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Tup's Coconut Crisps September 12, 2007 Last week I mentioned an old handwritten cookbook of mine rising to the surface from one of the many cartons of books about the house. Some of the recipes were fairly scary 60s interpretations of ethnic dishes adapted to suit the prevailing Kiwi palate, taking into account a severe lack of access to ingredients found in the supposed countries of origin. The “Chinese casserole” was of this ilk. Pork cubes and onions were fried then put in a casserole with “the rest of the ingredients” – namely garlic, celery, uncooked rice, a can of mushroom soup, some water and a little soy sauce – and baked for an hour. “Serve with noodles,” we were instructed. You have to remember those were the days when Chinese restaurants would give you a plate of buttered white bread as soon as you sat down and where the food was pretty bland and seemed to consist mainly of chicken skin, frozen mixed vegetables and cauliflower. If you wanted something with a bit more zing, you picked sweet and sour pork, the batter-encrusted pork chunks smothered in a bright orange-pink sauce redolent of vinegar and studded with pieces of canned pineapple. The “Fish Italien” probably qualified for the trendy name by virtue of the the two ounces of cooked spaghetti that were placed in the bottom of a casserole dish then covered with some fillets of fish, a little onion and some chopped mushrooms then doused with a can of cream of tomato soup, sprinkled with cheese and breadcrumbs and baked. As the book creeps towards the 70s I see I was attracted to fairly extravagant crayfish dishes. These days it’s such a treat to eat crayfish I wouldn’t dare smother it in curry sauce or give it the Newburg treatment. Likewise “Stewed Oysters (China)”. It starts off “Clean and dry the oysters.” From there it’s all downhill. A clove of garlic fried in a hot pan then replaced with chopped mushrooms, celery, a little cooked chicken and ham and the oysters. All is sprinkled with flour, carefully drowned in a cup of boiling stock then simmered for 10 minutes. Nope. Today I like my oysters au naturel. Saves all that cooking - and ruining good oyster. These are extreme examples and there are plenty of recipes in there I made often and enjoyed. One I was eager to make again was my old great aunt Tup’s coconut crisps. Tup’s real name was Ethel, but I guess because she was the youngest of seven children, she was nicknamed Tuppence. For most of her life she cooked on an old wood stove until the family home in Waitara, Taranaki was demolished to make way for a wool store and she went into a small pensioner flat. She’d stoke up the fire and get mixing and soon there’d be freshly baked cakes or biscuits for afternoon tea. I made a batch of her coconut crisps this week. They are light, lemony and very crisp – and easy to make. I did it her way and used a wooden spoon for the mixing.
Tup Goddard's Coconut Crisps 90g butter Melt the butter. Add the sugar and beat well. Add the beaten egg and the essence. Sift the flour and baking powder and add to the butter mixture with the coconut, mixing to combine. This is a softish mix. Spoon out onto a cold baking tray, leaving room to spread. Bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes.
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