Matcha Cookies Four Ways

Prelude

Duo: Honey I just blew half the food budget on matcha powder. Bai!

David: You motherfucker! *shakes fist*

David and I are in charge of the food for the Our Fair City Season Six Launch Party. It was shortly before our third design meeting, and the menu was falling into place. We had already showcased the majority of what we wanted to serve at the 2nd design meeting, but the general consensus was that, while the daifuku I presented was great, we should really have something available for people who are not as adventurous when it comes to food.

I had my mind settled on cookies. Green cookies. Unwilling to use food coloring unless I absolutely have to, I opted to make matcha (green tea) cookies, which are naturally green. I did some napkin math and arrived at a ratio of approximately 1 tablespoon of matcha powder per cup of flour used, and I thought it would be a pretty reasonable investment.

As it turned out, matcha powder was about $6 per ounce. In comparison, radishes, which are prominently featured in two of our dishes, ran about $0.69 per pound. 

Mother. Fucker.

I was entirely too stubborn to retract my idea, however, so I plowed on. Somewhere along the way, I thought: you know, this shit is expensive, so I'm going to try to make the best fucking matcha cookies ever. Luckily, my wonderful downstairs neighbor Mark gave me another 4 ounces of matcha powder for free, so I had the resources to experiment.

Take One: Shortbread

I have made shortbread style matcha cookies previously, so that's where I started. I went with Smitten Kitchen's recipe because I wanted the matcha to shine through:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons matcha powder
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Whisk dry ingredients together.
Cream butter. Add almond extract.
Combine dry ingredients and butter.
Divided into discs and chill for 2 hours.
Roll out and cut.
Bake at 325ºF for 15 minutes.

This recipe made me remember why I hate shortbread recipes, especially in the winter. Since there are no binders beside the butter, shortbread recipes are the poster children for mass measurements over volume measurements. The butter never fully softened (my fault), so the fat had a hard time wetting the dry ingredients. After initial mixing, the ingredients took the form of slightly wet green sand, and I had to knead the dough together with my hand in order to melt the butter and get the dough into cohesive clumps. Despite my best efforts, the dough still had a tendency to crumble when I tried to roll it out. Luckily, handling it wasn't a complete disaster.

"The green tea is lost on me."
"I can't really taste the green tea."
"I like the almond flavor."
"Texture and color are both good."
"It's kind of dry."
"It should be smaller."
"Needs less salt and more sugar."
"The salt level is fine."
"Can you just use green food coloring?"

For the launch party, I guess that would make more sense. I think I'll just make a bunch of green sugar cookies: easy to handle, easy to recognize, relatively inexpensive, and hard to turn down.

But we're not done here. This post is about matcha cookies.

Take Two: Modified Shortbread

I upped the sugar, added almonds in place of almond extract, and made sure to soften the butter this time around (first thermally, then mechanically with my trusty Slovenian tenderizer) based on this recipe.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons matcha powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
2/3 cup chopped sliced almonds.

Mix flour, matcha powder, and salt.
Cream butter and sugar.
Add dry ingredients to butter+sugar. Mix to combine.
Stir in almonds.
Roll into logs. Chill for 1 hour.
Cut logs into slices.
Bake at 325ºF for 15 minutes.

After making this cookie, I was convinced that a cold kitchen and shortbread recipes simply do not mix. The dough was even more crumbly than the one produced by the previous recipe, and it took monumental effort to shape the logs. It was impossible to make the logs perfectly circular, so the cookies were shaped like rectangles with rounded edges. Oh, by the way, don't even think of rolling out this dough, because it'll explode into a thousand pieces, punch you in the face, and drink your tears while giving you the finger.

"It's so buttery."

"This one is my favorite."

"I like the almonds."

At least people seemed to like it, but I'm going to save this one for the summer, when butter stays softened and the kitchen doesn't feel like a walk-in freezer.

Take Three: The Chewy Kind

Ali, who helped me with come up with the idea of making multiple versions of matcha cookies, had the following suggestions for her ideal cookies:

chewy!
a little fluffy, so not thin, but soft and chewy.

