Instead of the usual Christmas baking and festivities I found myself in bed with the flu for most of the holiday season. I passed the time by watching the Hallmark holiday movie channel (I know, desperate times call for desperate measures) and luckily a PBS Downton Abby marathon. I soon tired of watching TV and fortuitously a package arrived in the mail from Blogging for Books. Yay, perfect timing. I excitedly tore open the envelope and found the audiobook version of The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller.
The book started out much like one of those Hallmark movies I had been watching. Olivia, a talented but down on her luck Boston pastry chef, moves to a rustic small New England town. Initially an outsider she begins to make friends (with the help of her delicious pastries) that run the gamut of quirky to ornery. The book is a quick and easy read. Though my initial reaction was this is going to be fluff, the more I listened the more engaged I became with the story. The cast of characters are endearing as is her dog, Salty. In the end I would say I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. The reader, Jorjeana Marie has a pleasant voice with enough tonal range and emotional nuance to carry off the host of characters and the role of narrator as well. If you need a quick light read during your commute or on the beach, City Baker’s Guide to Country Living would fit the bill nicely.
Growing up I remember we had one big pot, well worn, dented and it’s bottom darkened from frequent use. It was my Dad’s favorite cooking utensil and he used it for everything. He stir-fried, boiled, simmered, stewed and steamed in that pot and everything that came out of that pot was amazing. I loved his fried rice. He started with rice leftover from the previous night’s dinner added diced sweet barbecued pork, green peas, bits of scrambled eggs and finished off with shredded lettuce. He seasoned it with soy sauce, oyster sauce, ginger, and onions it was the epitome of a delicious one pot meal. As I grew older I would help by stirring and flipping the rice in the pot as he added the ingredients.
Everything comes full circle. Fried rice is also a favorite of my kids. Though I often make my Dad’s version, there are infinite variations of the dish. A down home version with salted fish, bits of chicken and ginger to the Korean version made with spicy pickled kimchi, yum. As much as I love my Dad’s, my current favorite is kimchi fried rice. I recently picked up a new cookbook titled Koreatown by Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard. A glimpse into living, eating and playing in Koreatown USA. It starts with a primer on Korean ingredients followed by recipes. Vignettes are interspersed throughout the book on growing up in K-Town NYC and touring other Koreatowns throughout the country. Recipes range from traditional to let’s take Mom’s recipe and “tweak” it. Gorgeous photos of the food, restaurants and K-Town life bring the stories and recipes to life. You will need two copies of this book. One in the kitchen to cook from and one on your coffee table to read and enjoy.
Back to kimchi fried rice. There are some universal trade secrets when it comes to making great fried rice. The rice should be day old not freshly made. Fresh rice contains too much moisture for making fried rice. You can use long grain or short grain rice. Keep in mind short grain will be a little stickier than long grain but it still works. You can practically put anything into your dish and chances are it will be good. Pineapple and bbq pork, shrimp, leeks and pine nuts, or try Hawaiian style with spam (don’t laugh its really good), ono-licious as they say on the islands. Koreatown’s kimchi fried rice has a secret ingredient, bacon. Yep, porky goodness to go along with the spicy pickled flavor of the kimchi that gives this fried rice a nice twist. Even though the Koreatown recipe is pretty darn good on its own I tweaked it to my taste. I love the bacon which added a smoky saltiness but I wanted a little sweetness so in addition to the bacon I added diced chinese sausage (lop cheung). A touch of soy sauce and sesame oil heightened the flavor of the dish. I don’t have a refrigerator in my garage with homemade kimchi (every Korean family has one) so my kimchi comes from my neighborhood farmer’s market. You can usually find kimchi and Chinese sausage at most Asian markets. Top with a perfectly fried egg and you have a delicious easy & quick one pot meal. I hope you will try it.
