Massaman Curry and Peanut Butter Caramel Cookies

I really love massaman curry and have cooked it a few times in the past but it has not quite tasted like the ones you buy in a thai restaurant. So whenever I see a recipe for massaman I am always keen to try it. This recipe for massaman curry is from Masterchef. 

The recipe calls for a paste to be made which is pretty straight forward and similar to most thai curry pastes. There were only two ingredients I found a little unusual and that was white peppercorns which I do have in my pantry but have not used very much. The other was 'curry powder' which always confuses me when listed as an ingredient in a curry paste, anyway I substituted with fresh curry leaves.

I did deviate from the recipe a little, I cooked onion as the base for my curry before adding the cream off the top of the coconut milk and a bay leaf. Then in went the curry paste until well cooked and very fragrant. I popped in my chunks of beef and let them brown. I transferred this to a slow cooker with some potatoes, fish sauce, tamarind and palm sugar (I used three times what the recipe suggested). I added a little water before letting the slow cooker do its wonder!

For the last half an hour I took the lid off and added the coconut milk. Just before serving I added juice of half a lime to give a little freshness. I garnished with peanuts.

Well, the verdict. It was nice but it did not really taste that much like a massaman curry. So my quest for a good massaman continues.

When I found the peanuts in my pantry my mine wandered to other recipes I could make. I often do a fantastic salted caramel peanut popcorn and I felt like something along those lines. My search resulted in these delicious peanut butter cookies with a salted peanut caramel filling. I am not great at making cookies but these ones worked out great. And it took me hardly anytime at all. 

The dough is made and rolled into balls then use a round teaspoon to make the wells. Once they come out of the oven use the teaspoon again to squish the wells back down again. The caramel is made with sugar, salt, water and glucose syrup. Once it browns you are then supposed to whisk in cream but I had none so I instead added milk, it worked fine though I suspect not quite as thick as it would have been with cream. Mix in the salted chopped peanuts and spoon into your cookies. 

They were really yummy!