Taking Ali's suggestions into consideration, this one is an original recipe, or as close to one as cookie recipes go.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons matcha powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1.5 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup candied ginger nibs or candied ginger, cut into small pieces

Combine flour, matcha powder, baking soda, and salt.
Melt butter. Let it cool slightly, then mix thoroughly with brown sugar and white granulated sugar.
Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract to butter-sugar mixture. Stir to combine.
Beat dry ingredients into wet ingredients.
Stir in ginger nibs.
Roll dough into balls.
Bake at 325ºF for 18 minutes.

Now this is more like it! The dough was easy to handle, the ginger nibs complemented the matcha flavor well, and the cookie was chewy and remained chewy for up to two weeks (had to save some for Ali).

"Oh my god."

"Great mouth feel; chewiness was excellent."

"Sweetness was on point."

"Green tea flavor was good."

This is by far my favorite matcha cookie recipe, and I will be bringing these to A Month Of, my storytelling show, tomorrow. The current batch contains some slightly burned cookies because I found a hot spot in my oven, but you will probably like it anyways.

Take Four: Vegan

I have a few friends who expressed interest in a vegan variation, so I made one based on this recipe.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons matcha powder

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick vegan shortening (Earth Balance), softened

2/3 cup white granulated sugar

2–4 tablespoons apple sauce

2 tablespoons toasted black sesame seeds.

Make your own apple sauce, because half the stuff you'll find in grocery stores are not vegan and you can use the leftovers for latkes!

Peel and core, like, some apples. I had 3.5 pounds. 

Place apples in saucepan. Add enough water to submerge apples. Heat to a boil. Reduce to medium and continue to boil for 35 to 40 minutes.

Add sugar to taste. I added 1/4 cup of white granulated sugar because I used Fuji apples, which are pretty sweet to begin with.

Blend until smooth.

Combine flour, matcha powder, baking powder, and salt.

Cream vegan shortening and sugar until smooth.

Add dry mix to sugar-shortening mixture.

Add apple sauce tablespoon by tablespoon until a dough is formed. 3 tablespoons worked well for me, but your mileage may vary.

Stir in sesame seeds.

Roll dough into balls.

Bake at 375ºF for 15 minutes.

This was my first time making vegan cookies, and I was happy with how it turned out. I wasn't able to taste the apple sauce at all. The cookie was soft: not chewy like the previous recipe, but also not a gag-inducing puck of dryness. The sesame provided a nice texture contrast.

"This is vegan?"
"I like the sesames."
"It reminds me of a Japanese tea ceremony."

Conclusion

Success! Come eat cookies and tell stories with me at A Month Of tomorrow night. Bai!

Work Potluck Week Eleven: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and Taking Symbolism Too Far

Last week's theme was Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was also the first week Anna actively participated in the potluck. The theme was a lot more abstract than that of the previous potluck, but we are super smart people. Once again, we drew the Seven Wonders at random and then chose which course to make.

Anna: Lighthouse of Alexandria

Stuffed bell peppers with feta, (sausage), corn, onion, and cornbread stuffing. Anna didn't have a great explanation for the dish except that stuffed peppers are part of traditional Egyptian cuisine. I remarked that the peppers resembled stoplights, which is (tenuously) connected to the lighthouse.

Amanda: Great Pyramid of Giza

Egyptian style pitas, feta, and baba ghanoush
Amanda also opted for traditional Egyptian dishes. The Egyptian style pitas she made were denser than the typical pita encountered stateside, and their color was reminiscent of sand.

Duo: Statue of Zeus at Olympia

Watermelon limeade with pineapple and cherry garnish

Zeus, being the head honcho of the Greek pantheon, invented many things, including infidelity. While Hera was technically Zeus' wife, Zeus loved some of dat mortal ass. My original idea was a limeade because sour flavor had a shocking quality to it, which I made more obvious by adding lightning-shaped pineapple garnish and citric acid and sodium bicarbonate. The limeade turned into watermelon limeade (to emulate the all powerful presence of Zeus, I squeezed the juice out a watermelon with my bare hands), and a cherry garnish was added, because... well, remember what I said about Zeus, infidelity, and dat mortal ass?

