Cleanin' Out My Cupboards...

I never thought I would see this day. Frankly, it has always boggled my mind a little bit when I read a review of a recipe, especially a recipe that originally aired on television, and the author says something like, "Saw this and ran into the kitchen to make it. Delish!" Honestly, who has so much food in their house that they can watch a random cooking demo on television, then run to the kitchen, pull out all the necessary ingredients, and replicate it at home? Especially when that recipe calls for strange, and uncommon components? Apparently, I do.

Ordinarily, I rarely have food in the house that isn't spoken for in some way. I try not to buy anything that I don't have a specific plan for, because more often than not, it will go bad before it gets eaten. Our household only has two people, and we can only eat so much. Yet, somehow, the stars aligned this week, when I happened to catch a show on the Cooking Channel about Vietnamese food. This particular episode featured dishes from the mountain-dwelling Hmong people of Northern Vietnam, and the host prepared a dish of pork skewers that looked particularly interesting. Justin happened to be in the room watching as well (which is unusual unto itself, since he barely tolerates pretty much all forms of television), and he suggested that we give the dish a try. 

When I headed to the show's website, I realized that somehow, miraculously, we had all the ingredients in the house except for the meat. The original recipe called for pork neck, a fatty cut of meat popular in Vietnam, and I knew there was basically no hope of finding something similar in a regular grocery store around here, so I decided to substitute pork steak. We had the meat sitting in the marinade the very same day.

Now, I do probably have an above average number of southeast Asian ingredients in my pantry, since we seem to have become enamored with those flavors lately. The complete dark-horse for me was that I happened to have an unopened tube of lemongrass paste languishing in my fridge, purchased on a whim when Dominick's was giving out free tubes of different herb pastes to promote the brand that manufactures them. I had narrowed down the decision to basil and lemongrass, and went with the lemongrass because basil is readily available in its regular, leafy form. Plus, we had been making a lot of Asian dishes lately, so I figured I'd be able to find a use for it. Eventually, my instincts proved correct.

Even though we've been eating a lot of Vietnamese-inspired dishes lately, I was not prepared for these pork skewers. The recipe called for a whopping three tablespoons of fish sauce, which may not seem like a lot, until you factor in the fact that fish sauce is the smelliest, most pungent ingredient in my kitchen, and probably anybody's kitchen. Fish sauce is the liquid runoff that is the byproduct of rotting, fermenting anchovy carcasses. It is a very common ingredient in southeast Asian dishes, where a very small amount adds a hit of umami and complexity without overwhelming the dish. Given how bad it smells, I've always been amazed that it manages to fade into the background, but in the case of this marinade, there was simply too much of it.

Justin didn't seem to mind the skewers, but to me, all that fish sauce made them unpleasantly funky. It was really all I could do to finish the portion on my plate. Clearly, I'm not ready for the big leagues when it comes to Vietnamese food.

Still, I'm proud to say that I was able to cook an unusual recipe on a whim, entirely out of ingredients I had in my pantry and refrigerator (sans meat). I never thought I would be one of those kind of people, but now I feel like I've joined some sort of well-stocked pantry secret society. Now I'm left to wonder what else I could make out of the food already in my house -- only time will tell...

All The Small Things...

One of the fundamental aspects of learning to live together is compromise, and in our household, the kitchen is no exception. I've been begrudgingly trying to consume more vegetables and integrate them into our meals, as per Justin's preferences, and my hot sauce collection has gone from zero to five different bottles in the nearly two months we've been living together. Meanwhile, Justin has been trying to cope with a smaller range of snack food choices, and a decreased emphasis on noshing between meals. Still, this merging of culinary traditions has been fruitful; I'm constantly confronted with new items in my pantry and refrigerator that need to be used, and that forces me to get creative with some of my ideas.

For instance, Justin, a huge fan of hummus, purchased a glut of tahini about a month ago when he found it on sale. Tahini may have a long shelf life, but it was taking up valuable cabinet space, so I looked to a recipe I'd spotted in last year's Food & Wine anthology, which I recently acquired from Grandma Betsy, who'd decided she was unlikely to make any of the recipes from it. (It's not exactly easy to source specialty ingredients in a rural town of under three thousand people.) Unsurprisingly, the recipe that caught my eye was for cookies, and the idea of using a ingredient usually associated with savory dishes in a dessert intrigued me.

I haven't made cookies yet since we moved, in part because I'm still a little leery of our oven, and partially because I hadn't quite gotten over the post-Cookie Bonanza burnout that afflicts me every year. Still, without any pressing distractions like a turn at Cake Day or celebrating Pi Day, it seemed like it was time to finally christen my oven with its first batch.

These tahini cookies came together very quickly, with a bare minimum of ingredients. The most difficult part was rolling out the dough into a 1-inch log, as all that fluid tahini made for a very, very soft dough. I also made somewhat of a mess trying to roll the squishy dough logs in sesame seeds, which I likened to making a craft project with glitter -- the tiny seeds went everywhere, and I just know I'll be finding them all over my kitchen for weeks, regardless of how much I vacuum and wipe.

