Awaken and make Nooneh Berenji -Rice cookies for No Ruz

Some of the mother's famous cookies. I will get to them all soon. Patience people.

The Equinox happens tonight; officially it is the start of the Persian New Year, but a tad too late in Seattle  for anything but a few phone calls and kisses around the family. Tomorrow night, I will be going to my parents for a dinner replete with all the traditional foods – the kuku sabzi, the sabzi polo and the smoked white fish with herbs (mahi bah sabzi). Yes, it’s all about herbs and green, a meal that Kermit the frog would love.  However, this is just the start,  the holiday continues with open houses galore – “Aid Deedany”, where you go visit your relatives, the older ones first out of respect, and then you move on to see your friends far and wide. In Iran, it is a two week process, here we try and do it in a few weekends.  Most of the visits are after dinner – usually tea, fruit, ajil and an array of cookies.  My parents are hard to pin down during these few weeks; they are out and about doing the rounds. Good for them. Spring is a great time to start emerging from the Seattle Slumber.  The Slumber is the time between November 5^th and March 20^th, when most of Seattle goes into seclusion to only come out for special occasions – winter beer releases, Husky basketball games or to piss me off in line at the airport.  Now is the time for all good people of Seattlandia to get out of your house and attempt to become one with your friends and neighbors, use this as a great excuse.  I miss you all, really.

My mom makes a nice array of cookies for the holiday (pictured above).  Persians are not big on chocolate, nor cheesecake or any strange concoction that we are likely to call dessert at the big table.  They are big into orange blossom, rose water, honey, cardamom, almonds and walnuts along with delicate fruit flavorings.  Some of their inspiration comes from the French with pate au choux and mille feuilles, but mostly are just plain Persian.

Cookies getting ready to hit the oven.

One of my favorites is “nooneh berenji” or rice flour cookies. These are amazingly delicate and powerful little cookies that melt in your mouth. You would have no idea that they are rice flour, they have a nice subtle rose water flavor with a little cardamom added for punch.  They do not travel well, but they are worth picking up at a Persian grocery store when you can find them. If you don’t have one around, try making them. A plus is that they are gluten free. Since I am not a fan of making things with ingredients that are not easily found within a reasonable roaming radius of home, these are pretty swell. It does require learning how to clarify butter, which is something I had never done before, but a New Year means learning new things, doesn’t it?

Fancy cookie press made my Mr. S.

Nooneh Berenji – Rice Cookies topped with poppy seeds
Makes 5 dozen

This recipe requires two things – one is learning how to clarify butter and the other is to have a wooden cookie stamp. If you don’t have one on hand, I would just roll cookies into a ball, make a tiny indentation and then press the poppy seeds into the indentation. My mom has a little collection of the cookie stamps, they are made from wood, a husband of a friend of hers likes to make them.  You can find glass and pottery ones at Amazon, Williams-Sonoma and some specialty cookware shops around your neck of the woods The trick is not to press down too hard, you want the cookies about ¼” thick after stamping.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups (3 sticks, ¾ lb.) unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
1 – 1 ¼ cup white rice flour (portion them as one cup with a ¼ cup measure in reserve)
1 cup confectioner’s (powdered sugar)
1/3 cup rosewater
½ t cardamom
1/4 cup blue poppy seeds

Melt butter over medium heat, let cool. Skim the foam from the top of the melted butter and then either carefully pour to avoid transferring the solids at the bottom to a clean container or sieve the rest of the melted butter through cheesecloth lined strainer.  If you are still unsure, please refer to David Lebovitz’s awesome tutorial on the subject.

Prep a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat. Preheat oven to 325 F.

