The Chocolate Chip Cookie Project: Part XV

Subject #15: Giant Cookies from How Sweet It Is

Apparently the last time I wrote about a new cookie recipe was over a year ago. How is this possible?? Did I really go a full year without trying a new (chocolate chip) cookie recipe?? Not quite: I made this recipe in November just before leaving for Russia so that I’d have something delicious and comforting to nibble on when I arrived in the strange land. Then came December and the holidays and I never got around to posting it, but a polite request from a dedicated reader for another cookie recipe reminded me .

What interested me about this recipe was the technique used to form the cookies: roll the dough into a ball, then tear the ball into two pieces and stick the rounded sides together, forming an oddly-shaped cookie stack. Place it on the cookie sheet with one of the torn sides facing down. (I didn’t take any pictures of this, but there are photos demonstrating the technique along with the recipe). The cookies that result should have an attractive craggy surface after baking.

The author used mini M&M’s to make colorful cookies while I used my regular chopped chocolate. I also didn’t make mine quite as giant as hers. Some commenters on the post stated that the recipe is the same as the Cooks Illustrated chocolate chip cookie, which I’ve tried before. However, it’s not identical– Cook’s Illustrated has you brown the butter, and and browned butter has characteristics that make it different from regular melted butter. Plus CI had the interesting step of whisking the eggs with the sugar and butter several times until the mixture is thick and shiny, while the How Sweet recipe just says to combine until mixed. That’s different enough for me!

So how did my cookie stacks turn out? To be honest, some of them melted together in an odd way while baking and came out looking like lumpy alien cookies.

But putting aesthetics aside, these cookies were wonderful! Even fully baked these were sort of like cookie-dough cookies, soft and rich and buttery. I think the stacking method helps to make the center of the cookie thicker and therefore it stays softer while the edges brown and become nicely crispy. The cookies also maintained their texture for several days after baking, which made me happy (I hate it when cookies become harder and dry within a day or two!). The tear-and-stack technique is something I’ll try again with other recipes since it does seem to help with texture. In the future I’d probably choose this recipe over the CI one, since without having to brown the butter it’s much quicker and more simple.

Sesame wasabi crackers

I was in a baking mood last week. On Thursday evening I wanted to bake some cookies. J, like much of the world, is on a new-year diet, so I decided to bake while he was out and made sure to put away all the evidence before he got home. Of course when he walked in the door he asked, “What smells so good?”  Dang, caught in the act . Fortunately the next day I was checking out the daily Top 9 recipes on Foodbuzz and this recipe for sesame wasabi crackers caught my eye. Perfect– something fun to bake that was healthy enough for J to partake in too!

The original recipe was gluten-free and called for 2 cups of almond flour. I only had enough almonds on hand to make slightly over a cup of almond flour, so I substituted whole-wheat flour for the rest. Therefore my crackers weren’t gluten-free, but they were slightly lower in fat! The rest of the recipe I followed exactly as written, and I left them in the oven for slightly over an hour after they were done baking (while I went to take a nap, since we had woken up at 6:15 [on a Saturday!] to walk a friend to the harbor).

They came out perfectly! I scored the rectangle of dough with a butter knife before baking and they easily snapped apart into neat little squares. The crackers are slightly crumbly but not hard or dry, and the sesame seeds give them a a bit of crunch. J commented that flavored crackers from the store tend to smack you in the face with whatever they’re supposed to taste like, but with these the wasabi flavor slowly becomes more distinct as you eat one. And while the flavor is definitely present, these definitely don’t contain enough wasabi to make your nose burn or anything.  I highly recommend this recipe (did I mention that it’s also super-easy and makes me wonder why I don’t always make my own crackers?).

Vacation-inspired food: Poutine

I’m sure we’re not the only ones this happens to: we’re eating out somewhere (usually on vacation), something delicious crosses our lips, and we look at each other and say, “We should totally make this at home.” More often than not we realize that the components would be easy to find (and if not, then we immediately start thinking of reasonable substitutes that would be available in Estonia). Such was the case with poutine*, which J tried for the first time when we were in Montreal in September. I mean really, can it get any simpler? Traditional poutine has only three components– french fries, brown gravy, and cheese curds.

The poutine we shared in Montreal… delicious.

In our first-ever at-home poutine attempt, we decided not to go totally traditional. Although we could have found a reasonable substitute for squeaky cheese curds in Estonia, we found ourselves drawn to the smoked cheese corner of the dairy case and decided that a smoky-flavored cheese would suit poutine just fine (if the Canadians can create variations on the classic, then so can we!). I also must confess that we bought frozen french fries, which I am usually categorically against because potatoes are so much cheaper. But for the sake of texture and consistency we baked frozen french fries in the oven until crisp and they were perfect (though next time I may make my own oven fries).