8ouncesslab baconroughly chopped or reduce amount of bacon 4 ounces & add 1-2 chinese sausages that have been diced to 1/4 inch pieces
2garlic clovesminced
1medium onionfinely chopped
One 1-inch piece gingerpeeled and minced
2cupscooked long-grain white ricepreferably day-old rice in a pinch short grain will work also
1½cupschopped napa cabbage kimchiI use quite a bit less, approximately 1/2 cup
Kosher saltto taste or soy sauce (start with 1 tablespoon)
2tablespoonsbuttersoftened
1-2teaspoonssesame oil
1tablespoongochujangkorean pepper paste
4eggsfried sunny-side up, for serving or if you like you can soft scramble eggs and add to rice at the end of the cooking process.
Thinly sliced scallionsfor garnish
Instructions
1. In a large wok or pot, cook the bacon over medium-high heat until the fat has rendered and the bacon is crisp, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic, onion and ginger, Chinese sausage and cook until aromatic, 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Add the rice and kimchi, and cook, tossing frequently until heated through, 4 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and sesame oil. Taste, add soy sauce if needed. Reduce the heat to medium low and flatten the rice with your spatula. Cook until the rice forms a crust on the bottom of the pan, 4 to 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together the butter and gochujang until smooth. Spoon the gochujang butter over the rice and top with fried eggs and sliced scallions, then serve.
Rock and rollers, Tom Cruise, that Bieber Kid, they all have their groupies. I am a Dorie groupie. Yep, not ashamed to admit it. Dorie is the bomb. Are you wondering-who? Not that hilarious little blue fish in Finding Nemo? No. “You mean Ellen DeGeneres who voices that cute little fish?” Nope. I am a fan of Dorie, Dorie Greenspan-cookbook author, dessert queen, cookie connoisseur and baker extraordinaire.
The Real Deal
I recently drove up to the City to see her at Omnivore Books, one of many tour stops (how does she do it?) for her newest book, Dories Cookies. A hefty compendium of deliciousness that, yes, is all about the cookie. Her recipe for Jammers, a buttery sable’ topped with jam and streusel alone makes it worth getting. I don’t know Dorie on a personal level, but she is gracious, humorous and generous-one of the nicest souls you’ll meet. This comes across when meeting her in person and in her writing.
Here I am with Dorie!
All this, and her cookbooks are REALLY, REALLY good. The recipes are well written, easy to follow, and the results are YUMMY. Before heading to the book signing I spent an agonizing few minutes trying to pick which book of hers I wanted her to sign (I literally have all of them). I went with the first Dorie book I ever bought, Paris Sweets. It contains her iconic recipe for Korova Cookies, aka World Peace Cookies and has the loveliest illustrations.
As I waited in line, I talked to Dorie’s husband Michael. Wouldn’t you know it, he is just as nice! The list of recipes I have tried from Dorie’s books grows ever longer and this newest book will definitely add to it. Right about now is when I start looking in earnest for cookie recipes for the holidays. I opened the book and bam, Vanilla Polka Dot Cookies caught my eye. The cookie starts with a buttery, vanilla laden dough made with egg whites. The dough smelled so delicious, I had to stop myself from dipping my finger in the bowl and popping a swirl of dough in my mouth.
The dough comes together quickly and can be used for this recipe immediately. Scoop, roll and dip. Place the balls on a lined baking sheet press to flatten and bake. How easy is that?
The dough does not spread so press the cookies to desired thickness. I wanted a flatter thinner cookie, a smaller cookie, approximately 2.5 inches in diameter. I used a tablespoon ice cream scoop to portion the dough. The cookies took only 14 minutes to bake, well short of the suggested 20-22 minutes. My cookies were much smaller which accounts for the shorter baking time. Watch the cookies carefully when baking, they brown very quickly. All in all these fit the bill for a crispy, buttery festive cookie perfect for the holidays. I brought them to Thanksgiving dinner and the kids gobbled (get it?) them up.
