Gingered Sugar Cookies

Recently, I got this oven thermometer. Not that there was anything wrong with how my stuff was coming out, but you know, I wanted perfection. So I started using it... and lo and behold, it said my oven was 10 degrees too hot.

For the past eight? months since I got the thing, I've been baking stuff 10 degrees cooler, suffering cookies that spread too much, cakes that take 15 minutes longer than they should, and pie crusts that don't really brown.

I just figured it out. I happen to be slow.

The oven thermometer now lives next to the oven rather than in it. I baked cookies for the first time in a long time at the assigned temperature, and they came out NORMAL! Well, not just normal... but tasty. Tasty, and perfect. Mmm. Perfect cookies.


GINGERED SUGAR COOKIES
from Baking Illustrated by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp finely chopped crystallized ginger

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Put the racks in the two middlest positions (so you can bake two sheets at once). Cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper. You could also grease them, but that's messy and annoying. Unless you have nonstick cookie sheets... in which case, you don't need to do anything. Except throw them out and get real ones.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set it aside. Chuck the 1/2 cup sugar and ginger in a blender or food processor and whir away until it's all mixed and kinda looks like wet sand. Well, wet clear sand. Put it in a wide-mouthed bowl. It should look like this.

3. Cream the butter with the sugar and brown sugar for a few minutes until it gets kinda billowy, yet uniform... you'll know. Add the egg, vanilla, and crystallized ginger and beat some more, until it's smooth and creamy looking. Like this.



4. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until it's combined, but no longer. I don't need to tell you that the longer you beat flour and baking soda into something wet, the more the gluten develops in the flour (causing tough chewiness) and the more the bubblies are knocked right out of the baking powder, rendering it... rather useless. So be kind to your cookie dough.

5. Roll them into balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and coat them with the sugar. You should have 24. If you don't, well you're obviously useless at measuring. Place them 12 to a cookie sheet, spaced a couple inches apart. Flatten them to half their original height, using something flat, such as the bottom of a drinking glass.



6. Bake for 15-18 minutes, one sheet above the other, until the edges of the cookies are set and they're slightly golden brown. If you're a doting cookiewife (or whatever you are), you'd switch the baking sheets quickly halfway through baking and rotate them 180° to avoid oven hotspot damage. In other words: uneven baking. Uneven baking makes me cross. My cookies came out pretty perfect though.

I guess cookies can only really reflect their cookiewife.

PROS: soft, sweet, flavorful, round, have a nice gingery crisp exterior
CONS: not enough ginger...


I'm sorry I haven't been posting. But that's OK, because I'll venture a bet that no one's waiting up for it anyway. I've been baking, but usually I only have time to a) bake or b) blog... and if I blog, I won't have baked anything, because I wouldn't have had time, so the post would be dreadfully empty. If I bake, I get to eat something delicious. So there you are. But I sacrificed an hour of sleep tonight to tell you about last week's cookies... so feel honored.

Next up... cupcakes :-)

Rundown

There was this place in the coastal town of Cahuita, Costa Rica called Restaurante Miss Edith. They made a dish they called "Rondon" (more commonly known as "rundown") with white fish and starchy vegetables. I ate it. It was delicious. More on Miss Edith's later, though.

Rundown is a Caribbean dish referring to coconut milk that's been cooked down until all the water evaporates and the custard separates from the oil. Other stuff is cooked into it at this point, like onions and thyme and chiles, maybe some fish... I don't know why it's called rundown. Actually, that's kind of low on my list of things that I care about.

Anyway, I wanted to make this dish that I remember eating... so from a photograph, my spotty memory, and a few online references, Robert and I concocted this.

Oh, and you might be able to use canned coconut milk, but... I'm sure it's inferior. Or maybe I just like doing things the hard way. No, I'm pretty sure mine is the right way. :)


RUNDOWN

2 large, fresh, mature coconuts full of water (you should hear lots of sloshing when you shake them)
water
3 lbs root/starchy vegetables (yuca, potato, green plantain, taro, carrot, etc), peeled and chopped into 1" chunks
1-2 lb filleted white fish (cod, rockfish/snapper, or mackerel)
1/4 cup lime juice
1 habañero
1 large yellow or red onion
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
4-5 sprigs fresh thyme
salt
pepper
2 tbsp lime juice

1. Break open the coconuts over a bowl (catch all that good coconut water!). This can be done by hitting them repeatedly with the back of a large knife along the equator. Be careful. Coconuts can be tough to crack elegantly. Strain the water through four layers of cheesecloth to get all the dirt and hairs out. It should look pleasant. Like this:

2. Now for the fun part... crack each coconut half into several pieces. Remove the whites from the shell. There will still be a hard skin over it - a vegetable peeler pulled toward your hand does the trick for removing it. Make sure you know how to use a vegetable peeler this way. Don't sue me if you shave off your skin.

