Su Good Eats

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IMBB 17: GreenTea Biscotti

It's that time of month again: Is My Blog Burning, in which bloggers around the world cook around a common theme. This time, Clement of A la Cuisine! has chosen tea as the themed ingredient.

I developed this recipe for Mariko of Super Eggplant, who loves green tea. You see, I sent her a care package for Blogging by Mail. Two events collide in one day!

I took a trusty chocolate chip biscotti recipe from Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts, added green tea leaves, and swapped the semisweet chocolate with white chocolate, since green tea has a delicate flavor. Going with the white theme, I also substituted mild almonds for the walnuts.

Be sure to use white chocolate that lists cocoa butter as the main ingredient. In cheap brands, partially hydrogenated oil poses as white chocolate. And you wonder why most people don't like white chocolate! Would you substitute brown-colored vegetable shortening for dark chocolate? I don't think so. Use the real stuff!

These low-fat biscotti become wonderfully fragrant a day after baking. They are delightfully crunchy but not jaw-breakingly hard, if you don't overbake them.

Green Tea Biscotti
adapted from Alice Medrich's Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts
Makes about 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp pulverized green tea leaves, from about 3 tea bags
2 eggs
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp brewed green tea
1/2 cup chopped toasted almonds (optional)
2/3 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven 300 degrees F. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper or greased foil.
Place the flour, baking soda, salt, and tea leaves in a small bowl. Stir with a whisk to combine. Set aside.
In a medium mixing bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, vanilla and brewed tea until well combined. Beat in the flour just until combined. Stir in the nuts and white chocolate chips. Mixture will be thick and sticky.
Use a large spoon to scoop batter onto the baking sheet, dividing it evenly into 3 long skinny rope-shape loaves, each 12 inches long, or 2 loaves 16 to 17 inches long, depending on your baking sheet. Loaves must be 2 1/2 inches apart. This will be a slightly messy process. Use the back of the spoon or a spatula to even up the ropes of batter and neaten the edges. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove from oven and cool loaves 10 minutes on the pan. Leave the oven turned on.
Carefully peel the loaves from the parchment paper and remove them to a bread board. Use a sharp serrated knife to slice the loaves on the diagonal into 1/2-inch slices. Arrange the slices directly on the oven racks Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cookies are crisp and dry. Or arrange the cookies on 2 baking sheets. Bake for 12 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and back to front about halfway through the baking time. Turn cookies over and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating sheets as before.
Cool biscotti completely on racks before stacking or storing. They become more tender about 2 or 3 days stored in an airtight container. Keeps for several weeks.

Notes:
This is a developing recipe, and the tea flavor, although present, is not as strong as I would like. Any ideas for improvement? I can't add more brewed tea, or else the dough will be too sticky. There's only so much you can do to concentrate the tea: you can't brew three bags in 2 tablespoons of water.

Using matcha (green tea powder) rather than leaves may concentrate the flavor. From what I've researched, 1/2 Tbsp matcha = 1 Tbsp tea leaves.

Blogging by Mail: A Sweet Package

As I mentioned before, Nicole (of The Baking Sheet) and I mailed each other homemade sweets, which sprouted the idea of Blogging by Mail. It was really fun to receive her marshmallows, and she thoroughly enjoyed my Nutella. So why not spread the fun to the rest of the blogging world?

My "secret" blogging pal, Jocelyn of Brownie Points, sent me raspberry jam, mango-jalapeno preserves and (ooh, is this legal?) hemp-hazelnut chocolate. I could have sworn she snooped around on my blog, because everything matched my tastes. I love spreadable fruit but am too cheap to buy a freaking $10 jar of Sarabeth's preserves. I also love dark chocolate and hazelnuts (can't you tell I love Nutella?). The hempen chocolate bar had a smooth dark flavor without being bitter or acidic. The hemp tasted like sesame seeds!