The recipe for these cookies can be found here along with her recipe for World Peace Cookies, courtesy of the Star Telegram. If you are a Dorie fan like me, take a photo of any of Dorie’s cookies you make from her book, post it on Twitter or Instagram, and tag it with #Doriescookies and @Cookies4Kids. This will automatically trigger a 5 dollar donation to pediatric cancer research, woohoo! Thanks and HAPPY HOLIDAYS.
Early adopter. That’s how I would describe myself when it comes to Martha Stewart. Years ago I invested in a copy of Entertaining the book that put her on the map. In a tiny apartment, on a student’s budget, I dreamed of hosting a Hawaiian luau or an elegant holiday soiree’. Ok, never did the luau or soiree’ but I have used many of her recipes and tweaked her entertaining ideas.
But it has been quite awhile since I have picked up one of her books. But Vegetables caught my eye. We have made a concerted effort to eat more vegetables and less meat, this book was right up our alley. First, this is not a vegetarian cookbook. Though vegetables are definitely the star of this book there are quite a few recipes that contain meat or seafood. Each and every recipe has a beautiful photo of the finish dish. How cool is that? The photos are up close, clean with simple backgrounds so focus stays on the food. The book is divided by type of vegetable such as bulbs, roots, tubers, greens and stems. Each chapter starts with an introduction covering seasonality, buying, storing, prepping, flavor pairings and cooking. Recipes are straight forward and uncomplicated. Helpful hints are offered in sidebars. As I flipped through the pages I bookmarked quite a few recipes to try.
Always looking for new ways to serve carrots I tried rainbow carrots and chard. The vegetables are steamed and drizzled with a citrus vinaigrette. Colorful and appetizing perfect for a summer or fall meal. Quick and easy. I tackled the recipe for leek and parsnip soup next. Parsnips, I have to admit, is not a vegetable I cook very often, actually ever. Loved it. The parsnips give the soup a sweet earthy flavor, a nice twist to the classic potato leek soup. I also managed to make the lone dessert recipe in the book. Cornmeal shortcakes with corn ice cream and blueberry compote. I substituted vanilla ice cream for the corn ice cream but if Santa brings me an ice cream maker with its own compressor (hint hint) I’ll definitely try the corn ice cream. The shortcakes were buttery with a slight crunch from the cornmeal and the lemony blueberry compote a lovely accompaniment.
I received this book from Blogging for Books and I recommend it to anyone wanting to expand their “veggieverse”. It’s filled with simple, delicious recipes with gorgeous photos and plenty of valuable information. It’s a good thing.
Here is a link to Cornmeal Shortcakes from Martha Stewart’s Living. It is not exactly the same as the one in the cookbook. The difference being instead of 3 cups of all purpose flour the book’s recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups AP flour and 3/4 cup fine cornmeal.
The Dim Sum Field Guide: Not For the Novice Dim Sum Eater
I love dim sum so I jumped at the chance to review Carolyn Phillips’ “The Dim Sum Field Guide”. My first impression of the book was, quite honestly, underwhelming. “There aren’t any photographs,” I lamented to my hubby. “Only line drawings of each tasty morsel and in black and white no less. How is this going to help the dim sum newbie navigate the chaotic, intimidating hustle and bustle of a Chinese Tea House? In this day and age a field guide should have photos of each entry, not line drawings.” Disappointed, I put the book aside.
A few days later I picked up the book again this time spending a bit more time perusing it. There is an introduction to and history of dim sum, dim sum etiquette and a funny, all too true, bit on fighting over the bill. The book is divided by savory and sweet and then further divided by wrapped or not wrapped, method of cooking, and hot or cold. Frankly, it was confusing, but then again, dim sum is comprised of hundreds of different dishes and virtually impossible to neatly categorize.
