Tonight we enjoyed a meal from New Zealand. Many of the dishes I saw were seafood, which aren’t as popular with some here, so we opted for the very popular meat pie. The one we chose was the beef and cheddar pie and we were not disappointed.
We began by sautéing onions and garlic and then adding the ground beef with salt and pepper. Once cooked we added corn starch (alternative to flour to reduce the amount of gluten) and mixed well. Beef stock and Worchestershire sauce went in next and cooked until thick.
This was set aside to cool for a couple of hours while we got the pastry prepared. This was done by rolling out puff pastry and cutting into circles to fit our individual sized pie tins.
After it was cooled we mixed in aged white cheddar and spooned it into the shells which were then topped and given an egg wash. These cooked until nicely golden.
Everyone enjoyed these pies save one who wasn’t too fond of the cheese. The rest were quickly polished off and I believe we will be making these again, or at least another variety to try to add to our menu!
https://www.copymethat.com/r/uodAYsl/new-zealand-style-beef-cheddar-pies/
For dessert we made Grandma’s Afghan Biscuits. These were made by creaming butter and sugar and adding cocoa and flour with vanilla. To this we stirred in corn flakes until combined.
These were rolled into balls and flattened slightly before baking until soft. Once cooled we added an icing made with melted butter, cocoa, vanilla, and icing sugar, and then topped with walnuts.
These weren’t too bad, though not very sweet. They tasted more like a dark chocolate treat than the usual milk chocolate.
Did you know that New Zealand was the first country to allow women to vote back in 1893? They are also first to see the sun rise. There are two species of bats that are New Zealands only native land mammals and, to the excitement of one child, they have no snakes.
New Zealand has the clearest water with a visibility of 80 metres in Nelson’s Blue Lake and their 90 mile beach is in fact only 56 miles, or 90kms. They also have the most golf courses per capita and have even more Scottish Pipe Bands per capita that Scotland itself.
Pizza Hut buys it’s mozzarella cheese from Taranaki, New Zealand and the kiwi fruit actually originates in China.
Finally, they are the first to have weather reports in elvish being fans of the Lord of the Rings, and the force is strong with their people, even having a large number of New Zealanders converting to Jediism in their love for Star Wars.