Madame Blossom's Book of Poems

Monday, September 22, 2008

Instructions for dummies - Roasting and shelling the peanuts.

I have ever asked my aunt before, a few years back, on how to make kuih tart. She said, "Alaaa.. senang aje! Tepung, telur, mentega.. masuk masuk kan semua.. gaul-gaul da jadi.. . " ("It's easy! Just put in everything and mix.. there.."). I only managed a 'ooooh waah. cam gitu eh?' Didn't manage to do it.

The recipe given by my aunt are for experts. And most recipies on the internet are for those who are quite well versed in the kitchen.

One of the ingredients in the recipe for kuih makmur, is 100 gm peanuts roasted and shelled. Then blended or crushed.

Apparently, that one line of ingredient is the MOST tedious of the lot - and it took me about 1.5 hours and a bit of cleaning up to prepare that.

This is the instructions for roasted and shelled peanuts for kitchen dummies like me, and I also had to do some research on the internet.. Yes, that one line is blown up into this full blog entry.

To roast peanuts you can either put them in the oven or you can fry them, in a frying pan, DRY, that is without any oil. I figured, if I fry it, I'll need to stand there, to move those nuts about. But putting it in the oven would be easier because u just practically shove it there and let it roast.

Well, okay, you don't really just shove it there lah. You set the oven to 180 deg Celcius, let it heat up for 5-10 mins. Spread the peanuts out on the oven tray, so that they become only a layer - in order that they'll roast evenly, THEN you shove it in that preheated oven and let it roast for about 10 - 12 mins.

Once those nuts are roasted, they'll look much more tanned, you take them out of the oven immediately. Don't leave it in there or it'll start to get burnt. Mine was.. a bit. I dilly dallied in taking them out. But alhamdulillah, I realised soon.

Now you let the peanuts cool first. Cause after that, you are going to shell it with your hands.

Shelling the peanuts.. this is the time consuming part Imagine having to shell every one of those peanuts! Of course you don't take one by one peanut, and take the shell off. You grab a whole bunch in each hand and sort of like try to crush them in your hands.. then you take the next bunch. The shells come off quite easily. When you're tired doing that, you can also rub the peanuts with both hands - like you're warming your hands. When you're tired doing that.. you can punch those nuts. Repeat until 95% of the peanuts look shelled. I think it took me about 30-45 mins.

NOW, you need to separate those empty shells from the shelled peanuts. Luckily my MIL was still at home that morning, I asked her, how? She said, it's like 'orang dulu2 tuai padi'. She took two handful of those peanut mess, put them on a small tray and start flipping them gently. You will see the very light empty shells will sort of, stay at the top and the heavier shelled peanuts go below. I did the rest. It was a bit fun. It would be more fun if you can have that old..is it Sarimah?'s 'tuai padi' song playing. No?

After that you can sift the peanuts to get rid of more smaller shells.

After that, you sweep the floor.

So there you go.. roasted and shelled peanuts.


p.s. Pictures are at home pulak. Will upload later tonight, maybe.

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