Each dish has two pages. One is the line drawing and the other is best described as a taxonomy of each item with origins (history), nesting habits (how many in an order) and species (variations). Also listed was a pronunciation guide in Mandarin and Cantonese with the name of each dish in Chinese characters. The line drawings are very nice but one would be hard pressed to identify or differentiate many of the dishes from the drawings. I did like the origins section which presented little factoids about each dim sum that I never even thought about. Basic fillings are listed for each. Whether a dish contains pork, seafood or beef or if it is vegetarian or vegan is also noted.
This is my first review for Blogging for Books. I am a bit bummed that it isn’t a glowing review where I finish with the tag line-You need to get this book NOW!. However, it is a cute coffee table worthy book with interesting tidbits about dim sum. Fortunately, I am not new to dim sum so I know what I am ordering, but I am going to sound pretty smart the next time I take my friends to a Chinese teahouse.
(Coconut Cookie Sticks) Cuckoo for Coconuts by Alice Medrich
I snappd this photo at Black Sand Beach on the Big Island. When I saw the sign on the tree, one of my favorite cookies just popped into my head, Alice Medrich’s Coconut Sticks. Hmmm….I wonder why? I love her coconut sticks. A riff on biscotti, they often end up in a holiday cookie tin or in a cellophane bag with a cute ribbon as an appreciative thank you gift.
Nowadays I often find myself using coconut in my cooking & baking. This is SO surprising since for as long as I can remember I have HATED coconut. As a kid the sight of coconut anything, cake, cookies candy elicited an automatic “Ewwww!” The feeling persisted well into adulthood. Maybe it’s age, but I have grown to like coconut right along with brussels sprouts and naps.
With my changed coconut conviction. I have jumped off the deep end. Curries without coconut milk, not happening. My Ranger cookies and World’s Best Cookies are made with shredded coconut, definitely bumping up the chewiness and flavor. And of course, every batch of homemade granola has flaked coconut for that extra zing and crunch.
It’s like a new found secret weapon
I love making and nibbling on these Coconut Sticks. Thin, crispy and buttery with shreds of coconut dancing through, they are the perfect foil for a steaming cup of tea or that morning latte. This recipe comes from Alice Medrich’s book Chewy, Crispy, Crunchy Melt-in-Your Mouth Cookies. If you love cookies add this book to your collection.
Did I mention these crunchy wonders are EASY to make? Well of course they are, you can make the dough by hand or in a food processor (ah, yes-thereby upping them to the STUPID EASY category). Another wonderful slice and bake refrigerator cookie. Press the dough into a loaf pan. Chill. Slice. Bake. Eat. Donzo. Easy Peasy.
What took me so long to become a coconut convert? I don’t know. Guess I will have to make up for lost time.
Prepare: A 5-x-9-inch loaf pan, lined on the bottom and sides with foil or plastic wrap
Put the flour, sugar, coconut, and salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk to blend.
Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives until the 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 cold water in a small pitcher or cup.
Stir the flour and butter mixture with a fork while drizzling the water and vanilla into the bowl. Continue to toss and stir lightly with the fork or your fingers until all of the dry ingredients are slightly damp. The dough should remain crumbly and stick together only when pinched.
Food Processor method: Place flour, sugar, coconut and salt in food processor bowl. Pulse 2-3 times to combine.
Cut butter into 1/2 inch cubes and scatter on top of flour mixture. Pulse until mixture reveals coarse meal. Small lumps are okay.
Combine water and vanilla extract in small cup. Continue to pulse the flour mixture and drizzle water into processor bowl.
Pulse into mixture starts to clump. It should not come together completely but will still be crumbly. It will stay together if pinched.
If using a loaf pan, dump the mixture into the lined pan and spread it evenly. Press it very firmly, making a thin layer. Or dump the mixture onto a piece of foil on a baking sheet and distribute it evenly over an area about 4 by 9 or 10 inches. Press it firmly, squaring up the edges, to make an even compact layer about 1/2-3/4 inch thick. Fold the foil over the dough and wrap it tightly. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
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 the lined or greased cookie sheets, placing the slices 1 inch apart. The slices will be fragile and require the support of the knife in transit; the results will be worth your careful effort.