Nicole, the gracious hostess, mailed all the participants goodie packages too! She sent me Eating Well's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, chewy ginger candy and green tea. The cookies were thick and chewy, although I wish there were more butter flavor. But I'll excuse that shortcoming, since tahini was the main source of (heart healthy) fat.

NYC Bloggers Meetup Part II: Potluck Edition

After the success of the NYC foodies' get-together at Otto, we decided to meet again, but this time for a potluck. The dinner was destined to be good, since we all enjoy cooking and know our way around NYC restaurants. Rebecca, our gracious host, cooked pizza (with pizza stones to get the crust crispy!) and basil/almond pasta; Samantha brought edamame dip, red pepper dip, hummus, currant snack cake, chocolate walnut cake, chocolate candy bar cookies, roasted vegetable sandwiches and air-cured beef/mozarella/pesto sandwiches from Balthazar I believe; Susann brought broccoli and cornmeal upside-down cake (a tribute to Clotilde, who introduced us all) and Valrhona chocolate and jelly doughnuts from the Doughnut Plant; Lisa and her family brought lentil salad (recipe from a Moosewood cookbook); and I made my signature macaroons.

Thank you all for a good time, and I look forward to hanging out with more food bloggers at the next potluck!

Left to right: me, Samantha, Lisa's dad, Pat (Lisa's mom), Susann, Sonny (Lisa's boyfriend), Lisa. Second row: Dave (Samantha's husband), Rebecca.

A sampling of our food: currant snack cake, air-cured beef/mozarella/pesto sandwiches, Scharffen Berger chocolate, macaroons, broccoli cornmeal upside-down cake, pasta with basil and almonds, lentil salad, spiced pecans, hummus, edamame (soy bean) dip and pita chips.

Sonny marvelling at our spread.

Rebecca dumps freshly toasted almonds on her pasta salad.

Lisa and her boyfriend Sonny

Samantha, Dave (Samantha's husband) and Pat (Lisa's mom)

Lisa's dad

Blondies have more fun

Now for a deep philosophical question: is a brownie still a brownie without the chocolate? No, in that case it would be a blondie. These bars are perfect when you're craving the dense and chewy texture of a brownie but don't want chocolate. Yes, a girl can get sick of chocolate after ingesting too much chocolate mousse.

I lightened the recipe by using 5 tbsp of butter rather than a whole stick. These bars have plenty of fat from the almonds, so they were still wonderfully moist, although they might not keep as long. But do you really expect to have them laying around for a whole week? They even develop the characteristic skin you get from boxed brownie mix, except these don't have nasty-tasting artificial ingredients.

Fruity Almond Blondies
Adapted from Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup whole almonds, with or without skins
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
5 tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 large egg
1/4 tsp almond extract or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried tart cherries, cranberries, chopped apricots or any dried tart fruit

Equipment:
8-inch square pan, lined across the bottom and up two opposite sides with parchment paper or foil

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Toast the almonds for 15-20 minutes, or until brown. Stir halfway between baking to ensure even coloring.

Move the rack to the lower third of the oven and continue to heat the oven.

Process the almonds with the flour in a food processor fitted with a steel blade until the almonds are finely ground. Add the salt and baking powder and pulse to mix.

Toss the fruit with one tablespoon of the flour mixture so they won't sink to the bottom of the bar. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar. Using a wooden spoon, beat in the egg and almond/vanilla extract. Stir in the flour mixture, followed by the dried fruit. Spread the batter evenly in the pan.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and have pulled away from the sides of the pan and the top is light golden brown. Cool in the pan on a rack. Run a knife along the unlined sides of the pan. Lift the ends of the paper or foil liner and transfer to a cutting board. Use a long sharp knife to cut into 16 squares.

May be stored, airtight, for at least one week.

Notes: Dream up your own creation by substituting any nuts or dried fruits! Pine nuts would give an Italian twist, pistachio is popular among food blogs like Chocolate and Zucchini and The Food Section, and walnuts would make a richer bar. Tart fruit is recommended to offset the sweetness of the bar.