Nankhatai (South Asian-ish Shortbread Biscuits)

NANKHATAI (SOUTH ASIAN-ISH SHORTBREAD BISCUITS)

I know, I say South Asian-ish here!  I grew up eating these beautiful, cardamom-flecked shortbread biscuits, and I mainly ate them with the East African half of my family (go figure!).  The whole time I thought these were South Asian, but when I went to research a bit more about them, I found out differently.  The name for these cookies, nankhatai, is actually derived from Persian "naan", meaning bread, and Afghani "kulcha-e-khataye", meaning biscuit.

I love that!  So many foods commingle and cross culture, and I'm happy these did.  They remind me of childhood days, nibbling at the dinner table with my extended family chatting away in no less than three different languages (unfortunately, I only understood English).

After many, many tries, I got these right.  They are buttery, crumbly, more biscuit than cookie and have what my mom calls this "warming" sensation when you eat them (which I call loads of butter...).  Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields 1 dozen cookies (about 2” diameter)

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons powdered sugar

2 tablespoons plain yogurt

1 ¼ cups all purpose flour

¾ cup semolina flour

¾ teaspoon ground cardamom

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

Crushed pistachios, for garnish

Preheat the oven for 375° F.

Using a stand or hand mixer, cream together the butter and powdered sugar until fluffy.  Add in the yogurt.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, cardamom, salt and baking soda.  With the stand mixer running, add the flour mixture in 3 increments, scraping down between each.  Stop when all of the flour is added.

The mixture is very crumbly, so you have to work it a bit to form the cookies.  I like to use an ice cream scoop or spoon to get even amounts, and, rather than roll them between my palms, I pat them into round, semi-flat shapes.

Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and mark each with an X using a knife.  Bake for 20 minutes, and let the cookies cool before removing.  Garnish with crushed pistachios.

Announcement & Cookies for Everyone!

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Announcement & Cookies for Everyone!

I have some exciting news and want to share it with you all.  Hopefully, from reading my site over the past few years, you’ve had the opportunity to see that I have an incredible passion for culture, food and cooking.  I love bringing together all of the travels and experiences that make up my life – combining flavors, textures, techniques and ingredients into my own personal style of cooking.  I’ve recently signed on to do my first cookbook!  I’m extremely thrilled (and a bit nervous, honestly…) to bring together and share the flavors of my Exotic Table in a lasting work, and over the next six months I’ll be cooking, writing, and photographing each step of the process.  As you can imagine, my creative resources will be dedicated to the book, but I hope to share with you the experiences, inspirations and trials and tribulations here (p.s. I will from time to time to post interesting recipes you won’t be able to find in the book).

I want to thank you all for your continued support!  None of this would be possible without the feedback and confidence I receive from you guys.  As a token of my appreciation, I want to share with you my most treasured, secret, best cookie recipe ever!  I’m a huge fan of how oatmeal changes the texture of a cookie and the combination of that with some dark chocolate and a touch of cinnamon and salt is heavenly… Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields approximately 2 dozen cookies (size-dependent)

¾ cup all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp baking powder

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature*

¼ cup shortening

1/3 cup white sugar

½ cup light brown sugar

1 egg, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ¼ cup dark chocolate chunks or chips

1 cup oats**

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350° F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or with a hand mixer using a paddle attachment, cream together butter, shortening and both sugars.  Add the egg and vanilla extract.  Add flour mixture and mix until almost completely incorporated.  It should mostly be sticking to the paddle at this point.  Scrape down, add in chips and oats and mix for another 15 to 20 seconds until uniform.

At this point, I like to turn the cookie dough out onto plastic wrap, form into a cylinder, and freeze for about 10 minutes.  This makes it easier to cut into even sized, round cookies.  Conversely, you can just drop rounded spoonfuls a few inches apart onto prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes depending on how chewy or crunchy or what size you made the cookies.  Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

*If you are feeling extra ambitious, browning the butter (heating the butter over medium heat until the foam subsides, little brown flecks appear in the bottom of the pan and it smells like hazelnuts) is a great step to add depth of flavor.  Just cool down before the creaming step.

**Quick-cooking oats are fine here.

Kourabiedes-Inspired Madeleines

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Kourabiedes-Inspired Madeleines

Madeleines to me have always been a bit untouchable – you know, one of those things you look at and say that is better left to someone else to make (because I couldn’t possibly produce that sort of perfection!).  I loved conquering that fear here.  Yes, they take a bit of finesse to make the genoise batter (the base of them) but can easily be mastered in one or two try’s, and THEN become a serious piece in your culinary arsenal.  I plan to show these off, in fact, at my Thanksgiving table…

Kourabiedes are a Greek, shortbread cookie that are served at holidays, particularly Christmas.  As opposed to a traditional shortbread, these cookies have almonds ground up in the batter, rosewater to scent them, and are crescent-shaped and dusted with powdered sugar.