Bake for 11 to 14 minutes (baking time will vary depending on thickness of cookie), until the cookies are golden with golden brown edges. Rotate the pans from top to bottom and from front to back halfway through the baking time to ensure even baking.
For lined pans, set the pans or just the liners on racks to cool; for unlined pans, use a metal spatula to transfer the cookies to racks. Cool the cookies completely before stacking or storing.
May be kept in an airtight container for several days.
Food, Food Can Bring Us Together (Turkey & Zucchini Burgers)i
Wes planted 2 squash plants this season and I am totally dumbfounded by the number of squash you get from 2 plants…and apparently all at once. Looking for recipes that will put a dent in the supply of zucchini that is monopolizing my vegetable crisper.
I remembered a recipe I had tried from cookbook author Ottolenghi, turkey and zucchini burgers with a yogurt sumac sauce. If you have not checked out any of his cookbooks, please do. This tasty recipe comes from his book Jerusalem. It is filled with beautiful photos and stories about the food and the city. The recipes are filled with bold, bright flavors of which most were new to me. The book is a collaboration between Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. What I love is Yotam is Israeli and Sami is Palestinian. Both spent their childhoods in Jerusalem, growing up on opposite ends of the city. Their mutual love of food brought them together in London. Sharing food brings people together and hopefully helps to transcend our differences.
This dish is easy to prepare, healthy and tasty. The burgers are made with ground turkey and grated zucchini. The addition of mint, cilantro, scallions, cumin, cayenne and garlic makes it a party in your mouth.
A dipping sauce of yogurt and sour cream sauce is a cool and refreshing counterbalance to the meat patties.
The sumac in the sauce, an herb that is both tart and fragrant further enhances the dish. It can be found at Whole Foods, any Middle Eastern store or online. Though you can increase the lemon in place of the sumac, try to find it. It has a fragrant, fruity dimension that the lemon does not that I think really sets it apart. We ate them with a bit of rice the first night and then stuffed in pita bread and topped with tomatoes and fresh grilled corn the following day for lunch. Yums. Really versatile and almost better the next day as the flavors have had a chance to blend.
Try this recipe and check out the Ottolenghi cookbooks, breathtakingly beautiful and a joy to read. If you are like me it will open doors to new flavors and foods.
Approximately 1 pound or 500g ground turkey or chicken
1large zucchinicoarsely grated (about 200g in total about 2 cups)
3green onionsthinly sliced
1large egg
2tbspchopped mint
2tbspchopped coriander
2garlic clovescrushed
1tspground cumin
1tspsalt
½tspcourse ground black pepper
½tspcayenne
~ 1/4 cup of vegetable oil for searing
Sour cream & sumac sauce:
1/3cupsour cream
2/3cupGreek yoghurt
1tspgrated lemon zest
1tbsplemon juice
1small garlic clovecrushed
1½tbspolive oil
1tbspsumac
½tspsalt
¼tspblack pepper
Instructions
Yogurt sauce
In a medium sized bowl, combine ingredients for sauce and mix thoroughly. Place in refrigerator to set and chill while making burgers.
The sauce will mellow with time, feel free to add a bit more sumac and lemon juice to taste.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Burgers
Combine ingredients for burgers in bowl, mixing gently. The mixture is pretty wet. You can omit the egg or squeeze some of the liquid out of the zucchini to make forming patties a little easier.
Form patties in desired size. I used a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop which made smaller sized patties roughly 1.5 ounces in weight. This made about 15 appetizer sized patties.
Sear over medium high heat and place on parchment or silpat lined baking sheet.
