There is a negative thirty-six degree wind chill in
Boston today. It is Valentine’s
Day. In hopes of a nice meal, Brett and
I have sacrificed three chickens for the preparation of a ramen broth from the
sadistic souls at Momofuku.
In a peculiar development that speaks to the mental
illness of my family, my brother—who lives in Virginia where it is a balmy
fourteen degrees—is making the very same ramen.
Consequently, there was no discussion of our respective soup plans, nor
was there collusion to use broth to fight the cold four hundred miles apart.
We are simply cut from the same cloth of people who
will spend, at minimum, ten ungodly hours hacking chickens and reducing steeped
kombu. Our lineage has the patience for
such a task and the stupidity not to know better.
Momofuku ramen is a bitch, in the words of my
brother. (Happy Valentine’s Day!)
Luckily, the people we attract—the depraved
souls—find this activity somewhere along the spectrum of romance and gratuitous
torment.
I do not have this recipe for you today. You will never get the hours calculating
the weight of deboned animal carcasses and rendered bacon fat back. One can
only hope, for the good of humanity, there are but few humans capable of such
idiocy outside the confines of a professional kitchen.
I do, however, have a very good cookie recipe for
you, sane person. One that should surprise
and delight without bone cracking or blood or cursing, if done properly.
It uses only five ingredients and shamelessly declines
flour, making the cookies needlessly—but deliciously—hip. That they are gluten-free is not the
point. The point is that they are quite
good and easy and suitable for your friends with celiac disease.
The concept is fairly simple. Take peanut butter (a winning beginning) and
add brown sugar and eggs and three hundred and fifty degrees. I thought about making them again and adding in
cayenne and scraped vanilla bean seeds.
But I did not have the energy today.
You can imagine what babysitting a painfully slow simmering pot of
chicken parts and pulverized mushrooms does to a person.
In essence, this recipe is about as far away as one
can get from Momofuku ramen. None of the
ingredients require research, nor do you have to involve a calculator at any
point in the process. (Odds are you probably have the necessary items in your
pantry right now.)
There are, however, a few unifying factors worth
mentioning. Both recipes have New York
origins—hailing from very popular city spaces—and are very good.
They are also both capable of heating up the joint. Which is really the whole point on a day like
today.
Sea Salted
Peanut Butter Cookies
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Ovenly: Sweet and Salty Recipes from NewYork’s Most Creative Bakery
Ingredients:
1¾ cups (335 grams) packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1¾ cups (450 grams or one 16-ounce jar) of smooth
peanut butter (see note)
Sea salt, for garnish
Instructions:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the light brown
sugar and eggs until smooth. Whisk in
the vanilla extract and the peanut butter until everything becomes fully
combined and turns lighter in color. It
will not be as thick as regular cookie dough.
Chill the dough in the freezer for about 30
minutes. This will help the dough set and scoop well.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
When ready, take out the cookie dough. If the edges of the dough look like they have
frozen a bit, stir the dough again briefly.
Scoop out about 2 heaping tablespoons of dough per cookie, setting the
mounds a couple inches apart. (Having a scooper
is helpful.) You should be able to fit
about 10 to 12 cookies per sheet. Sprinkle each mound lightly with sea salt.
Place one sheet of cookies in the freezer for 15
minutes. This is the first one you will
bake. Place the other sheet of cookies
in the fridge. Set the oven to 350
degrees.
After 15 minutes, place the freezer sheet into the
oven and place the fridge sheet into the freezer. Keeping the cookies very cold will help them
keep their shape better.
Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they
turn golden at the edges. The middles
will still be slightly soft. Let the
cookies set for a minute or two on the hot sheet and then transfer to a wire
rack to cool. Repeat with remaining
cookies.
Let cool completely before eating. This will help the cookies properly set so
that their edges are crisp and their centers are chewy.
Makes about 20 cookies
Notes:
-I only tried this with regular (not natural)
peanut butter. Processed peanut butter is alleged to yield a better shape.
-The longer you keep the scooped cookies chilled
the longer their cooking time will be, so be flexible with their time in the
oven, if necessary.