Tajine with Eggplant, Chickpeas, and Olives

IMG_7390

Allow me to introduce this highly-anticipated and newly-inducted member of my household: an Emile Henry olive green ceramic 3.5 liter tajine. This baby can hold enough food for 10-12 servings, is microwave and dishwasher-safe, and no amount of heat will make it lose its beautiful glossy color.

I’ve wanted a tajine ever since I took a cooking class at a riad in Marrakech, where we made a lamb and okra tajine (preparing okra was not the most painless choice, as anyone who’s ever shaved tough hairs off of a few dozen little okra will know, but the results were delicious). The colorful painted tajines found rather cheaply and ubiquitously in Arabic markets are exclusively decorative, however, as the painted surfaces are not treated. Traditional tajine cookware, somewhat disappointingly, is generally plain brown ceramic–so imagine my excitement at finding such an elegant, beautifully finished tajine that’s capable of feeding an entire table of people.

The tajine’s conical shape captures condensation and recirculates moisture, making it an ideal vessel in which to slow-cook meats, fish, and vegetables. Moist, tender results are ensured, so you don’t have to worry about checking every 20 minutes to see if the stew is too dry. If you want to make this dish but don’t own a tajine, cooking in a dutch oven will produce comparable results (though less fun and a lot less aesthetically pleasing).

This dish is really perfect for a dinner party–it can easily serve a modest group, is extremely low-maintenance (essentially, you throw all the ingredients inside with spices and some water and it prepares itself), and as far as presentation goes, well that’s self-evident. No one can help being impressed when a giant covered platter is placed in front of them and dramatically unveiled amidst billows of fragrant steam.

IMG_7384

A tajine is, in all honesty, best suited to meats like beef, mutton, or poultry, where slow stewing in low heat over a long period of time will break down the toughness in the flesh. Most vegetables cannot hold up to such stewing and will simply collapse into unappetizing mush. Chickpeas, on the other hand, are perfect for a tajine, and the addition of tender eggplant stewed with spices is filling and delicious. Olives are used often in classic tajines to add a salty-briny balance and colorful garnish.

One large sliced eggplant is enough to feed many people, but even better would be baby eggplants, if those are available to you. Also, the addition to the tajine of a couple of tomatoes, quartered, would do no harm.

I finish my tajine with a squeeze of lemon, but this dish would benefit from Moroccan preserved lemons, which contribute a bright and powerful distinctively pickled flavor. You can find a recipe for preserved lemons in the NYT Diner’s Journal.

A last note: tajines are generally considered whole meals in and of themselves, served in the dish they are cooked in. Although you may be tempted, there’s no need for couscous here (which is an entirely different dish). Instead, make the Moroccan bread khobz to go along with the tajine (which is exceedingly simple to make; see here), or buy some crusty rolls.

tajine

Tajine with Eggplant, Chickpeas, and Olives

serves 4-6

  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large eggplant, sliced longways into quarters, sixths, or eighths, depending on size (OR: 10-12 baby eggplants)
  • 1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
  • 1/2 cup olives (green, purple or an assortment as preferred)
  • sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp ginger, powdered
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • pinch saffron
  • pinch paprika
  • 1 small bunch cilantro, chopped
  • 1 small bunch parsley, chopped
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1 cup water
  1. Place the eggplant slices on a plate lined with paper towels and salt generously. After 30 minutes, dab away exuded water.
  2. Place the sliced onions and crushed garlic in the bottom of a tajine (or dutch oven) at least 32 cm in diameter. Drizzle oil over onions and garlic and cook over medium heat until softened. 
  3. Arrange the eggplant slices evenly in the tajine and drizzle generously with oil. Cook 5-6 minutes or until browned on one side.
  4. Add salt, ginger, turmeric, paprika, saffron, and black pepper, then 1 cup hot water and chickpeas. Heat to a simmer, then lower heat if necessary to maintain simmer and cover. Cook 35-40 minutes or until eggplant is soft and chickpeas tender.
  5. Add the olives and half of the chopped cilantro and parsley. Reduce if there is too much liquid.
  6. Before serving, drizzle the juice of half a lemon over the top and add the rest of the fresh cilantro and parsley. Serve with Moroccan bread.