Not all was amazing during our impromptu trip to New York for my cousin Mike’s surprise party in January (here is the good stuff though, from my The Big Apple post). After visiting Ground Zero, we headed to Payard’s, a well known French bakery with an outpost on Houston Street. All I can say is maybe it was an off day, but the pastries were disappointing at best. We ordered a lemon tart, an oatmeal cookie and a Napoleon. The Napoleon and cookie weren’t memorable at all, which is a good thing because the lemon tart was memorable because it was NOT good. The crust (I love crust) was so tough we had to use our knife and fork to chisel through it.
Ugh, so Disappointing
I went up to the counter (ok, never said I wasn’t obnoxious) and asked “what one item in here would prove to me that Payard is worth his reputation. To her credit she laughed and gave me a complimentary slice of the Payard Tart. It was ok, definitely better than the lemon tart.
Anyway You Slice It
When we first arrived I spied his book Payard Cookies on display and my reaction was oh nooo, not another cookbook and its about cookies! My cookbook addiction was about to rear it’s ugly head since I seldom pass up the opportunity to add to my collection.
After trying the desserts I walked out without a copy.
You might be asking where is this story going? Well, having put Payard Cookies out of my mind I was perusing a favorite blog, Ipso-Fatto recently and to my surprise she had posted glowing reviews of a couple of cookies from Payard. Well, maybe we did catch Payard on a bad day. I tried the Raspberry Diamants and you know, they’re pretty darn good and a breeze to make.
It is a slice and bake cookie which I love, so flippin’ easy. You can make the dough in advance and leave it in the fridge. You can bake as many or as few as you want and freeze the remaining dough for a rainy day. These cookies are a riff on sables’, the French version of shortbread cookies. Diamont, French for diamonds, refers to the sparkly edge on the cookies created by rolling the dough in coarse sugar before baking. Description done, let’s go make some delicious cookies!
It’s Berry Good
Adding raspberry jam makes this cookie a little softer than a classic sable’. Which gives the cookies a sweet tart flavor and flecks of red color. Payard adds red food coloring to the dough to make the cookies pink but I didn’t. Use jam with seeds, it adds a bit of crunch. You can kick these cookies up a notch by making a sandwich cookie using raspberry jam for the filling or a raspberry buttercream. Oh snap.
Uh-oh looks like I may be adding yet another cookbook to my collection.
All Things Reconsidered (Raspberry Diamants from Payard)
Prep Time 20 minutesminutes
Total Time 45 minutesminutes
Ingredients
Adapted from Payard Cookies
14tablespoons200gms unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3cup80 gms powdered sugar
1large egg yolkreserve egg white
1/4cup60gms raspberry jam with seeds (I used TJ's)
1-3drops of liquid red food coloringoptional
1 3/4cups225gms all purpose flour
Pinchof salt
1cup200gms granulated sugar or sanding sugar
Instructions
In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat softened butter with powdered sugar until fully combined. Add egg yolk, raspberry jam, and food coloring. Mix until well combined.
Add flour and salt and mix only until dough comes together. Careful to not overmix.
Place dough on piece of parchment paper and roll into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Freeze dough for approximately 2 hours, or until log is chilled all the way through. You can freeze dough for up until one month.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment.
Remove dough from fridge. Put granulated sugar in a large rimmed baking sheet.
Brush the reserved egg white on the outside of the cookie dough.
Roll in granulated sugar until completely coated. Return to fridge for 5 minutes to chill.
Remove from fridge and slice roll into 1/4 inch slices. Place on parchment lined sheet approximately 1 inch apart.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cookies just begin to turn color and the edges are golden brown.
Remove cookies from oven and transfer to a cooling rack. Cool completely and store in an airtight container for up to one week.
Who doesn’t love lemon bars? But just to be sure, I do have two recipes for lemon bars to cover just about everyone.
For the longest time, my favorite Lemon Bar was from Michael Bauer’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle. A classic lemon bar with a meltingly tender crust topped with a sweet lemon curd and dusted with powdered sugar. These bars were the hidden gems in a summer picnic basket or the citrus foil to the chocolate cookies on the holiday cookie tray.
