Normal Bagel

On one of my visits to Yochi, I realised that the Carlisle street Glicks is open til late on Thursdays. Yay! Cue me wolfing down loaves and loaves of freshly-baked fluffy soft challah, and enjoying excellent bagels for breakfast. LOVE!

We made a visit to The People's Market, which was a pleasant way to spend a weekend afternoon. I wasn't too interested in the art or shopping stands, but really liked the different food stalls/trucks. (The food stands seem to rotate too, so I want to visit again in a few weeks' time!)

The People's Market

Vegan Chilli Dog - $8 Pink Lemonade - $4 Passionfruit Iced Tea - $4

It sounds like an oxymoron, but we were really impressed by the Vegan chilli dog from South - it was fantastic, and this is coming from me (a committed carnivore) and Sandra (who is German and therefore an authority on sausages). It wasn't just good "for a vegan dog", it was good for a hot dog, full stop. Great stuff! Just quietly, we liked the vegan chilli dog from South better than the real meat meatballs from The Meatball Company, which were a little underwhelming.

We had some blistering hot days this month, which means one thing: beach! I'm loving Chelsea beach right now...

Chelsea Beach

And trekking out to Chelsea always means stopping off in Springvale for cheap and tasty Vietnamese food. Yum! I've been enjoying Pho Hung Vuong and Pho Huong Dakao - but am happy to take recommendations! What's your fave place in Springvale?

Top left: Pho Ga from Pho Hung Vuong Everything else from Pho Huong Dakao

We enjoyed a fab BBQ at Adrian's place - so much meat and so many Filipino treats! The BBQ lamb adobo with chilli dressing was Amaaaazing!

Meatfeast

I also made some meringues to bring along...

Shiny meringues

Eton Mess

And in total contrast to that meat feast, lunch the next day was at Yong Green Food. I love their Macro Dragon Bowl, all healthy and nourishing with brown rice, chunks of tempeh and a fab lemon tahini sauce.

Macro Dragon Bowl - $18

Before dinner at Shimbashi, I ducked into Ombra Salumi Bar on Bourke street for a sneaky solo Friday-night tipple. I loved the negroni bianco I ordered, and totally want to go back to try their cichetti and salumi!

Negroni Bianco - Gin, Cocchi Americano, Cynar, Doli n Dry - $18

My friend Jeremy had a Mexican-themed birthday party - Jeremy made excellent tequila cocktails, and his girlfriend Val made fantastic tacos, using these incredible white corn tortillas that she ordered online from El Cielo. (They're miles above the standard supermarket tortillas, and certainly better than the hard cracker-like things I made when I attempted making tortillas myself!) Definitely buying the El Cielo ones next time.

El Cielo Tortillas

My contribution to the party was Nigella's flourless chocolate lime cake with margarita cream... very moist and super delicious. (This reminds me that Nigella has a whole range of flourless chocolate cake recipes I should try - she certainly loves riffing on a theme! I can also heartily recommend her chocolate espresso cake with caffe latte cream!)

Nigella's flourless chocolate lime cake with margarita cream

Val also got these super cute lego cakes from Burch & Purchese. They're so cute I can't handle it! They tasted seriously good too - each colour was a different flavour and was made up of a wonderfully light mousse and thin sponge base.

Burch & Purchese lego cake

Another friend brought a ricotta cheesecake - there was So Much Cake! Phew!

For one of our regular mid-week Miranda-viewing nights (yes, we have standing dates with different groups of friends to watch Miranda on different nights of the week and no, I'm not ashamed), I whipped up a batch of Dan Lepard's Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins - wonderful stuff, especially with the crunch of salted peanuts. (The use of peanut butter in the batter is such a great idea too!) I thought they could have used a little extra sugar, but my friends seemed to like them!

Dan Lepard's chocolate and peanut butter muffins

PS I got those cute muffin cups from Daiso in Japan back in 2007. Cuuuute, right?

My friend Anna recently bought her own house - complete with pizza oven in the backyard, jealous! - and she had us over for a great pizza party. We got to assemble our own pizzas and cook them in the amazing oven. (For some reason no-one was taking the fior di latte, so I loaded up my pizza with it. Yummmmm).

Pizza party

Dessert was a make your own sundae bar (much like Yo-Chi, come to think of it), with loads of toppings (berries, Oreos, chocolate peanut butter fudge sauce...) and Anna's own homemade chocolate and vanilla ice-cream. So much deliciousness!

Sundae!

Dumplings at Luyang Dumpling House in Box Hill. They were a little rougher than, say, Mr Huang Jin, but very cheap and tasty. On this visit we only had dumplings, but I saw and smelled some cumin lamb coming out of the kitchen while we were there and it smelled amazing! Must try next time.

Clockwise from left: Pan fried pork dumplings, Xiao Long Bao, Chive Dumplings

Sandra made these incredibly cute Egg Cakelets as a weekend project. Yes, they are literally baked inside an eggshell, and they are too cute to function! (The recipe and steps are on this post at The Cupcake Project if you'd like to try them yourself!)

Egg cakelet

Chinese New Year is coming, and in preparation we've decorated the flat and stocked up on CNY cookies! Kuih kapit (centre) and kuih bangkit (right) are so addictive. I can't stop!

And finally, last night I attended the launch of Pawn & Co, a speakeasy-style bar in the surprising location of Chapel Street Prahran. (Directly above the Fitness First and opposite the KFC, for realsies).

The drinks list is inspired by the Prohibition era and foodwise, they tap into the current trend for sliders and meatballs. Their schtick is that everything in the venue is for sale. That's everything, from the decorations, to the chairs, to the bar, and even, disconcertingly, the waitstaff's clothes! Ahem!

Balls in boats with little tags. SO INSTAGRAMMABLE

That was January! My plans for February are to celebrate Chinese New Year, and to catch up on some much-needed sleep!!