Socca

IMG_7164

Ah, socca. How I’ve missed you. I’ve never quite been able to get out of my head the memories of repeatedly burning my tongue and fingertips on fresh-from-the-fire socca in Nice (it was too hot, but I couldn’t stop eating). That was in February 2010, during Carnaval, and I wandered my way through the cobblestone allies of the Vielle Ville and picked pieces of smoky-hot, crispy and flaky socca out of a paper funnel.

Ever since, I’ve thought about making socca at home but alas, the primary ingredient was never available. Chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour is admittedly difficult to find outside the Mediterranean region, though it can be found in some Arabic shops, in Indian grocery stores (as besan flour), and in certain organic supermarkets.

As you’ll see if you visit Nice, true socca du marché is cooked over a wood fire in batches of giant circumference, with much scorching and blistering and rustic smoky flavors. But, we can certainly do a close approximation at home (David Lebovitz does it all the time; the following recipe is his). To imitate the smoky tones of cast iron over a blazing fire, we add a touch of cumin to the batter. Above all else, don’t be shy with the pepper–there must be freshly ground black pepper must be in excess, and the more coarsely cracked the better, in my opinion.

You’ll know you’ve made the socca right when you scrape it out of the pan with a spatula and it flakes apart in big, crumbly pieces. This is street food, and as such, fingers and mess are the only things required to eat.

Socca

makes about three 10-inch (23cm) pancakes

from The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz

  • 1 cup (130g) chickpea flour
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (280ml) water
  • 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
  • freshly-ground black pepper, plus additional sea salt and olive oil for serving
  1. Mix together the flour, water, salt, cumin, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Let batter rest at least 2 hours, covered, at room temperature.
  2. To cook, heat the broiler in your oven. Oil a 9- or 10-inch (23cm) cast-iron pan or baking dish with the remaining olive oil and heat the pan in the oven.
  3. Once the pan and the oven are blazing-hot, pour enough batter into the pan to cover the bottom, swirl it around, then pop it back in the oven.
  4. Bake until the socca is firm and beginning to blister and burn. The exact time will depend on your broiler (for me it took 5-6 minutes).
  5. Slide the socca out of the pan onto a cutting board, slice into pieces, then shower it with coarse salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.
  6. Cook the remaining socca batter the same way, adding a touch more oil to the pan between each one.

Irish Soda Bread

IMG_7142

As far as baking bread goes, I’m on a roll (Ha!). Ever since the beer bread, I just can’t get enough of these quick and easy homemade loaves. Or maybe it’s that I had a half-liter of buttermilk in the fridge to use up.

In any case, one can’t go wrong with Irish soda bread. All you need is 5 ingredients, 5 minutes, a hot oven, a baking sheet, and suddenly there’s a beautifully golden crusty loaf of soft chewy bread begging to be sliced and spread with butter and jam. If that isn’t homemade happiness, I don’t know what is.

Extra plus: there’s a tip in the recipe for making soured milk if you don’t have buttermilk.

Irish Soda Bread

recipe from Rachel Allen, Rachel’s Irish Family Food

makes 1 loaf

  • 3 1/2 cups (450 g) all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 1 tsp superfine (caster) or granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 to 2 cups (350-425 ml) buttermilk or soured milk*
  1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 C)
  2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in most of the buttermilk, leaving about 1/4 cup (50 ml) in the measuring cup. Using one hand with your fingers outstretched like a claw, bring the flour and liquid together, adding more buttermilk, if necessary. Don’t knead the mixture, or it will become heavy. The dough should be soft, but not too wet and sticky.
  3. When the dough comes together, turn it onto a floured work surface and bring it together a little more. Pat the dough into a round about 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) thick and cut a deep cross in it. Place on a baking sheet.
  4. Bake for 15 minutes. Turn down the heat to 400 degrees F (200 C) and bake for 30 minutes more. When done, the loaf will sound slightly hollow when tapped on the bottom and be golden in color. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

*tip for making soured milk: Gently heat regular milk until warm. Remove from heat, add the juice of half a lemon and leave at room temperature overnight. You can also sour soy milk or rice milk in this way.

