Peanut Chutney - and What to do With It

Chutney?  Interesting word for it.  Nah, I think this is more of a marinade-type thingy.  I made this for Cookbook Club, waaaaay back in August last year.  The recipe is from Everything is Indian by Justin Narayan.  I decided to use it as a marinade for some chicken tenderloins.  I gave half the chutney to a friend (who used it as a marinade for chicken, too), and made this for dinner.  Great minds ...

deliciously nutty

Makes approx. 200g./7 oz:

ingredients:

130g./4.5 oz unsalted peanuts OR 130g. of peanut butter

30g./1 oz white sesame seeds

1/2 brown onion, roughly chopped   see Notes

2 tsp tamarind paste  (or 2-3 tsp lemon juice)

1 Tbs lemon juice

3 small red chillies (or your fave chilli), roughly chopped

4 garlic cloves - yep, roughly chopped :=)

100-125 mL  (3.4-4.3 oz water)

sea salt flakes (1/8-1/4 tsp) and freshly ground black pepper

luckily for me, I don't taste soap when I eat fresh coriander :)

Serves 4:

For the chicken dish:

500-600g./18-21 oz chicken tenderloins (or chop up some breasts)

Peanut chutney - maybe half the jar; just have the chicken well-coated     see Notes

Lemon juice - maybe 3 Tbs

Fresh coriander leaves, torn or chopped - a big handful, or to your taste

sea salt and black pepper, to taste

Rice or rice noodles, to serve

Cucumber and tomato, chopped, to serve

small red chillies

peanuts!

Method:

Grab a wee saucepan/frying pan and toast your nuts and seeds till golden brown (obvs. no need to toast the peanut butter, if  using)

Tip them into a blender or small food processor, with the other ingredients, except the salt and pepper

And blend away till it looks like the consistency of peanut butter

Add more water if you fancy it a bit thinner

Season with the salt and pepper

For the chicken dish:

Marinate the chicken pieces in the chutney for at least 30 minutes

Fry in 2 Tbs of vegetable or olive oil, which you have heated up

Add lemon juice, coriander leaves, salt and pepper

Throw on some white and/or black sesame seeds, if you like

Serve with rice or rice noodles

And chop up some cucumber, tomato and fresh coriander leaves, to go with ...

Notes:

I used peanut butter made from just peanuts and salt

The average brown onion weighs around 150-200g.; I used c. 90g.

I gave half the chutney away to a friend, so I probably used about 100g/3.5 oz for the chicken dish

Throw some mustard seeds or cummin seeds into the chutney (after blitzing to a smooth sauce) - if you fancy!

        brown onion

        cucumber

ingredients gathered

get ready to blitz!

and ... blitzed!  See how smooth :=)

ready for dinner!

Mangoes update: all 200 kilos! (maybe 150 kg.) of fruit has been laboriously picked up (even dug out) from the backyard.  The fruit bats, possums and birds are very sad!  The crows have been indignantly squawking for days about it.  I do love me a crow - so smart, so kind, dropping off gifts now and then.  And did you know? - they absolutely adore fruit.

Mr P. is very slowly getting over his cough, which has lasted for well over 3 weeks!  I can't believe I haven't caught it from him, though he has been politely sleeping downstairs so I don't get it!  Autumn is nearly here, and we have had copious amounts of rain over the last week.  And some flooding out west; it never ends here with the weird weather!!  Hope you are all doing well, my friends.

Guess who?  Yes, moi!  (c. G McKinnon)

Chewy Almond Cookies aka Biscuits

We all like a bit of Donna Hay, don't we? - she is an icon of Aussie cooking.  I've made a couple of her biscuit recipes lately, but these were actually made way back in August last year for Cookbook Club.  This recipe is from Too easy, another of her popular cookbooks.  And there are so many more recipes I want to try ... 