3. Chop up all the white bits into manageable pieces for the blender, and chuck them in. You should blend in at least 4 batches - coconut is extremely fibrous and it will burn out your blender's motor if you're not careful. Add some of the coconut water to assist in blending (if you need more, just add regular water), and be patient. Once the coconut is all shredded by the blender, there should be a milky liquid in there. Surprise! It's coconut milk. Squeeze the shredded coconut, wrapped in cheesecloth, over a bowl. You should end up with some of this:



...and some of this:



Save the beautiful shredded coconut for something else. Dry it out in the toaster oven for easy storage, or freeze it. Once it's dried, you can mix it with brown sugar and toast it in a heavy skillet. Makes great ice cream topping. But that's neither here nor there.

4. You should have about 3 cups of coconut milk. Simmer it, uncovered, in a wide saute pan or wide saucepan for about an hour to an hour and a half. In the meantime, place the fish on a plate with the lime juice to sit until it's ready for the pan. Then prepare your starchy vegetables. Boil them for a good long while, until they're falling-apart soft. At this point, your coconut mixture should be almost ready.



5. Seed and mince the habañero. Wear gloves - I cannot stress this enough. This is a potent pepper with potent oil. If it gets on your hands, it is very tough to wash off and if you so much as think about touching your eyes, picking your nose, or licking your fingers, you will pay dearly. So just be careful.





6. Slice up the onion. Add this, along with the garlic, chile, and thyme, to the simmering coconut milk. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the onion is soft and translucent. Season to taste with salt and pepper.



7. Dump in the boiled starchy vegetables, taking care to submerge as much as possible. Add the fish on top. If it is not in the liquid, make space for it. You just don't want it on the bottom of the pan, because then it just gets smushed by everything else.



8. Simmer the rundown with the fish in it for about 20 minutes, taking care that the fish is sumberged. This keeps it from toughening. Give it a shake or a gentle stir every so often to keep everything from scorching.



9. When the fish is tender and the liquid is thick, give it more lime juice. It's ready for eatin'. What a treat.

PROS: so Caribbean, so full of flavor and delicious...
CONS: well, if you don't like coconut... this isn't for you.

This is a reasonable approximation of what I remember eating at Miss Edith's. In any case, it's an awesome way to eat your fish.

Black Bean Brownie Cake

Beans. Oh, the versatility.

If my two-month educational foray into the jungles of Costa Rica taught me nothing else, at least I walked away with this recipe. Thank you, Robin. Thank you, Rancho Mastatal. I already miss birthdays, all of us gathered around the community table... enjoying a hunk o' chocolate goodness.

It's chocolate cake, but it's... healthy. It's mostly eggs and beans, with a little coffee and some other stuff (like chocolate). You know, breakfast food. *shifty eyes*


BLACK BEAN BROWNIE CAKE
courtesy of Rancho Mastatal

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
6 oz bittersweet chocolate (75% cocoa content is good)
4 oz (1 stick) butter
1 tbsp finely ground coffee
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp powdered chili
2 cups cooked black beans, drained and rinsed
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2-1 cup cacao nibs

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a 9x13" cake pan. Then make a sugar syrup. I do this because in Costa Rica, the sugar we had was liquid (it was called "tapa dulce"). Basically, it was unrefined sugar that had not been evaporated. To simulate that... just mix the brown sugar, regular sugar, and water and simmer over medium-low heat for a couple of minutes. That should do it.

2. Chop up the chocolate and butter, and melt in the top of a double boiler. Add coffee, salt, and chili, mixing until smooth and melty. You can also use oil with fine results. I like butter because... it's so wholesome.



3. Make sure your beans are well-rinsed and drained, particularly if they come from a can. *gasp* I know you wouldn't do that, though. Black beans are great, but I've also used red beans with equally great results. You could probably use almost any kind of bean, really... Stick them in the food processor with the eggs and vanilla, and whir away. Within a minute or two, it should get nice and frothy and the beans should be totally obliterated. You might see skin specs. But that's it. Transfer to a large bowl.



4. Combine melted chocolate/butter with the sugar syrup, and pour a little into the bean mixture. Fold to incorporate and temper the eggs, if the chocolate and sugar is still hot. Gradually add the rest, folding the batter until mostly combined (a few light and dark streaks are fine.



5. Fold in the cacao nibs until evenly distributed. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 55 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean and it begins to recede from the sides of the pan. Cool in pan to room temperature. Enjoy as brownies with powdered sugar, or crumbled over ice cream, or however you want.





PROS: rich, moist, chocolatey, full of protein, flourless
CONS: a bit strong for some people, incredibly crumbly

And there you have it... my first update in a month. Hopefully I'll do the next one sooner rather than later.