All posts tagged brown butter

the reasons why (fish cooked in brown butter)

05.09.10 // Comments:14

sole amandine

I tend to keep mental lists of reasons I like things. Is that weird?

It’s true of avocados—loaded with good fat, make creamy smoothies, taste absolutely perfect smashed and salted on toast, were just $3-and-something for four at Trader Joe’s yesterday. It’s also true of places—Boston has those historic streets, the North End filled with great food, a beautiful autumn; Colorado doesn’t only offer 300 days of sunshine but is also surrounded by those incredible, breathtaking, larger-than-life mountains.

And of course it’s true of people, like my mom, whom we’re celebrating today. My mom’s list is filled with things like: makes me laugh, is a killer cook, knows just how you should and shouldn’t plant tomatoes each year. She can quote random phrases in Hebrew, knows facts about old theologians, listens to her favorite preachers while she gets ready every morning.

Though I struggle to be 100% honest and blunt with most people, Mom is one person with whom it’s easier. I’m probably sometimes TOO honest with her, in fact. Over her 27 years of motherhood, in which she has born the brunt of my harshest words and most untactful responses, I have been much more free because I know, probably as one of the most sure things I do know, that she loves me. She prayed for me for two years before she had me. She has prayed for me in all the years since she did.

And, as it was with antiquing and gardening and cooking and planning things far, far in advance, she has paved the way for me towards new interests, including something as simple as eating one of her and my dad’s favorite foods: fish.
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Comments:14 Click here to comment! Categories: entree, fish

close your eyes and eat

05.01.09 // Comments:6

brown butter cookies

The truth is, I have more to tell you about D.C.—like about the crazy-sweet frosting at Hello Cupcake, which was tall enough to catch on the tip of our noses when we bit into the cake; the breakfast crepes across from our hotel, filled with Nutella and strawberries; the Neapolitan-style pizza at 2 Amys, a restaurant more than one of you recommended and that makes some killer prosciutto and potato croquettes. But that will all have to wait, maybe for a day when you and I sit down in person instead, because right now, there are bigger things to talk about. Things like this brown butter shortbread.

I actually made these shortbread cookies in December, and as for why I haven’t posted them until now: all I can offer is a pathetic nod to the seemingly unending cookie recipes that were flowing around here at that time. It had reached the point where, one day, I had to promise myself to stop—no more cookies!—in an effort to keep from being the Blogger Who Only Talks About One Thing, ever. Then again, now that I’m looking back, would that have been so bad?

There is a comfort in familiarity, which is probably why I’ve been craving cookies so much lately. When you’ve fought the world, so to speak, whether at your office, with your kids or on the highway—it’s nice to come home, take a warm bite of sweetness in your hands, close your eyes and eat.

brown butter shortbread cookies

This recipe comes from Lottie + Doof and offers a crumbly, nubbly texture with flecks of sea salt on top. Its flavor, sweet and nutty, is the kind that has you reaching for one piece after another, after another—and, believe me, I did.

Plus, while I wouldn’t say good looks are a requirement for comfort food, they’re certainly not a drawback—and these cookies are pretty. You might want to make them for someone you really like. Otherwise, you’ll have a hard time letting them go. Please trust me on this.

brown butter cookies

One more thing: subscribing! In the recent survey, a number of you indicated that you weren’t sure how to subscribe to Food Loves Writing. It really couldn’t be simpler, and I’m going to show you: go over to subscribe page and either (a) enter your e-mail to receive a note in your inbox when something new gets posted or (b) copy the link for an RSS feed here and insert it into your Google Reader or Bloglines account (or whatever RSS reader you use). If you want to know more about RSS and how it works, click here.

Brown Butter Shortbread
Adapted from Lottie + Doof

Ingredients:
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1/2 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Granulated, Demerara, or Turbinado sugar for sprinkling (I used sugar in the raw)

Directions:
Lightly grease either a fluted tart pan (with a removable bottom) or an 8-inch square pan (lined with aluminum foil that hangs over the sides for easy removal).

