The Dord of Darien

Musings from the Mayor of the Internet

Macadamia Delights

There’s some argument in the comments on my Pasta column as to the true value of pasta. So I thought I’d throw in another recipe to demonstrate an interesting and unusual thing you can do with pasta – delightful little cookies.

This starts with pasta dough, so read that column first. You’re going to want to make it pretty much the same way, but get some brown sugar involved in the action this time – maybe half as much brown sugar as flour. The idea is for the dough to come out sweet and dark, but still pliable as before. So you’ll probably need to add more water. Once you have a nice brown dough made, and once the gnomes have done their evil magic, roll it out thin and cut it into circles. You’ll probably want to aim for about two inches across; a standard drinking glass (such as it is) is great as a ghetto cutter if you don’t have anything else.

Then we need to talk filling. The main ingredient in the filling is macadamia nuts. You’re going to want them chopped fine; if you have a food processor, this is a great place to use it. If you don’t, get ready to murder yourself chopping the bastards. Chop chop chop until you have sort of a coarse nut meal with no big pieces left in it. Once that’s settled, get it in a mixing bowl and add a whole bunch of honey, some cocoa powder, a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of salt, and a splash of cognac. Mix it all together. You should come up with a dark, sticky paste – if you don’t, most likely you need more honey.

Once the dough is cut and the filling’s prepared, place a dollop of filling in the centre of each dough round, then fold it in half and crimp the edges with a fork. You’ll get a nice little half-moon with cute ridges on the curved side, which is exactly what you want. When you have the whole bunch done, you’re ready to fry them.

What? Fry them? You betcha. If you have a funky home fryer gadget, that’s the best plan (clearly), but you can make do with a pot full of oil on the rangetop. A high-temp thermometer (do NOT use a thermometer designed for temping sick mortals unless you like the idea of fishing little glass slivers out of hot oil) can be a help here, since you can keep your oil in the right range. I recommend soybean oil for this, since it doesn’t have the nasty off-taste of canola oil and also doesn’t have the nasty price tag of olive oil, and you’re going to be using a whole gallon. You’re going to want to keep the oil in the 350 – 400 degree range; if it’s smoking, it’s too hot. Once you’re pleased with your oil, toss in a cookie and see what happens. It should start bubbling more or less right away; if it doesn’t, your oil’s too cold. Assuming everything’s fine, you’ll want to fry it for a minute or two, then flip it (it will be floating) and fry it on the other side. Ideally you’re shooting for a nice golden-brown colour, with a bit of cratering on the surface. Continue to fry them a few at a time (be patient – do too many at once and you’ll kill your oil temperature, and then they’ll soak up a bunch of oil and get shitty). After you remove them from the oil, drain them on something suitable – a couple of layers of paper towel on a plate works fine if you don’t have anything fancier. There’s no need to throw the oil out when you’re finished frying in it, by the way; let it cool, strain out any big chunks of stuff, and save it for re-use frying later. Frying oil actually tends to be somewhat improved as it darkens a bit.

Once the cookies are all fried, it’s time to make the fudge. Fudge fudge fudge. Start with a can of sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk, unless you want some thoroughly nasty fudge). Heat it over very low heat until it starts to steam, then add about a pound of chocolate (chocolate chips are fine; if you’re using unsweetened baking chocolate, you will need to add sugar also) and a teaspoon or so of vanilla. Stir this constantly – or I promise you it will burn – until the chocolate is thoroughly melted, then remove it from the heat. Dip your cookies in the fudge; generally, I like to dip only half the cookie, so one end is fudge-covered and the other is not. If you’re a big fudge fanatic, feel free to dip the whole cookie, but be aware that it’ll be a pain to do and a pain to eat. Set the dipped cookies on a sheet of waxed paper to cool; it’s not a bad idea to dust the waxed paper with a bit of confecitoner’s sugar beforehand. Once all your cookies are dipped, dust the fudgey parts with confectioner’s sugar if you want (I think it makes them look nice) and you’re good to go!

See? Fancy pasta cookies. They’re delicious, unusual, and not altogether very difficult to make. The only hard part is CHOP CHOP CHOP, and you can get around that thanks to the wonders of modern technology. Oh, also, if the sharp-witted among my readership detected that this seems a lot like making ravioli, well, you’re right. You’ve basically made dessert ravioli here. Leave out the brown sugar and fill them with something more savoury – meat or cheese – and you can make a lovely dinner exactly the same way. You can even still fry them if you like, since fried ravioli is also delicious.

Pancakes my aching ass.


September 28th, 2007 Posted by | Recipes | 2 comments

2 Comments »

  1. Seriously dude. Be less gay.

    Comment by Dave | 28 September 2007

  2. You first.

    Comment by Darien | 28 September 2007

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