Along came Alice
….Medrich that is, the chocolate maven. She penned a wonderful little cookbook simply titled Cookies and Brownies (still available luckily). Fifty recipes of classic cookies to cookies with a twist. Hands down the best snickerdoodle, delicious butter cookies with pecans and cocoa nibs, and Steve’s brownies, fudgy and decadent. For years I shied away from the bar cookies in her book. The recipe started with melting the butter for the crust. Whaaat? Melted butter for a shortbread crust? Just didn’t seem right. I finally gave in and I am glad I did. These lemon bars are a party in your mouth, the classic lemon bar amped up. The crust is buttery and crispy crunchy not soft, the perfect foil for the filling which is sweet but tart enough to make your taste buds stand up and take notice.
The next time you make lemon bars, make the classic bars if you are feeding a swarm of little kids. They’ll love them. But if you are taking them to your friends, make Alice’s version, all grown up with attitude, just like us!
This recipe can be baked in a tart pan, once again upping the wow game on these bars. After pressing the dough into the pan, freeze for 15 minutes before baking. If the crust puffs while baking, poke it back down with a fork. To ensure it keeps its shape weigh the crust down with pie weights and remove about halfway through baking. Remember to bake to a rich deep golden brown for a crispy, buttery crust.
A grown-up version of Lemon Bars from Alice Medrich. Tart lemon filling in a buttery, crisp base, absolutely delicious.
Course bar cookies, cookies, Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword alice medrich, buttery, lemon, Lemon Bars, lemon curd, tart
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 1 hourhour
Ingredients
For crust:
8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted1 stick
1/4cupgranulated sugar
3/4 tspvanilla extract
1/4 tspregular table saltor sea salt
1cupall-purpose flour
For topping:
1cupplus 2 tbsp granulated sugar
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
3largeeggs
1 -1/2 tsp finely grated lime or lemon zest
1/2 cup strained freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice
Powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions
Position a rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom and sides of 8- by 8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil.
To make crust:
In a medium bowl, combine melted butter with sugar, vanilla and salt. Add flour and mix until just incorporated. Press dough evenly over bottom of pan. Freeze dough for 15-20 minutes until firm. Start filling while dough chills.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until crust is fully baked, well-browned at the edges and golden brown in the center. If dough bubbles poke a few holes in it andpat it down.
To make topping:
While crust is baking, stir together sugar and flour in a large bowl until well-mixed. Whisk in eggs. Stir in lime or lemon zest and juice. When crust is ready, reduce heat to 300 degrees, slide rack with pan out and pour filling onto hot crust. Bake 20 to 25 minutes longer, or until topping no longer jiggles when pan is tapped.
Remove from oven to a wire rack to cool completely. Lift up foil liner and transfer bars to a cutting board. If surface is covered with a thin layer of moist foam (not unusual), blot surface gently with a paper towel to absorb excess moisture; repeat with a fresh piece of paper towel if necessary.
Using a long, sharp knife, cut bars into 16 or 24 daintier bars and sift powdered sugar over bars, if desired. Stored in an airtight container, bars can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.
I bake my lemon bars in a rectangular tart pan with removable bottom. It gives the bars a nice side crust and a nice finished look. The idea came from the blog Baking Obsession Check it out for instructions to bake in a rectangular pan.
The sumac in the sauce, an herb that is both tart and fragrant further enhances the dish. It can be found at Whole Foods, any Middle Eastern store or online. Though you can increase the lemon in place of the sumac, try to find it. It has a fragrant, fruity dimension that the lemon does not that I think really sets it apart. We ate them with a bit of rice the first night and then stuffed in pita bread and topped with tomatoes and fresh grilled corn the following day for lunch. Yums. Really versatile and almost better the next day as the flavors have had a chance to blend.