IMG_7149

Quinoa Cakes with Sweet Potato, Wild Rice, and Cranberries

IMG_7155

I love making quinoa cakes because they’re so easy to turn into something that seems a little fabulous—a couple of them on a plate with a little bit of greens and some sauce (see my previous post on mushroom mousse sauce) makes such a tasty, satisfying, and energizing meal. My roommate even eats these for breakfast, and they easily keep her from feeling tired or hungry until lunchtime.

Quinoa cakes are endlessly versatile, of course, but I like this combination of sweet potato chunks, wild rice, and dried cranberries in particular because they add a variety of color and texture to an otherwise drab-looking cake (quinoa cakes taste better than they look), and because the sweetness of the cranberries with the fall flavors of sweet potato and sage are so appealing together. These cakes are baked rather than fried, so everything is quite healthy and nutritious as well—always a plus.

Quinoa Cakes with Sweet Potato, Wild Rice, and Cranberries

  • 1 medium sweet potato
  • 1 cup wild rice
  • 2 cups quinoa
  • ½ cup dried cranberries
  • 1 egg
  • Sea salt
  • Fresh sage, chopped
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  1. Peel the sweet potato, boil until fork-tender but not mushy, and dice.
  2. Meanwhile, cook the wild rice and the quinoa, separately. Let cool a bit.
  3. Combine the cooked quinoa and wild rice in a large bowl. Stir in the egg, then add the diced cooked sweet potato, cranberries, salt, pepper, and sage. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so the mixture is easier to shape.
  4. Form small patties about the size of your palm. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes, or until firm and dry on the outside but still moist in the center. Alternatively, bake in muffin cups and add 5-8 minutes to your baking time.
  5. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

IMG_7036_PSedit

Who knew fluffy, flaky buttermilk biscuits were so simple to make? If you’ve ever made scones or pie crust, you know that baking things that are mostly a combination of flour and butter are easy as . . . pie.

These biscuits are sweetened with sweet potato and a touch of brown sugar, and would be perfect served warm with a drizzle of honey. Make sure to use chilled buttermilk and chilled butter when mixing everything together, and don’t work the dough too much, or the final product won’t be as soft and fluffy as you intended.

I recommend pairing a biscuit with a nice serving of shepherd’s pie for a cozy, snowed-in weekday meal.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

makes 8; adapted slightly from Bon Appetit, December 2009

  • 1 big or 2 smallish sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1 3/4 cup flour
  • 1 Tbsp packed dark brown sugar
  • 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • pinch cayenne pepper
  • 8 Tbsp (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes, plus Tbsp extra melted
  • 1/3 cup chilled buttermilk
  1. Cook sweet potato cubes in boiling salted water until tender, 8-10 minutes. Drain, cool, and mash.
  2. Position rack in lower third of oven and preheat to 425 degrees F. Butter bottom of 9-inch cake pan.
  3. Whisk flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and cayenne in a large bowl. Add chilled cubed butter, toss to coat and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
  4. Whisk 3/4 cup mashed sweet potatoes with buttermilk in a bowl. Add the flour mixture and toss with a fork. Gather dough in the bowl, kneading until dough forms. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and pat into a 1-inch-thick round. With a biscuit cutter or knife, cut out individual biscuits, flouring the cutter in between. Gather and pat into a 1-inch-thick round, repeat until dough is gone (avoid regathering dough more than once).
  5. Arrange biscuits side by side in cake pan. Brush tops of biscuits with melted butter, bake until puffed and golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of one biscuit comes out clean, about 22 minutes.
  6. Cool in pan, then turn biscuits out and pull them apart.
  7. Serve with butter and honey, if desired.