Start these in plenty of time, as the dough has to rest in the freezer for about 30 minutes to firm up, before baking, and then sits for another 10 minutes after you take it out of the freezer, before going into the oven.  Huh?  Seems a wee bit odd to me, but anyways ...  Like many a cookbook, the recipes are not really built for a Queensland kitchen!

golden, nutty, delicious

Makes 20-22 biscuits:

ingredients:

250g./9 oz butter, melted

240g./8.5 oz brown sugar

220g./8 oz caster sugar

120g./4.5 oz almond meal (aka ground almonds)

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

300g./10.5 oz plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

135g./5 oz flaked almonds   see Notes

icing sugar, for dusting

Method:

Into a large bowl go the butter, brown sugar, caster sugar, almond meal, egg and vanilla - and give 'em a good stir to combine

The flour and baking powder get sifted over the top of this mix, and you give all that a good stir

Your flaked almonds are now sitting on a large plate, and you will then roll 2 Tbs of the dough into balls, then roll onto the plate to get covered in almond flakes

Put 'em onto a couple of large, baking paper-lined baking trays (leaving a bit of room around each ball), and whack into the freezer for 30 minutes (or more - till firm)

Turn on your oven to 180C/350F to heat up

After 10 minutes out of the freezer, the trays are placed in the oven, and the biscuits baked for about 15 minutes or till golden   see Notes

Let 'em cool right down on the trays, then dust with the icing sugar

oh yes, vanilla paste

and pecans

Notes:

From my photos, it seems I didn't have enough flaked almonds to coat the dough balls in, so I used some chopped-up pecans to make up the difference!

Dunno why, but they took 20 minutes in my oven to get golden

ingredients gathered

stir together the sugars, melted butter, almond meal, egg, vanilla

and stir in the flour and baking powder till you have a soft dough

onto trays and into the freezer for half an hour to firm up

golden and nutty after 20 minutes baking

onto the wire rack to get really cool

pile 'em up!

don't forget the icing sugar!

Just FYI for anyone following my saga of the rotting, festering mangoes in our backyard: we have now picked up about 200 kilos!  There are still some lurking in the grass, looking like hairy dead rats!  Somewhat ironically, I made some mango/nectarine chutney last weekend - but with mangoes from our new neighbour's dad's garden - I think!  Though perhaps he just conjured them up from somewhere :=) 

biscuits/cookies!

Sydney Roadtrip

This post is a quickie photo essay!  We're still catching up on things after our roadtrip, and Mr P. has been very unwell with this awful cold and cough that lingers and lingers ...  Lots of bugs going around at the moment, apparently.  We think he caught it from being in so many hospital waiting rooms lately.

Mr P. organised our recent Sydney trip, heading down south to visit an old friend, and to hit as many art galleries as we could.  Was it eight or nine we managed?  Job well done, as the English say!  And it was wonderful to catch up with our old mate Jim, whom we have known since we were knee-high to a grasshopper, as the saying goes.

NERAM  (horse sculpture by Tim Storrier)

First off, we hit NERAM - the New England Regional Art Museum.  We try to get here once a year; it's about 5 or 6 hours drive from us, so we take a roadtrip!  And if you're lucky, you get to see some snow here in Winter.  Clearly, not now :=)  

driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge - a few times!

a cute twiggy fella on top of someone's chimney

massive sculpture by Ron Mueck (Art Gallery of NSW)

Ron Mueck does amazing work.  These huge sculptures are very confronting, and fascinating.  I'm hiding the mmm extra-large appendages - hehehe ...

there were carrot pancakes for Mr P. at Archie's Café Co, Dover Heights

there were koi carp at the Gosford Regional Gallery, and Japanese Garden

Mr P. ate fried halloumi and scrambled eggs at The Point cafe, Avoca Beach

we admired a Brett Whiteley sculpture at the newly re-opened Newcastle Art Gallery

we had a gander at Smoky Bay Lighthouse

(By the architect James Barnet Colonial Architect for NSW, 1865-1890.)  He designed various public buildings and a number of lighthouses around New South Wales, including this one.  I love a lighthouse, my friends!  I'm thinking of joining the Lighthouse Society.  

