Chewy ginger cookies with cardamom and black pepper

Yesterday, during my regular rounds of food blogs, something led me to Pithy and Cleaver, which for unknown (and now remedied) reasons was not part of my daily reading. I came across a recipe for chewy ginger cookies with cardamom and black pepper and for the rest of the day could think of nothing else.

This happens to me sometimes, most powerfully with the root beer cake.  (Although I don't think this happened, I like to envision myself reading about the root beer cake and floating away from my computer in a robotic fog to the store where I purchased all the ingredients--including the bundt pan, as you may recall--and making the cake, all the while measuring and mixing with glassy eyes as if under a spell.) This may be an exaggeration, but sometimes a recipe takes hold in my head and I can't do anything until I make it.

It happened with these cookies yesterday. Luckily, this time I had all the ingredients on hand, so no trancelike trip to the store was necessary. Once I got home from work and got the dog walked and fed, I began baking. Frances settled down on her special kitchen rug (equidistant from the cutting board and the fridge so she can quickly reach any dropped bits) and watched me.

I was in the midst of rolling the dough into little balls when my sister called from New Jersey.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Making ginger cookies," I replied nonchalantly. She seemed surprised, and jealous that we didn't live closer.

While I was chatting with her, the husband arrived home and looked at the sheet pan, half-filled with sugar-crusted gingery orbs. He also looked surprised. His look translated to, "What the what?!"

Ginger cookies, I mouthed.

One thing especially cool about this recipe, and what drew me to it in the first place, is that it calls for my favorite spice, cardamom. I've already written a love letter to cardamom here, so I will spare you another long-winded tribute. Basically, I think it's the bomb--full of ginger and pepper and earthy spice-- but tragically underused.

I also like that these cookies bake for 7 minutes. So in no time at all, I was admiring my lovely little cookies, which I stacked up to make them look arty.

 

I brought the husband a pre-dinner cookie to enjoy with his beer while he cursed Comcast for not airing the Kentucky basketball game, which, much the way I had been with these cookies, he had been looking forward to all day. The cookie seemed good enough to mollify him, though briefly. I thought they were outstanding--spicy, a little sweet, and as soft and chewy as promised--no gingersnaps here. Not to get ahead of myself, but these would make dynamite ice cream sandwich cookies.

The ingredient list is a bit unusual; in addition to the cardamom and black pepper, it also calls for a tiny amount of cocoa powder, as well as fresh grated ginger, and crystallized ginger, which I didn't have. Although I probably wouldn't have included it even if I had it because I don't care for junk in my cookies unless we're talking chocolate chips or possibly toffee. You can keep your nuts, dried fruit, and dessicated ginger nubs (which I will eat by themselves--just not nestled into cookies).

Next time I would add more cardamom, and a little more fresh ginger, but that's just me. They are quite delicious just as they are. So, if you are on the hunt for a perfect ginger cookie recipe, give this a try. With their pantry-friendly ingredient list and super-quick baking time, you could be eating one of these fabulous, fragrant cookies in no time flat.

Things I like and things I don't

Everyone has their preferences, and some cannot be changed.

I have very few foods that I outright dislike, but there are a few combinations I can't stand, such as fruit and chocolate. I realize that this is verboten for a foodie. But I've adhered to this opinion for more than three decades and I just don't see myself changing my mind. It doesn't matter what kind of fruit you pair with what kind of chocolate: the idea of any of it turns my stomach. So please don't start listing in astonishment all the different kinds of fruit you adore with chocolate; it will only make me dig my heels further in my anti-fruit-and-chocolate stance.

I know I'm not alone in having immutable preferences. The husband, for instance, doesn't care for eggplant. I can offer it in parmigiana, moussaka, or baba ghanoush form, all of which I find absolutely delicious, but he holds fast to his belief: eggplant is no good. And given that he eats pretty much everything else, I don't foist eggplant on him. Although I love it, I can understand why he wouldn't.