Brown butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until it turns a darker, caramel color and emits a warm, nutty smell. Be careful not to let it burn—you’re looking for deeper color, but it should not get blackish or smell burned at all. Once it’s reached the right consistency, remove it from heat.

Combine the melted butter with sugar, vanilla and salt in a medium bowl. Add flour and mix until combined. Spread dough in prepared pan, and let it stand for two hours or even overnight.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Bake the shortbread for 45 minutes; afterwards, remove the pan from the oven but leave the oven on. Lightly sprinkle the surface of the shortbread with the sugar, and let it cool for 10 minutes.

Carefully remove the sides of the tart pan or lift the shortbread out by the extended aluminum foil. Using a very sharp knife, cut the shortbread into 12 triangular wedges. Place these wedges on a baking sheet lined with parchment (or a Silpat). Return to the oven and toast for 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Comments:6 Click here to comment! Categories: before the 2009 diet change

Clipped Recipes and Brown Butter

12.12.08 // Comments:18

brown butter cookies

Sometimes I go through Grandma’s recipes, organized by me into two card-sized tins, and when I do, I find two things: (1) stained, cryptic notes in cursive penmanship and (2) torn clippings—from newspapers, from magazines, from the boxes of butter or oatmeal of decades ago. I have no idea, usually, if she’d tried and liked these torn recipes or if she’d been meaning to, but I keep them because, well, they were hers, things she thought worth trying.

My mom and I carry on this tradition, she with her labeled folders of cut-out recipes; I, with mine. This cookie, from Gourmet circa 1961, is one of those clippings. I caught it in the magazine’s recent Favorite Cookies 1941-2008 round-up, and I knew I’d like them, both because they are made with the complexity of brown butter and because of the simplicity of ingredients, all things you probably have on hand.

It took one whiff of browning butter, set in a pot on low heat to slowly melt and darken, for me to love it the way I love twinkling Christmas lights or the look of falling snow. As its color deepens, a nutty aroma fills the air, hinting at rich flavor. And put into cookies, this ingredient turns simple butter cookies into something magnificent: a crumbly sable texture with layers of subtle sweetness.

stacked butter cookies

You know, in all the almost-seventeen years I knew my grandma, I can’t remember ever baking her anything, not on my own, not without her help? I know I gave her cereal, toast, maybe cut-up fruit now and then, especially when she lived with us in that last year, when I slept in the same room with her to make sure she was all right. But I never cooked for her. And it’s a bitter irony that, almost ten years after she’s gone, I’m wondering which cookies she’d want for Christmas, when all my life, she knew which I’d prefer.

Those are the kinds of things one thinks about after losing someone: the questions you would’ve asked, the things you would’ve done while you still could. I will never bake for my grandma, but I will bake for you. And, in so doing, it seems to me, she doesn’t feel so far away.

Brown Butter Cookies
Adapted from Gourmet, 1961

The original recipe calls for a tablespoon of vanilla sugar, which I replaced with regular vanilla extract. I’d guess the alteration makes a slight difference, but, honestly, one bite in, you won’t mind at all.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Blanched almonds, for topping (I used maybe a 1/4 cup)

Directions:
In a heavy saucepan melt 1 cup butter over low heat until it browns. Add 2/3 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon vanilla and cool the mixture. Beat in 2 1/3 cups flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder to make a smooth dough. Roll spoonfuls of the dough into marble-sized balls and put them 1 inch apart on a buttered or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Press each ball down slightly with the tines of a fork, and top with half a blanched almond. Bake the cookies at 325° F for 20 minutes. Remove them from the baking sheet and cool. Serve half of the cookies. Freeze the remainder in a freezer container.

To serve the frozen cookies, defrost them at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes.

Comments:18 Click here to comment! Categories: before the 2009 diet change