By hand or in a mixer, combine butter with egg yolks added one at a time. Really you are not creaming because the butter is not really in a solid form, but you do want them well combined.  Next add rose water to butter and egg mixture. Mix until combined. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients together, starting with one cup of rice flour and the confectioner’s sugar and cardamom.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix at a low speed until combined. If the dough seems sticky or wet, add additional rice flour by the tablespoonful until a little more manageable and easily handled without overworking the dough.  Remove dough from bowl and start making 3/4” ball from dough and test cookie press to make an imprint. If the imprint works without cracking the dough, then the dough is the perfect consistency. If there is too much flour, add a tablespoon of water, and if it is too sticky, add a little bit of rice flour.  

Once you are happy with the consistency you can start making cookies.  If you are at a good stopping point, wrap the dough up in saran wrap or a zip lock bag and place in fridge for up to two days.  Let come to room temperature before starting to make the cookies.

To make cookies - start rolling the dough into balls, place onto prepared baking sheet with 2” between each cookie and start stamping. Press or sprinkle 10-15 poppy seeds (is that a smidgen) in the center of each cookie.  Check around 8 to 10 minutes, depending on your oven, once they begin to get a little golden on the edges, take out and cool on a cookie sheet.  Once cooled,  store in a sealed container for up to two weeks.

Persian New Year -Ajil or trail mix for hearty fire jumpers

 

It is all about the flowers, spring, purity, life affirming and the cookies that my mom makes.

Persian New Year is next week. I haven’t blogged about it because I haven’t been very good about keeping up with the biggest challenge to starting the New Year, which is cleaning up your messes from the previous year.

That sounds really vague doesn’t it?

Really, the few weeks leading up to New Year are pretty much the same – clean house, settle debts, make lots of yummy food, prepare altar and get your life in order.  This year, this has evaded me, partially due to travel, partially due to inertia, and mostly due to ennui.

All together it makes for a muddled end to one year and no real clarity to the next.

I think there is no way I can catch up and make it all spic and span by the Spring Equinox. I’m just going to settle for a 70% solution and call it good.

Makeshift haft-sin or altar from New year 2006. We were in Rome, so we winged it. Looks pretty darn good, IMHO.

The last Tuesday night before the New Year is a big deal in Iran – Chahar Shambeh Souri. I call it the Super bowl pre-game, the Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer special before Christmas of Persian New Year.  You build a bonfire in the street, on the beach, in your backyard and you jump over the flames cleansing your health from a pallid and jaundiced to a vigorous and life affirming pink or red.  In my recounting, I call it get rid of the bad juju and move on.  While we can’t always to go to those great lengths of bonfire makings, we try and jump over a candle at home.

The best part of the celebration is the Persian Snack mix that goes along with the event, because gathering wood, making a fire and jumping over it takes a lot of effort.

This year's ajil, the mixture varies year to year, but its all so good.

Ajil, or snack mix is sold all over Iran and is a staple of any Iranian’s diet.  Much like the GORP mixes that are life sustaining foods of coach airline flyers and hikers around the US,  Ajil is nutritious and easy to make. It keeps for a long time and it is hard not to take great handfuls of it at a time.  It calls for a nice mix of salty and sweet components that balance well off each other. Everyone has a little different riff on the mix, but it pretty much consists of equal proportions of various nuts and dried fruits. My mom’s mix this year consists of hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, dried chickpeas, sultanas, raisins and dried tiny figs.  In the past she has added dried cranberries and apricots, but we’re more likely to stick to the standard mix these days.

Ajil for the last Wednesday before the New Year – Ajil Chahar Shambeh Souri

This is a pretty casual recipe, a little of this, a little of that, no need to be precise with measurements, but proportions are important.  Nuts are all shelled; no one needs to work hard at eating this stuff.

 Makes 9.5 cups

1.5 cup walnut halves
1.5 cup almonds (unsalted)
1.5 cup hazelnuts (I like them toasted, unsalted)
1 cup pistachio nuts (salted)
1 cup dried chickpeas. lightly salted (available at Middle Eastern markets)
1 cup sultanas (golden raisins)
1 cup flame raisins (the bigger, the better)
1 cup currants               

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl until well combined. The chickpeas tend to fall to the bottom of the bowl, so tell your guests to scoop all the way to the bottom to get the proportion of sweet and salty together. My TH leaves the chickpeas behind, go figure. If you have picky eaters, you can leave them out.  Store leftovers in a sealed bag for up to a month, if they last that long.

