One of my favorite cookbooks is by Ming Tsai of Blue Ginger, a swell restaurant in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The cookbook, Simply Ming, encourages people to make a basic -- a sauce, a version of kimchee, a sambal, etcetera -- and then offers various, often quite diverse, recipes in which to use those basics. I bought the cookbook on a whim in a Winner's (sort of a TJ Maxx) in Medicine Hat, Alberta. One of my best whims! Yes, I made the kimchee. (For that adventure, click here.) But that is not today's adventure. Last night, and today, I made Ming's classic shortbread for the Geneva Historical Society's 2008 Tour of Homes (which is, this year, oddly enough, a tour of the campus of Hobart and William Smith). I am not much of a baker and these were definitely do-able. Here's my version (yes, mainly Ming's):
First, cream three sticks of butter, a teaspoon salt, and a cup plus a third of sugar in a beautiful Kitchenaid Mixer having repeatedly had to ask for help figuring out the mixer. Then, add 3 yolks from free range hens that you got at the farmer's market (in my case in Geneva) and then add a tablespoon of vanilla extract and the seedy bits from a part of a vanilla bean.
Once all this is mixed well, stop the darn thing and add the flour; use about 3 3/4 cup (I actually used a tiny bit more). Then, destick the glop (which is pretty stiff but stuck inside of your mixer gadget, and roll as well as you can into logs. Stick them in the refrigerator over night because it is too late to make cookies.
Get up the next day and make the darn things. Do not get up as early as I did. Why? Turns out to be easier than I thought, though mine are not lovely, even, round shortbread cookies. Instead, they are all sorts of shapes from square-ish to triangle-ish to an occasional circular form -- all of which tells you I did not roll my logs as well as Ming's pictures imagined I would. But, to be absolutely honest, they taste good and they look pretty darn good as well. Thank you Ming!
How does this fit into Ming's theme in
Simply Ming of making a basic and then creating various things from that basic? Well, first, remember that the logs can be kept for a while if frozen. You do not have to do what I did, which is bake all of them the same morning. Also, to vary the cookies, Ming suggests some options-- each of which has to do with things in which to dip the cookies prior to baking. I used regular sugar for some (you do not need the huge quantity of sugar he suggests). I used his mixture of sugar and spices (his ratio is 1/4 cup sugar to 2 tsp each of ground ginger, cinnamon, cardamon and 1/2 tsp each of ground cloves and ground star anise). In each case, I wished I had chunkier sugar. And I did not need nearly as much as Ming suggested, which makes me think I was too abstemious with the dipping! My innovation (suggested by the incredible sous chef) was to also use some Lavender Vanilla Sugar I got from the
Savory Spice Shop in Denver.
Several things I learned: When you take logs out of the refrigerator and immediately make cookies from them, they do not pick up as much spice/sugar as you may want them to have. So: let them warm up just a tad before slicing them into cookies.
Also, and most importantly: make more than you think you need to make. These are dangerously fun to eat.