and said hi to a wallaby having his/her lunch

We checked out the Trial Bay Gaol ruins; a "nice" prison, apparently

I ate Bircher muesli at the Hilltop Store

we drove to a sea view at Sawtell, looking north

and captured ourselves in the outdoor Sculpture Garden at the Grafton Regional Gallery

We shared a Black Forest croissant at the Ulmarra Food Co-op

and admired the water dragon in the leafy front courtyard

What a trip!  And probably our last for a while, till Mr P.'s treatments finish.  There are so many wonderful things to see in our big country.  If you can get here, my friends ...  

In My Kitchen - February 2026

Phew!  Made it!  Here we are in February already.  What a whirlwind this year is being.  Mr P. and I went on a roadtrip down south, where we visited an old friend (we've known him, and his now-deceased wife, for about 45 years!)  We miss you, Ailsa!  And Mr P. has started treatment for his cancer, so it's all go, here at our place.  Phew, what will happen next, I wonder?

How about you, my friends?  How is it all going?  The world is in a precarious place, it seems to me.  But fingers crossed, we will get through it all, and soon.  Come along, and join in our monthly get-together.  Share your kitchen (and garden) shenanigans with us all.  This is our happy place!  Looking forward to hearing about your 2026 life, my friends.  

driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge on our roadtrip

In My Kitchen:

had to buy this one! A local artist's work, on a tea towel - so cute

bought this at a Toowooomba deli

Hubby took me on a surprise day out to his old hometown of Toowoomba.  We hit the deli of course, where we had coffee, and I bought a couple of things, including this Spanish olive oil (and the tea towel above).

another ceramic pourer, and the bronze snake that hubby bought me for Christmas

hubby carting out mangoes to the bin, before the garbage truck comes by

Usually, our mango tree (which is old and grumpy) doesn't produce more than a handful of fruit each summer, but this year every mango tree in the neighbourhood decided to go ballistic after early Spring rains and heat.  So we came back to about 150 kilos of 'em lying on the ground, rotting and fermenting and stinking!  Hubby and I got up early the next morning to pick up as much fruit as possible, to chuck in the bins, as it was bin day that day.  Groan ... ! 

bought these at a fabulous cafe in Ulmarra, NSW

What a fabulous little town this is!  So friendly, and such good food.  I have been watching a lot of that lovely British fellow who reviews tinned fish!  So I was inspired to try some different ones.

and I got these - from somewhere on our travels

bought these in a cheese shop in the Hunter Valley

and bought these - who knows where? :=)

you know a wooden spoon had to come into the equation! Carved by John Moody

there were chilli burns, and much yoghurt!

I made green jalapeño hot sauce, with only one glove!!

How foolish of me!  Left hand - all gloved up; right hand - nope!  OMG did it burn.  I tried ice, I tried cold water, I tried milk, I tried bi-carb soda, but in the end, I just had to stick my hand in a tub of plain Greek yoghurt and leave it for a couple of hours!  

another book!  I buy them from Blackwell's in the UK these days

and I pickled some cukes

the curveball: the most beautiful glass paperweight!

I bought this glorious glass piece by an artist called Nicole Ayliffe, from South Australia.  It is actually quite a large and heavy piece, and just so beautiful to hold, and stroke :=)

c. Sherry M.

Be a part of our friendly IMK community by adding your post here too - everybody welcome!  We'd love to have you visit.  Tell us about your kitchen (and kitchen garden) happenings over the past month.  Dishes you've cooked, preserves you've made, herbs and veg. in your garden, kitchen gadgets, and goings-on.  And one curveball is welcome - whatever you fancy; no need to be kitchen-related.  

The link is open from the first of the month to midnight on the thirteenth of the month, every month.

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Culinary adventures with Lori

Culinary adventures with Lori

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