We borrowed a Chilean cookbook from the library recently and it had some intriguing recipes. There was Huevos falsos (false eggs as a dessert). We thought the kids would love that – will write about those in a later blog. The book was great because it was written by a Chilean woman who now lived in the USA. Another Chilean had also borrowed the book from the library and where they disagreed with the paragraphs about Chilean life or a recipe, they had left their own comments.
There was also an intriguing recipe for carrot sweets. We had carrots growing in our garden so I thought we would give this recipe a try. I dug a couple of carrots out of the garden and grated them. The recipe said one cup of grated carrot was needed. That was about two carrots from our garden. It also called for a pound of sugar. Which is 450 grams of sugar. This was a lot of sugar and I think having made them, next time I would add a little less, maybe 350 grams because they really were sweet! The recipe also required the juice of one orange (and the zest which you add later).
Into the pot went the carrot, sugar and orange juice and then it was just a matter of boiling it down to a really thick syrup. This took quite awhile, over forty minutes. By then it was bedtime so we stirred in the zest of the orange and after some wee tastings, left it to cool off. By the next morning it was much firmer and we rolled it into balls and then rolled them in coconut.
We kept them in the fridge. They were really nice, very sweet and still carroty. The kids loved them and I will definitely make them again for parties. It was neat to make a sweet out of a vegetable and they were a lovely orange colour too.
Summerfields Foods
207 Waimairi Road, Ilam, Christchurch
open 11am-7pm Tues – Sat
ph 03 357 0067
www.summerfieldsfoods.co.nz