Greg: Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Garden salad with mixed greens, peppers, tomatoes, and feta
Originally, Greg was going to bring an empty salad bowl because the hanging gardens' location has not been verified. Knowing that we would spite him for that, however, he opted to bring a huge mix of vegetables, some of which looked very much like each other. Tomatoes resembled peppers and vice versa, and who could keep all of the salad green varieties straight?

Jaycie: Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

Vegetable kebabs with zucchini, yellow squash, bell peppers, onion, and baked cheese
The temple of Artemis would have been a lot easier to execute if the potluck weren't vegetarian. So, instead of serving venison to represent the bounty of the huntress, Jaycie modeled her dish after the columns supporting the temple. The ingredients are also skewered because one of Artemis' signature weapons is bow and arrows, the latter represented by toothpicks to signify the act of hunting.

Sam: Colossus of Rhodes
Stuffed mushrooms with spinach, cream cheese, feta, parmesan, and garlic
The Colossus of Rhodes is a statue of the Titan Helios, the personification of the Sun. Do you know what comes from exposure to the Sun? Vitamin D. Do you know what else contains a lot of Vitamin D? MUSHROOMS. The connection is so clear I'm surprised you didn't arrive at it earlier.

Sarah: Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

S'mores of the Dead

Why s'mores? Because graham crackers are like the earth, chocolate is like the physical remnants of the deceased, and marshmallows are like ghosts. Plus, are you seriously going to turn down s'mores? I don't think so.

Tanuki is the Best and Cutest Sushi Restaurant in Lakeview

This is Tanuki. It's a small sushi restaurant by the Wellington Brown line stop. For those of you who do not take public transit, it's around the corner of Sheffield and Wellington. It opened on February 13th, 2013, and occupies a space that once housed an aggressively mediocre late night/hangover pizza restaurant.

Tanuki is my favorite sushi restaurant in Chicago. I first visited the restaurant a week after it opened, before it had the sign you see in the picture above. I didn't go there because I knew the food would be good: I went there because it was close to my apartment and because tanukis have huge balls. Yes, I'm a child.

This is what my friend Sarah and I had the first time we were there. No, Instagram did not do the food justice. In addition to sushi, Tanuki served robata, which is basically a collection of delicious morsels grilled on skewers. I was so impressed by the food and how nice the place was I went back there for my birthday.

However, as much as I was enamored with the food, I still didn't know why anyone would name their restaurant after a raccoon dog with giant testicles.

This is Warren, owner and head chef of Tanuki. I asked him why his restaurant was named Tanuki.

When Warren was taking a field trip in Japan, he happened upon a sushi restaurant with a tanuki statue in front. Curious, he went inside and asked the owner about the tanuki statue.

In Japanese folklore, tanuki are shapeshifters. One day, a tanuki caught the scent of delicious food emanating from a sushi restaurant, so he shapeshifted into a man and walked inside. He ate and drank and ate and drank and ate and drank until he could eat and drink no more. When it was the time to pay, the tanuki didn't have any money, because his only assets were his giant sacks of family jewels. So, the owner angrily chased the tanuki away. However, after the tanuki's freeloading spree, the restaurant became very popular and was frequented by many patrons.

So, tanuki was both part of Warren's history and a symbol of good luck. Warren was originally trained at Indie Café in Andersonville, but wanted to run his own restaurant. So, he opened Tanuki with the support of his friends and family, many of which work at the restaurant!

Eringi (king oyster mushroom) and bacon-wrapped enoki (golden needle mushroom) robata

Silver sushi platter (chef's choice)

Spicy tako roll

Terah's Fire Cracker roll: spicy tuna, cream cheese, avocado, asparagus, almond, and sweet soy sauce. The roll contains no rice, and the whole roll is fried before serving. Because it contains no rice, it's very light for a fried roll. Chef Warren believes it's a great summer-time roll: the flavors are fresh and crisp, and it won't weigh heavily on your stomach.