Fondant au Chocolat (Easy Lava Cakes)

IMG_7032_PSedit

In which: I explain how to make individual chocolate lava cakes within the space of 15 minutes, pantry to plate.

To be perfectly frank: this is not the best chocolate lava cake you will ever have, although it is most likely the easiest one you’ll ever make. It’s not my favorite kind of molten lava cake–you know, the one where you dip in with your spoon and as soon as you break that fragile, quivering outer edge of moist crumb the whole cake catastrophically gives way and the center comes gushing forth in a torrent of warm chocolate ooze flooding your entire plate. Here, although there is indeed a runny center (more akin to the cream filling of Hostess cupcakes than to torrents of lava–not that we are complaining about that) there will be no such drama.

Nevertheless: keep this recipe in mind, because if one day you are stricken by a craving for gooey chocolate cake so urgent that the entire process of baking and eating must be accomplished within 15 minutes or your crankiness will become unbearable–this is the recipe for you. Or, if you want a sophisticated-seeming dessert for a dinner party that no one except you knows is so easy and that can be achieved half-drunk and that everyone will love (everyone loves lava cake)–this is the recipe for you.

(Don’t: be fooled by those 1-minute microwaved chocolate-cake-in-a-mug recipes. I’ve tried them many times, and the result is spongey and soggy and thick and entirely underwhelming.)

The French connection: This recipe comes from France, the pays d’origine of chocolate lava cake, which has to count for something. In France lava cake is called fondant au chocolat; or gâteau au chocolat au coeur fondant, which translates to the lovely image of a sugary, melting heart; or moelleux au chocolat, which is more like a thin slice of flourless chocolate cake.

Some tips: This cake is exceedingly simple to make, it being mostly egg, sugar, chocolate, and butter, with a bit of flour and vanilla. The key to creating that runny center is 1) under-bake the cakes, taking them out when the edges are just set enough to hold but the centers are still very jiggly; and 2) placing a largish piece of semi-sweet chocolate in the centers of the cakes before baking. You could also keep the egg yolks out of the batter and whip up the egg whites, which would make the cakes lighter and more like a soufflé. And don’t forget the finishing touches: a sprinkle of powdered sugar or a drizzle of chocolate syrup, and a heap of fresh raspberries or strawberries if you have them, makes all the difference.

Fondants au Chocolat (Chocolate Lava Cakes)

makes 9 individual cakes

  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 2/3 cup flour
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
  • 1 bar (12 oz.) unsweetened chocolate
  • 9 pieces of semi-sweet chocolate.
  • confectioner’s sugar for sprinkling
  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. Whisk eggs and sugar together in a bowl until the mixture lightens in color, then add vanilla and salt.
  3. Delicately fold in the flour.
  4. Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave until butter is melted, stir until chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour into batter and mix just until incorporated–batter should be thick and sticky.
  5. Spoon the batter into a greased 9-cup muffin tin as follows: put one spoonful of batter into the cup, add a sizeable piece of semi-sweet chocolate into the middle, then cover with another spoonful of batter. Repeat until tin is full.
  6. Bake for 6-8 minutes or until sides are just set and middle is jiggly.
  7. Wait five minutes for the cakes to cool, then sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar. Serve warm (with liquid centers) or room temperature (with soft centers).

Beer Bread

IMG_7019

Beer is pretty much just liquid bread, so the concept of beer bread seems natural enough. To make either, you use yeast to turn sugar into alcohol. So–all you need for this delicious homemade bread is flour, sugar, your favorite beer, and baking soda, with a pinch of salt and 5 minutes to stir it together.  The baking powder is necessary because most beer nowadays doesn’t have enough live yeast in it to make an adequate leavening agent for baking.

