Groundnuts with Toothpicks?

Wash & Soak & Clean these freshly picked groundnuts which mom bought it from Donggongong Tamu (local wet market) this morning. They are covered with lots of sandy soil, so wash & wash until all dirt are gone off from the shells.

Mum was complaining those groundnut / peanut seeds that she bought from grocery shops (for cooking soups) were not nice. She was thinking to let these raw groundnuts left dried under the sun, and make her own peanut seeds for her usual lotus soup.

A kind of weird theory to shorten the cooking period of boiling groundnuts is to put handful of Tooth picks together while u boiling them! and this trick actually helps to soften these nuts too! (note, must use rough wood type tooth picks, instead of sharp-point polished tooth picks which u always get from restaurant.)

ha! the box says it! "Perfect" Tooth picks.

When my uncle & his family (They R from Denmark) came for holidays couple of months ago, telling K we named these tooth picks as "Kayu-Balak" (local language in KK)... means "Timber-log" in English!! K just rolled his eyes and the Dad further explained " This is Mini-Timber-Log" ! :P


Old-Fashioned "Timber-log" (A.K.A Tooth Picks)

So after the groundnuts are properly cleaned, Use a big pot, cover these nuts with water until just covered them. Put 2 teaspoons of salts for flavour.

These batch are cooked at 45 minutes. mum said they R young groundnuts, so take lesser time to cook. Usual ones are about 1 hour cooking time (Plus the help from ToothPicks)

The Salt , The Oil

Most ppl if you qn them, why add salt to boil the pasta? they will say Dunno, just follow what was told!

The addtion of salt to the pasta cooking waster is an essential step that must not be omitted. When pasta is cooked in unsalted water, no matter how flavourful the sauce, the dressed pasta will be certain to have a bland taste.

(source: Eric Treuille & Anna Del Conte PASTA EVERY WAY FOR EVERY DAY)

The above statement is certainly true! I experienced it before! and it tasted horrible! As they said, no matter how flavourful the sauce, the pasta still have a bland taste if cooked in unsalted water. I remember my uni fren being so nice! prepared us dinner while we having evening class, and when we came back, the pasta just taste 'bad' ! why ? bcuz he cooked in a plain water!

The Oil Myth -- Should we add oil to cook pasta?

If you use the correct amount of water, add the pasta when the water is boiling rapidly and remember to stir the pasta immediately, the addition of Oil becomes totally unnecessary. It is in fact a waste of oil.