The resulting cookies turned out unlike anything I've ever made. They are exceptionally tender and soft, to the point where you can score them with a fingernail, but still sandy, like a shortbread cookie. The tahini gives them a nutty, toasted flavor, while the sesame seeds along the edges give them a bit of extra crunch. They almost have an addictive quality to them, and their ultra-petite size gives you the illusion that it's okay to eat a handful of them, even though tahini is a fairly calorie-dense food, and they also feature a decent amount of butter.

Because they're little and the recipe makes over 100 cookies (I got 139), it seems like these should make a good gift, but they're also so delicate that it would be hard to pack them without them crumbling. I think they'd make a perfect dainty bite at a bridal or baby shower, if you were hosting one at your house and didn't have to take them very far. Since I don't have any of those coming up on my social calendar, I'm at a bit of a loss for what to do with this recipe, but I'll certainly file it away for future use, as these tahini cookies are definitely worth revisiting.

Tahini Shortbread Cookies

adapted from Food & Wine

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 c. tahini, stirred

3/4 c. powdered sugar

2 teaspoons coarse sea salt

1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. sesame seeds

In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the tahini, confectioners' sugar and salt at medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the flour and beat until incorporated. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead just until it comes together. Divide the dough in half and roll each piece into a 15-inch log, about 1 inch thick. Scatter the sesame seeds on a sheet of parchment paper and roll the logs until completely coated. Roll each log in parchment and refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour. 

Preheat the oven to 325° and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Unroll one log and slice it 1/4 inch thick. Arrange the slices on the baking sheets. Bake the cookies in the center and lower-thirds of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until golden, shifting the pans from front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking. Slide the parchment onto a rack and let the cookies cool completely. Repeat with the second log of dough.

Open Sesame...

Now, I know I said yesterday that I was trying to branch out a bit in terms of my new dessert experiments, but let's be real here -- did you really think I could stay away from cookies forever? Especially when you take into account the fact that my copy of Alice Medrich's new cookbook, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies just arrived from Amazon late last week? No, I think not.

After stalking my mailbox all week long, the first thing I did when the package finally arrived was tear it open and pour over the book from cover to cover. Although I had high hopes for Medrich's new book after finding great inspiration in Pure Dessert, I found myself a little disappointed in her latest outing. First of all, it contained several recipes that I'd seen in her other books, like the Nibby Whole Wheat Sablés that I baked not more than a month ago, and the Golden Kamut Shortbreads also from Pure Dessert. Honestly, recycling recipes from her old books seemed a little cheap to me, no matter how good they were in the first place.

Also, the organization of Medrich's new book, if you couldn't tell based on the title, is based on cookie texture, which seemed like a blatant rip-off from my usual go-to cookie cookbook, Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and Share. In fact, the books are even approximately the same size, and come in the same paperback format. The recipes from Medrich seem a bit more gourmet, with ingredients that are harder to locate in regular stores, though not necessarily any less labor intensive than Martha's. However, Martha's book has significantly more pictures, which actually makes it much more inspiring, in my opinion. It has a beautifully-styled photo of every single recipe that tempts you to make every last cookie, whereas Medrich relies on the powers of description alone.

One of the limited photos did capture my interest though, for long, skinny cookies speckled with toasted sesame seeds. I'm more or less indifferent to sesame as a flavor, but the technique was unlike anything I'd seen before in a cookie: a crumbly, pie crust-like dough gets pressed into the bottom of a loaf pan, creating a thin layer that is then sliced crosswise to create strips of dough. It was an innovative riff on the classic slice-and-bake cookie, and I wanted to give it a spin. Plus, Justin likes sesame seeds, so I figured he, at least, would be a fan.

The cookies, which were found in the "Crispy" chapter of the book were definitely more crunchy than crispy, but that might have been because the exceedingly crumbly dough was nearly impossible to cut into sticks as thin as those pictured in the book's photo. That said, they were still quite good, with a a pleasantly nutty flavor and a buttery finish. They weren't overly sweet, so I think they would make a nice accompaniment to a cup of tea, or perhaps a dish of ice cream.


Sesame Sticks
adapted from Alice Medrich

1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
2/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. lightly toasted sesame seeds
1/3 c. ground blanched almonds
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cold water

Put the flour, sugar, sesame seeds, almonds, and salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk to blend. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender until butter is reduced to small pieces. With the fingertips of both hands, lightly toss and rub the mixture together until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Combine the vanilla and water in a small bowl. Stir the flour and butter mixture with a fork while the water and vanilla into the bowl. Continue to toss and stir lightly with the fork or your fingers until all the dry ingredients are slightly damp. The dough should remain crumbly and stick together only when pinched.

Dump the mixture into a 5x9 inch loaf pan lined with aluminum foil, and spread it evenly. Press it very firmly, making a thin layer. Fold the foil over the dough and wrap it tightly. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Unwrap the dough and transfer it to a cutting board. Use a long sharp knife to cut the dough crosswise into 1/4-inch (or thinner, if possible) slices. Use the knife to transfer each slice to a parchment-lined baking sheet, placing the slices 1 inch apart. The slices will be fragile and require the support of the knife in transit.

Bake for 12-18 minutes, until the cookies are golden with golden brown edges. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool completely before eating or storing.