The hamachi pearl nigiri: seared yellow tail with truffle oil soy sauce, caviar, spicy mayo, and scallion.

The salmon ceviche nigiri: salmon, mango slices, chili, and lime zest vinaigrette. The acidity from the vinaigrette balances the richness of the salmon's mouth feel quite nicely. To give you an idea of the attention paid to detail, observe the "strip" of mango above the salmon. Each "strip" is actually composed of strips of thinly sliced mango so the finished product articulates with the natural curvature of the nigiri.

Even the salad looks meticulously made.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Dragon Pearl. It's a giant ball of tempura-battered and deep fried lychee ice cream. There's nothing not to like about this dessert.

It's not just the food either: the entire place is adorable.

From the decor...

to the super cute t-shirts...

to the lucky tanuki statue.

So yeah, the next time you're in Lakeview and want some sushi, visit Tanuki!

This post is not sponsored. You should feel bad for even entertaining that notion.

Work Potluck Week Ten: Welcome to Chicago Anna!

A few weeks ago we welcomed Anna, our new Lead Teacher to the School Programs team. What better way to welcome her to Chicago than to make dishes based on Chicago neighborhoods? We each randomly drew from a cup filled with Chicago neighborhoods, emphasis on randomly.


Amanda: Little Italy
Panzanella: bread salad with Italian bread, mozzarella, tomatoes, basil and olive oil. We love carbs, but I think she made a little too much.

Duo: Chinatown. IT WAS RANDOM I SWEAR.
Cold eggplant salad: chilled boiled eggplants with garlic, ginger, scallions, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, Szechwan peppercorns, and homemade sesame paste. I've been wanting to cook eggplants for a while, and since I knew people will be needing the stove for their hot dishes, I made the eggplants ahead of time. It's not the prettiest dish, but it is flavorful.

Greg: Lincoln Square
Assorted root beer: Lincoln Square is on the Brown line, and root beer is brown. Lincoln Square is a German neighborhood, and Germans make the best root beer. Square Roots Festival also takes place in Lincoln Square.

Jaycie: Andersonville
Swedish pancakes: Jaycie and Andersonville are both Swedish (randomness is not without a sense of irony), so she made slightly sweetened pancakes, rolled and served with jam.

Sam: Pilsen
Re-imagined churros: cinnamon sugar pitas with salted caramel and cream cheese sauce. Pilsen is famous for its multitude of great Mexican restaurants. Also, remember when I said we love carbs? We really, really love carbs.

Sarah: Lincoln Park
Bow tie pasta with garlic scape pesto: garlic scapes are the green shoots that grow from garlic bulbs. You may have seen them when you've had bulbs of garlic for a while. There's this great farmer's market called Green City Market by where we work, and Sarah picked up some garlic scapes on a whim. The pesto is made from said garlic scapes, pistachios, parmesan cheese, garlic, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Even though garlic scapes are not as overpowering as raw garlic cloves, they still pack a punch!

Work Potluck Weeks Eight and Nine: Eat Your Feelings and Under the Sea

Week Eight: Eat Your Feelings

For this potluck, each participant drew from a random assortment of emotions and was tasked to create a dish that conveys the emotion drawn. Each participant's course assignment was chosen before the emotions were drawn.

My assignment was a passionate appetizer. Food and sexuality possess strong ties throughout human history, and the first thought I had was to look up a list of food that were supposedly aphrodisiacs. However, in my infinite wisdom, the google search string I came up with was "sexually charged appetizers." I urge you, dear readers, to run that search string and see what you get. Google tailors top search results based on your browsing history, but even for someone like me, who reads a lot of food blogs, none of my Page 1 results were remotely food-related. The only one that came close was a pun about a historical study of American sexual activities. Too much missionary, not enough Mission Street. Moving on.