Ibarra chocolate cake - how patience pays off

The cake, so fancy and terribly easy.

 There is something about the concept of try and try again. Sometimes you feel like you are hitting yourself over the head over and over again and sometimes all that trying pays off. You finally achieve that handstand in Yoga class (not me), a rock skips six times before sinking, or you conquer the flakey pie crust that tastes good.

No, this is not about pie. This post is about trying.

When it felt like my world was collapsing around me, I decided to start doing other things for self-preservation. I met some fabulous food bloggers and writers through Keren Brown, one was Jenise Silva (@licorous) from Twitter. She and I had a few of the same interests, community gardening, awesome restaurants and canning. I would see her on and off, she asked me to write a post for Canvolution and then she started talking about contests.

I hate contests, partially because I hate the attention and stress, partially because I hate to lose. However, the opportunity to challenge myself to make the perfect food item was intriguing; in this case it was a contest pairing pie versus cake. There are pie people in the world and there are cake people, you really can’t be on the fence with this one. Either you stand firm with the precise yet crusty pie camp or the crumby delectable cake camp. I love pie, but really, I like pie filling. The pie crust, while it has been bane of my existence, is usually what I leave to the side. I have a few friends who make awesome pies and pie crusts and for this I am truly grateful, but I stand firmly with cake.

Cake you say? Cake is something that brings me great joy. It is one of the first things you learn how to make, either as a quick cake with a few ingredients or a mix, which once you add all the things required – egg, oil, water, you might have just made a scratch cake.

I love the crumb of a cake – the mouth feel of a dense yet delicate cake. I am not into the fudgy moist cake with coyingly sweet frosting, I like my cakes a little on the dry side and with an appropriate 4 parts cake to frosting ratio. In fact, I like my cakes unfrosted, so I can enjoy the crumb and taste without the noise of confectioner’s sugar and butter.

And no, I am not a hoarder of the frosting rose.

What does this have to do with cake or when the hell are you getting to how this all fits into cake v. pie? Right, let me tell you.

In 2010, Jenise put on a great contest of Seattle bakers, who each selected a camp and went on to make their best example of a cake or pie to be judged by a group of food lovers and professional bakers. I was intimidated, but charged. I made my standby cake – chocolate cake with a mocha buttercream frosting, but I this time I paid rapt attention to detail. I made another kind of cake and had my colleagues try it, and then paired them next to each other. When the contest time came around, I felt I was on my game. I did not account for hot weather, uneven baking and inability to make a smooth frosting. Oh yeah, that by the time the judges got to my cake, they would be stuffed.

 The very full of cake and pie judges - 2011.

It was good, but compared to the rest, it was not great.

 When cake goes bad, from the Westinghouse cookbook.

But I learned a lot, I learned about my oven, rotating cake pans, and patience. It was a good experience for me which I repeated a few more times that year, by entering and losing pie contests galore.

Le cake, two layers, with ganache and marmalade between the layers.

When the Cake v. Pie rematch returned in 2011, I was on my game. I decided to try something different and used a recipe that I loved and was a little different. It was a gluten free nut torte (named a cake) that uses flavors found in Mexican chocolate – orange and cinnamon and combines it with bittersweet chocolate and beautifully toasted almonds. The recipe comes from the Mark Miller's Coyote Cafe Cookbook. The recipe works well as long as you are careful folding in egg whites and not overbeating the mixture. It is not an elegant creation. It has very little lift as it is has no leavening, but the taste is wonderful. The cake turned out great, I managed to get it to the site in one piece.  I hung around a bit, but since we had dinner guests, I skeedadled out there before they started judging the cakes. Partially out of the necessity to feed four humans and three hounds, but because I hate to lose.