Kourabiedes were absolutely the inspiration for me to create these fluffy, buttery madeleines.  As opposed to grinding up the almonds, I used almond extract here to keep the integrity of the madeleine – that signature spongy texture.  I also went ahead and browned the butter before adding it to the batter; brown butter is simply butter that has been cooked until the milk solids turn a golden color and it smells like hazelnuts.  It adds a beautiful, nutty undertone to complement the almond flavor.  The key to this batter is beating the eggs until they have tripled in volume, not deflating it when adding in the flour and browned butter, and resting it a bit before cooking.  The result: light as air, addictive and buttery madeleines that are nutty and perfumed with rosewater.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields 1 dozen

5 tbsps unsalted butter

2 large eggs

1/3 cups sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

1 ½ tbsps rose water

1/2 cup + 2 tbsps all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp kosher salt

extra butter and flour for greasing

powdered sugar

Procedure

In a small pan, heat butter over medium-low heat until it browns and gives off a hazelnut aroma.  Be careful not to burn.  Strain butter through a cheesecloth or paper towel-lined mesh strainer and set aside to cool completely.

Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat eggs with sugar until they have tripled in volume and the mixture is extremely foamy.  When the beater is lifted, a ribbon should form.  Add the vanilla extract, almond extract and rosewater and beat for a few seconds to incorporate.

Sift together the all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt.  If you are using a stand mixer, remove the bowl from the stand.  Otherwise, carefully fold in the flour mixture using a spatula.  You don’t want to work it too much or the mixture will deflate.  Add a little of the mixture to the cooled brown butter and fold it all back in carefully.  Cover and refrigerate the batter for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 375º F.  Generously grease a madeleine pan (I used non-stick) with softened or melted butter and then dust with flour, shaking off any excess.  Divide the dough amongst the 12 molds, letting a tablespoon or so just heap in the center.

Bake for 11 to 13 minutes on the center rack of the oven until the edges look golden brown and the centers feel a bit spongy.  Serve the same day sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

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Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

So my obsession with the holidays has me thinking of more and more ways to celebrate and put my own spin on the traditions we all know and love.  I’m also in the midst of trying to plan for my holiday party this week, and I love to give my guests a little of the familiar and a little of the unexpected.  That (and a deep craving for mint and chocolate!) was the inspiration for this recipe.

To be completely truthful, this recipe, like others I’m doing for this party, is a sneaky way to save time and be efficient.  I can make this dough at the beginning of the week, freeze it in long skinny cylinders, and then cut them into little rounds.  During the party, I can throw them into the oven towards the end of the night for 5 to 10 minutes, and voila!  Everyone gets fresh-baked, mini cookies, and my apartment smells like heaven…

I wanted to create pillowy, moist, brownie-rich, chocolate chip cookies scented with peppermint.   Who doesn’t love that?  The ingredient that adds a bit of the unfamiliar is ground cardamom; the spice has a menthol-like quality that works beautifully with the mint.  I’m a dark chocolate girl myself, but I threw in some white chocolate chips for the creaminess – it helps offset the bitterness of the dark chocolate and blends seamlessly with the mint.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields approximately 2 dozen cookies (size-dependent)

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp baking powder

½ tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

½ cup white sugar

1/3  cup light brown sugar

1 egg, room temperature

1 tsp peppermint extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup dark chocolate chunks or chips

½ cup white chocolate chunks or chips

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350° F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cardamom and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or with a hand mixer using a paddle attachment, cream together butter and both sugars.  Add the egg and peppermint and vanilla extracts.   Add flour mixture and mix until almost completely incorporated.  It should mostly be sticking to the paddle at this point.  Scrape down, add in chips and mix for another 15 to 20 seconds until uniform.

At this point, I like to turn the cookie dough out onto plastic wrap, form into a cylinder, and freeze for about 10 minutes.  This makes it easier to cut into even sized, round cookies.  Also, at this point, you can freeze the dough for later use – overnight or longer.  Conversely, you can just drop rounded spoonfuls a few inches apart onto prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes depending on how chewy or crunchy or what size you made the cookies.  Remember to add a few more minutes if you froze the cookies ahead of time and are putting them straight in.  Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.