Chopped smoky cheese

What I did make from scratch, however, was the gravy. I’d wanted to make a nice toasty roux ever since my New Orleans cooking class, so I combined my fat and flour and then stirred my little heart out. I was thrilled when the roux actually started taking on a nice brown/beige tint, but I didn’t push it too far after that since I was afraid of burning it. Still, it smelled delicious and definitely enhanced the flavor of the gravy.

Waiting for gravy to thicken…

I cooked the gravy for quite some time and it still didn’t get quite as thick as I’d hoped (I feel like this always happens to me! What’s the secret to thick gravy? Do I have to add starch?). I knew it would thicken up a bit when I took it off the heat, plus we were getting impatient, so we went ahead and dished up some (mostly) homemade poutine.

You can see from the picture how the gravy is lighter and more liquid-y than the gravy we had in Montreal, but the flavor was great! It was all there– crispy fries soaking up the salty gravy (I actually like it when the fries get soggy!), with creamy smoky cheese bits mixed in. Certainly not an everyday food, but so. very. good. I think this “recipe” could come in handy next time we have hangovers…

* J insists on calling it “Putin”. Does anybody else do this?

Tallinn Restaurant Week: Neh

I’m sure all 20-something of you who read this blog have been waiting for me to finally write about the third restaurant we visited during Tallinn Restaurant Week (over two months ago…), Neh. The restaurant’s focus is on the cuisine of the islands in the Baltic Sea, like Gotland, the Åland Islands, and Estonia’s own Saaremaa and Hiiumaa. Also, their head chef is kinda hot.

This was the two-course lunch menu, taken from the Restaurant Week site (although edited by me because some of their translations sucked):

Pan-baked bread

traditional Saaremaa dish, pan-baked bread, made with Koplimäe farm barley and smoked sauna ham served with lingonberry-apple chutney and caraway tea

Neh´s wild boar sausage

lightly smoked artisanal sausages, caramelized onion & vegetable mash

I loved the first course, pictured above. The pan bread was chewy from the barley and contained chunks of the most delicious smoked ham. The rustic bread was nicely complimented by the tart fresh lingonberries and and the creamy sauce on top (unfortunately I can’t remember what was in it, but I think maybe fresh dill?). My only negative comment is that the lingonberry puree flourish on the plate looks like a blood spatter from a crime scene.

The sausage was fresh, rich and perfectly meaty, no unappealing chewy bits. The accompanying roasted beets, vegetable mash, and mustard added variety but the star was definitely the sausage. It was very good-quality but also rich and fatty, so this portion was honestly a bit much for me.

The restaurant itself is extremely cozy and charming. It’s in an old renovated house near the harbor, but the decor is simple and modern. Where we were sitting on the first floor there was a total of only 4-5 tables in the room, so it almost felt like we were guests at somebody’s house. I also love their focus on “local” cuisine and ingredients (not just focused on Estonia, but on the surrounding Baltic Sea area as well). The “eat locally” movement hasn’t become a trend here in Estonia yet, but I’m glad at least one restaurant is drawing attention to it. And in case you’re wondering, I was too shy to ask whether the head chef was in that day (typical!) so that means I just may have to go back another time .

A new year

At the beginning of 2011 I made the following food and blog-related resolutions. Let’s see how I did, shall we?

• Cook from my cookbooks. I did try some new Jamie Oliver recipes this year, but in general a lot of my recipes still came from the internet, not books.
  
• Eat dinner at the table at least twice a week. Total fail. We att at the kitchen table when we had company, but other than that we sat and ate together at the table very rarely.
• Try eating vegan for at least 5 days and raw vegan for at least 3 days. I kind of fulfilled this one. You can read my adventures in raw eating starting here, although I didn’t go full raw because I didn’t need added stress in my life. I never did the 5 days vegan, even though I think that one would be easier. Not sure why I never got around to it!

• Visit at least six new (to us) restaurants/bars/cafes in Tallinn. Success! We actually visited a ton of new places this year and found some new favorites. I’m really happy we broke out of our restaurant rut!

But now… what to do this year? Here are a few food- and blog-related goals that come to mind right now; I may add more later.

• Try eating vegan for at least 5 days. I didn’t do it last year but I’d still like to try!
• Prepare something for our wedding reception in September. I’ve mentioned this goal to J and he said I shouldn’t do it. Perhaps in the week before our wedding when I’m tearing my hair out I’ll agree with him, but right now I feel that I’d like to prepare something like cookies to add to the dessert table or share as favors. I love cooking and baking for people so much that it just feels right to have something homemade to share with our guests.
• Write blog posts in Estonian and in Finnish. This ties into my overall goal to spend more time working on both languages.

I honestly can’t think of anything else right now! I usually have an idea of what kind of new cooking or baking project I’d like to attempt, but I haven’t had any inspiration recently. Any suggestions? And are you tackling any kitchen goals this year?