 Some of the contestants representing team cake.

And you know something, I won 2nd Place in the cake category and became a better baker in the process. WIN. WIN.

Ibarra Chocolate Torte - Adapted from the Coyote Cafe Cookbook by Mark Miller, Ten Speed Press, 1999

Makes 12 servings.

Note: This recipe makes one layer of the cake. If you wish to get all fancy and make it as a two layer cake, then by all means do so. I myself am not comfortable doubling this recipe, so I make each layer separately. You may wish to throw caution to the wind and try it.

Almond Cake:

1 T cinnamon - yes one Tablespoon
zest of 2 oranges
4 T (2 oz) bittersweet chocolate grated
1 1/2 C unblanched almonds, toasted and ground ( I use the ground almonds at trader joes)
4 eggs separated
1/2 C sugar
2 T fresh orange juice
2 T Grand Marnier
2 T seville marmalade, thin cut
Rice flour for dusting

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease, rice flour and paper an 8-9" cake pan. Combine cinnamon, orange zest, grated chocolate and ground almonds in a mixing bowl and set aside. Beat egg yolks with 1/4 C sugar; stir in orange juice and set aside.

In another bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks while gradually adding 1/4 C sugar. Stir egg yolks and orange juice into the chocolate almond mixture, then fold in half the beaten egg whites. Blend well, and gently fold in remaining egg whites.

Spread mixture evenly in prepared cake pan and bake for 25-35 minutes or until cake pulls away from sides of pan. Let cool for 10 minutes and invert cake onto cake rack.

Warm marmalade until runny.

When cool, paint with Grand Marnier and brush on marmalade, let set for 10 minutes and cover with glaze. If you plan on adding the second layer, do it now, cover the repeat the grand marnier wash on the top, but skip the marmalade.

Chocolate Glaze

10 T (5 oz) bittersweet chocolate
1 T (1/2 oz) unsweetened chocolate
3/4 C softened butter
1 T corn syrup
1/4 cup chopped candied orange peel.

Place both chocolates, 1/2 C butter, corn syrup and in a double boiler over simmering (not boiling) water. Stir gently until just melted. Remove from heat, and stir in remaining 1/4 C butter. The glaze is ready to pour when it reaches the consistency of maple syrup (between 86°-96°).

Place cake rack over pan or wax paper, pour glaze over cake, tilting to coat evenly. Decorate with candied orange peel if desired.

Vietnamese Coffee Jello - or how to kick yourself in the butt

Note: I am trying to get back into blogging. I have spent too much time wondering how people perceive me and not spending enough time not giving a whack and doing things I love. My dear Rebecca Nelson of the Ravenna Blog asked me to post a recipe for a Community Board Newsletter and while walking the dog and wracking my addled brain, this popped to mind.

Coffee and gelatin, builds strong brains and hooves.

This winter, I was joking with some of my Twitter friends about gelled desserts. I had posted a picture of a sublime trio of poached quince, quince jelly and shortbread from one of my favorite restaurants in London, St. John Bread and Wine. The quince was offset by a nice whipped cream and the combination of all the flavors and textures worked well together.  A Twitter conversation started about Jell-O molds. It turns out that some people actually use them instead of displaying them on their kitchen walls. Imagine that.  My intent was to experiment with all sorts of gelled recipes in the month of January, but like all things, life got in the way. I was able to convince TH that gelled desserts were very important and she suffered through many different experiments.  My best effort was a cherry juice jelly; my worst was a green tea lemon jelly that looked like the slime we used to buy in the little green garbage cans at the toy store.

Coffee jelly is a classic New England dessert – leftover coffee is saved, when you have enough, you heat it up, add some gelatin, sugar and in a few hours, you have created a thrifty light dessert that uses up your leftovers and nothing goes to waste. Serve with some whipped cream on the side, and you can win over the most skeptical of critics. Better yet, you can use decaf and they would never know.