Cooking with beer is great, if only because it’s an excuse to drink the beer while I cook. Which means choosing a good beer is important–I like an IPA or a nice stout. Try your own favorite, as long as it has strong flavor to make it come out in the bread (with a light beer you’ll still get great bread, but the beer will be imperceptible).

Similar to Irish soda bread, recipes for beer bread produce a solid brick of a loaf with a thick, rocky crust. This impenetrable crust fortress keeps the crumb inside moist and chewy. I generally like this hardy frame for my slice of bread, but crusty jagged edges are not always easy on the roof of the mouth. As a delicious remedy, this recipe adds a generous coating of melted butter to the bread batter before baking, so the top crust absorbs a softer layer of extra flavor.

Beer Bread

makes 2 loaves

  • 3 cups bread flour, sifted
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 bottle of beer
  • 1 stick butter, melted
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
  3. Add beer and stir until mixed.
  4. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan.
  5. Pour melted butter on top of the batter.
  6. Bake for 1 hour.
  7. Remove from oven and allow 15 minutes to cool before removing bread from pan.

IMG_7016

Cucumber Salad

IMG_6445_PSedit

Now is time for the post-holiday detox. Five weeks of cookies, candy, cornbread, and cream-based alcoholic drinks calls for sobering up with bowl of cucumbers. When I was attending work parties in Japan, where drinking is a highly valued part of professional performance, I would remedy the morning after with tsukemono, those brightly-colored Japanese pickles. The clean, briny taste cleared my head and went easy on my stomach.

This salad is flavored with celery seed, dill, a little bit of white onion. Use long, thin English cucumbers so you don’t get the pulpy mess of seeds that are hidden in salad cucumbers.

Cucumber Salad

serves 5-6

  • 2-3 English cucumbers, sliced thickly and quartered as shown in photo
  • 1/4 white onion, thinly sliced
  • olive oil
  • apple cider vinegar
  • dill, finely chopped
  • celery seed, finely ground
  • 1 Tbsp sugar, or to taste
  • sea salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  1. Combine all ingredients except the celery in a bowl and whisk together. Toss with the cucumbers.
  2. Allow salad to marinate for a couple of hours in the refrigerator before serving. Serve cold.

Onigiri

IMG_6928_PSedit

One doesn’t usually expect to see Japanese rice balls among the New Year’s Eve party spread, and indeed mine were the only onigiri included in the buffet festivities this Monday night. Even so, they were a big hit, disappearing long before neighboring bundt cakes, sprinkle cookies, and chocolate doughnuts. Perhaps the art studio crowd of the party I attended harbored a special predilection for seaweed? No–I prefer to think that there is something in the minimalist aesthetic of onigiri that we found particularly appropriate for ushering in an introspective new year after a holiday season of garish excess. Simplicity of form, pureness of content, economy of design: all find harmony in the undistracted elegance of these little rice balls.

In Japan onigiri are the perfect snack, whether for a post-lunch treat in a second grade classroom, or a furtive bite for hungry salarimen on the commuter train. The most familiar onigiri form is the triangle, either covered in a snug outfit of crackly nori warp, or more daringly clothed with only a thin rectangular strip stretching from front to back.  However, variations on the theme are ubiquitous, including circles, balls, and tombstones. Rolling the onigiri in sesame seeds or furikake rice flavorings (like nori-mushroom, shown in the above photo) gives them more pizzazz.

Onigiri is, at heart, simply steamed sushi rice flavored with a bit of salt. Here, unlike sushi, we don’t flavor the rice with rice vinegar. To make a more filling meal, you might stuff the onigiri with tuna and mayonnaise, umeboshi (picked plum), barbecued eggplant, kimchi, or just about anything you like–the possibilities are endless. See this onigiri-making tutorial at Serious Eats for a nice photo-explanation of how to shape and stuff your onigiri.