So when I mention the recipe I made the other night, yet another old faithful from Marcella Hazan, if you don't like mushrooms, you may as well not bother with this post. Mushrooms play a starring role here and there is no substitute.

But if you do like mushrooms, this might up your alley: creamy mushroom and ham sauce, tossed with fettucine. Mushrooms and ham happen to be two things I like quite well, and if you add shallot, parmesan, and cream and toss it with beautiful strands of pasta, I'm sold.

This recipe taught me how to coax mushrooms to give up their liquid. It goes like this: Start them in a pan with some butter and salt over low heat. Once they begin to release their liquid, crank up the heat and boil it off rapidly. You're left with pure concentrated mushroomy goodness.

I'm feeling a little lazy and am not going to type out this recipe. But as I said with Marcella's pot roast,  feel free to email me and I'll scan and send it to you. I cross my cream-and-butter-logged heart.

 

On Friday, after a long week, this was the perfect dinner to send us into the weekend. It's important to have a relaxing Friday evening, as it shapes your mindset for the weekend. So whatever that means to you--creamy pasta with mushroom sauce or chocolate-dipped strawberries-- make sure it's something that makes the work week recede rapidly into the distance and lets you focus on the delicious plate in front of you.

Crazy mango bars

I love mangoes. I love them fresh, just eaten out of hand, the juice running down my wrist. I'll happily eat them dried and chewy, and I also like them in smoothie, juice, and sorbet form. I find their rainbow skin utterly beautiful, and I enjoy how cool and heavy they feel in my palm. I even like saying the word "mango."

So I was very pleased when a couple of plump mangoes arrived in our produce box last week.

 

"Mangoes!" I cried to the other hungry dog, who was watching me unpack the box. "Mangoes!" I shouted a little louder, since she's losing her hearing.

She sniffed one appreciatively. That dog knows a good mango when she sees one.

Although I do buy mangoes here in San Francisco, I most often eat them when we go to Hawaii.  You know how I love Hawaii, right? Like, really love it. Here's the short list of things I love most in this world:

1. The husband and the other hungry dog (for appearances, let's just say they are tied for first)

2. My mother, sister, her husband, Mischievous Pug and Scrappy

3. Hawaii

No doubt this deep love of Hawaii, and particularly Kauai, has to do with my adoration of mangoes; anything I associate with that gorgeous place is high on my list.

Normally I would just wait for the fruit to ripen, peel it, and eat it standing over the sink. I admit to being a bit uncouth on occasion. But this time, I felt the urge to do something different.

What to do? I wondered. Mango cake? Mango muffins? 

Mango bars?

Yes, readers, strangely, that is what I decided upon, to the husband's surprise. I found a recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian that looked good. Actually, the recipe was for coconut lime bars, but one of the variations was mango bars. While some of you might be cuckoo for coconut, the Hungry Dog doesn't roll that way. Mango bars it was, with lemon instead of lime, because who has limes sitting around?

Mango bars are exactly like lemon bars: you make a short pastry crust, bake it, cover it in a fruity custard layer and bake it again until it's just set. For the mango component, you just use mango puree, which is made as follows: peel and slice some mangoes, and puree them in a blender. Bittman also suggests you strain the puree, a step I skipped. It didn't seem to make a difference in the final product.

The mango bars emerged dark golden brown and lacy on the edges. I let them cool completely before dusting them with powdered sugar, my own addition, because they seemed to need a final touch. Then I cut them into squares and served one to the husband.

"It's crazy that you made mango bars," he said dubiously, which is his way of saying, "I'm not sure I'm going to like these."

Ultimately, the mango bars were fine but not a bestseller. They were a bit too sweet and lacked contrasting texture. I think if you enjoy coconut, sprinkling some over the top would be good. Me, if I made them again, I would make a crumbly brown sugar topping with macadamia nuts.

They sure looked pretty though.

What about you all? What do you do with mangoes?