I decided to see where else I could take this.  I found a great recipe for one of my favorite drinks turned into a gelled dessert from The Food Librarian.  I have enjoyed Vietnamese coffee -a sweet, strong coffee served either hot or cold when dining out, but never tried making it at home. The coffee is traditionally made using a drip filter to which sweetened condensed milk is then stirred into the coffee. It is a great substitute for dessert when dining out.  It also lends itself well to gelling. The recipe is quick to make, requires very few ingredients and is sophisticated enough to serve at an elegant dinner party.

Vietnamese Coffee Jelly - adapted from The Food Librarian– serves 6 – 8

Active time – 15 minutes

Chilling time – 4 hours

Ingredients

 2.5 cups strong brewed coffee (French Roast is fine) – divided (1/2 cup and 2 cups) – Decaf or Regular coffee

1 14 oz. can or squeeze bottle of Sweetened Condensed milk (I use Trader Joe’s)

3 packets (3/4 oz or 21 grams) of unflavored gelatin

To serve – unsweetened whipped cream

Instructions

Place the ½ cup of cold coffee into a 2 quart bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin over the coffee and let it sit for 10 minutes to bloom (or enlarge) before getting incorporated into a hot liquid.

During this time, heat the remaining 2 cups of coffee (don’t boil, but does need to be hot)

After gelatin has bloomed, add heated coffee to gelatin and stir in the sweetened condensed milk, stir to make sure all is dissolved.

Pour into a 9x13” Pyrex (glass) baking dish, or a ceramic bowl (1 quart). Refrigerate for 4 hours or until firm.

Remove from refrigerator. If in baking dish, cut into squares and serve. In a Jell-O mold or ceramic pudding basin, run a little warm water around the outside of the mold or bowl to loosen and then turn out onto a plate. Cut into serving pieces. 

Notes – can add a touch of cinnamon or nutmeg to coffee to give it a little bit of spice

Gluten free

Seasoned greetings - Maple spiced pecans

I love pecans in most everything but pie. I know, I know. I am a heathen. Why ruin a good pecan by putting it in a gloopy mixture. I love the texture and the feel of a whole pecan half. TH swears by toasted pecan pieces mixed in with fudge sauce and coffee ice cream. I like them in chocolate chip cookies, but recently, I have been eating them candied - either by the handful or tossed in salads. They make a mighty fine hostess gift and work well with a fruit and cheese plate. They are also great candied, because they call for no unusual ingredients. You can play around with what you have lying around and they will still taste delicious.

The original recipe comes from a book we bought in 1991 and whose cover has faded to a pale pink. I believe the title is "Foods from the Sun" and right now the author escapes me. All I know is that she was an editor at Southern Living and everything I have made from the book is wonderful. I'll edit this when I can get to my copy.

This is the last recipe in the book and honestly, one of the best.

Maple Glazed Pecans - adapted from "Foods of the sun" - date unknown

yields one pound

1 lb pecan halves

1/2 cup maple syrup (I used grade B -dark amber)

1 1/2 T half and half

1 1/2 T Grand Marnier

1/4 t sea salt

1/4 t cayenne pepper (I used piment d'esplette because I had it around)

1/4 t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 F. Place pecans in a jelly roll pan and bake for 12 minutes or until the start to look toasted. Remove from oven. In a large skillet combine maple syrup, half and half and grand marnier and bring to a boil. Allow to boil for 2 minutes. Add salt, cayenne pepper, cinnamon and pecans and stir well to coat all pecan pieces.

Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the size of your jelly roll pan. Pour pecans and syrup onto jelly roll pan and bake for an additional 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. You may have to break up the pecan pieces.

Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

If you make these often, you might find the syrup too goopy, sometimes I drain the syrup before I put the pecans back on the jelly roll pan for the second baking.

If you like more heat or more cinnamon, by all means, up the amounts to 1/2 t.

I like to put them in an acetate bag and give away as hostess gifts. My friend Anne uses jam jars for her candied almonds. They are always appreciated by recipients.