Onigiri (Japanese rice balls)

makes 16-20 onigiri, depending on size and shape

  • 2 cups sushi rice
  • 2 1/2 cups water
  • sea salt
  • 1 package nori wrap (the longer, rectangular kind for making onigiri, not the square shape used for rolling sushi)
  • furikake or sesame seeds
  • fillings, as desired (ex: umeboshi, pickled radish, canned tuna and mayonnaise, grilled eggplant or mushrooms, kimchi, anchovies)
  1. Wash and rinse the sushi rice in water until the water runs clear. Place the rice with the 2 1/2 cups water in a rice cooker; cook. If you don’t have a rice cooker, bring the rice and water to a simmer in a pot, then cover and lower the heat to medium-low for 15 minutes. Then turn off the heat, keeping the pot covered for an additional 10 minutes.
  2. Once cooked, fluff the rice with a rice paddle and mix in the sea salt. Let the rice cool down until it is no longer too hot to handle.
  3. Place a small bowl of warm, salted water near your work station and wet your hands. The water will keep the rice from sticking to your hands, and the salt will lightly flavor the rice as you work.
  4. Paddle a small scoop of rice into your palm and shape as desired. Add the fillings. If you are eating immediately, wrap in nori (you will probably have to cut the nori with scissors to fit your shapes). If you are preparing the onigiri in advance, set the rice ball aside without nori–otherwise the nori will get soggy.
  5. Just before serving, wrap the rice balls in nori. If the nori has trouble sticking, lightly moisten the nori and press firmly.
  6. These rice balls don’t need any sauce. Be creative while you are making them and enjoy as they are!

Here’s some inspiration for creative onigiri makers: cute onigiri faces!

Chocolate Mint Crinkle Cookies

IMG_6556

We’ve just finished up the last of these crinkle cookies in my house, so now would be an appropriate time, I think, to purge myself of cookies, cravings, and recipe, however delicious they have been to me. These cookies are small and slinky, fudgy and chewy, with a satisfying minty finish that puts you in just holiday spirits. Plus, they’re hands-on baking that is sure to amuse children—remember making snickerdoodles with your babysitter?–assuming you don’t mind a little mess.

First you whisk the dry ingredients together (easy enough for the kiddos); then, if you want to have a bit of fun, you mix the bowl of swamp bog-looking wet ingredients, saving the chocolate for last. The goopy mixture turns green from the mint liqueur, but adding the melted chocolate turns everything back to normal. Also, it’s surprisingly fun to roll slippery lumps of dough around in powdered sugar.

Two words of warning: don’t overdose on the mint flavoring. If you’re not sure how strong your mint liqueur/extract/oil is, err on the side of not enough and taste the dough before adding more. You don’t want a batch of cookies redolent of toothpaste. Also, these cookies are best consumed within a day or two (or immediately—who can resist cookies warm out of the oven?) because they will start to dry out and lose their fudginess after a couple of days. If you need leftover holiday cookies to send out to the neighbors, these may not be the best choice.

IMG_6541IMG_6544IMG_6547IMG_6548

Chocolate Mint Crinkle Cookies makes about 20 cookies. adapted slightly from Saveur.com

  • 1 1/3 cup flour
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1 Tbsp mint liqueur
  • 3 eggs
  • zest of 1/2 orange
  • confectioner’s sugar, for rolling
  1. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted chocolate, sugar, oil, vanilla, mint liqueur, eggs, and zest. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until combined.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a shallow bowl with enough confectioner’s sugar to cover the bottom. Use a spoon to scoop out a small portion of dough and roll it in the confectioner’s sugar, completely coating it. Repeat until the dough is gone, placing the round lumps of dough 3 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
  3. Bake 10-12 minutes, until the top of the cookies are cracked and glossy and the middle is barely set.
  4. Store in an airtight container and eat within a day or two.

IMG_6550