In the end, I decided to create a cheese pairing. The non-cheese bits were homemade chocolate graham crackers (phenylethylamine yo) and vanilla candied cherries (According to the reputable food science journal Cosmopolitan, vanilla "mildly stimulates nerves, making sexual sensations feel even better." I don't think I need to explain the sexual connotations of cherries.)

The cheese on the left is the Robiola Rochetta. Made in northern Italy, this soft cow-goat-sheep milk blend has a great tangy finish. The cheese on the right is the Bay Blue cheese from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co. It's a fairly mellow blue cheese that's modeled after English Stilton. It's not nearly as pungent as some of the other blue cheeses I taste tested, but it possesses enough earthiness and saltiness to balance the sweet cherries and chocolate crackers. 

I was very apprehensive about coming up my own cheese pairing at first, but after about 2 hours of online and in-person research, the conclusion I arrived at is this: it's very hard to get a cheese pairing wrong. Much like the subject of passion, cheese pairing is not a hard science. Sometimes, when you taste two things together, you just know they go well together. It's like making eye contact with someone across Intelligentsia and feeling an instant connection, only to realize later that she was reading one of your favorite novels.

Amber made a happy main dish: homemade mac n' cheese. It's traditional comfort food.

Amanda made a giddy dessert: 3-berry medley topped with mango sorbet and fizzy soda. Pinkie Pie would be proud.

Greg made a bitter salad: strawberry almond apricot salad with lemon honey vinaigrette and aromatic bitters.

Sam made a fearful side: spinach balls. The dish itself isn't very fear-inducing, but the story behind it was great. It's a family recipe, and once upon a time Sam successfully convinced one of her teammates that it was in fact cat poop, which most definitely scared the poor girl. As someone who enjoys food-based scares and psych-outs, these cat poop nuggets (actually made with onion, thyme, spinach, stuffing mix, and garlic salt) are greatly appreciated.

Jaycie made a snarky beverage. Snarky is a difficult emotion to put into food, so Jaycie channeled the great snarky role models of pop culture. Who is snarkier than Severus Snape? Drawing inspiration from the potions professor, Jaycie made an Arnold Palmer, a drink that is part sweet, part sour, and a little bitter. We also had some gummy frogs encased in ice cubes left over from Week Three, which made the drinks even more wizard-like.

Snape... approves?

My personal favorite dishes came from Sarah, who was tasked with making a sneaky salad. What better way to sneak vegetables into someone's diet than to disguise them as other food? Take a look at the picture below and tell me what you see. 

Did you guess cat poop, bitter salad, mashed cauliflowers, and mashed avocados? Why, what an astute observer you are. Cheesy mashed cauliflowers were disguised as mashed potatoes, and chocolate mashed avocados were disguised as chocolate pudding. Both were delicious.

Week Nine: Under the Sea

We were short a few people for Week Nine, which meant we had less dishes but more latitude: our dietary restrictions were downgraded from vegetarian to pescetarian. Not as much hyper-creative thinking went into the meal (at least not compared to Week Eight), but everything tasted superb.

The week's theme had Sarah thinking about relaxing on the beach, so she made (virgin) piña coladas.

Sam made SeaMonkey bread. It was loaded with butter, Parmesan cheese, and garlic. 

Seizing the opportunity to serve meat, Amanda made a delicious salmon pizza loaded with herbs, goat cheese, and smoked salmon.

I made a seaweed salad out of 4 different kinds of seaweed. The dressing is a pretty standard Asian dressing with soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar. Roasted sesame seeds served as garnish.

Jaycie once again delivered. She adapted one of her favorite desserts from her childhood and to this week's theme. She made a delectable icebox cake using Nabisco chocolate wafers and whipped cream filling. Because the cake is black and white, she shaped the topping into whale tails and called her creation... the Orca-reo cake.

Admit it. It's pretty punny.

Next week, we welcome another new member to the potluck. She just started this Wednesday, and we made it adequately clearly to her that weekly potlucks are kind of a big deal.