Chinese Almond Cookies

© Ellen Blonder, illustration from 

Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America

I spoke at the Mill Valley Public Library last night about my cookbook Every Grain of Rice, and followed up with a pile of almond cookies from a recipe in the book. The recipe, from my father's sister, was originally made with lard, which few people used anymore. For the book, we listed vegetable shortening--Crisco, really. I was thinking about how recipes evolve. This batch was made with organic, non-hydrogenated shortening from Whole Foods Market, which certainly was not available way back when.

 

Here's the recipe. Please attribute it to the book if you copy it. Enjoy!:

 

ALMOND COOKIES

(from Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America, © 1998)

 

1 cup vegetable shortening (or lard)

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

36 blanched almonds

 

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

 

With an electric beater, cream together the shortening and sugar until fluffy. Crack the egg into a small bowl, beat it well with a fork, and reserve 1 tablespoonful. Beat the rest of the egg and the vanilla and almond extracts into the sugar mixture until well combined.

 

Sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda onta a piece of wax paper. Add to the creamed mixture and stur until just blended. The dough will be crumbly but should hold together when squeezed in a ball.

 

Form the dough into 32 to 36 balls, each about 1 inch in diameter. Place them 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Press a blanched almond into the center of each ball. The edges of thedough will crack slightly. With your fingertips or a small pastry brush, brush the tops of the cookies lightly with the reserved beaten egg.

 

Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown. With a spatula, remove the cookies to a rack to cool. Store in an airtight container.

 

Dim Sum-Final

© Ellen Blonder

Because this is painted so loosely and on a pretty coarse canvas, I think I'm done. From the upper left, going clockwise, I painted a pork and shrimp steamed dumpling, a sweet sesame-flavored roll, a xiao long bao (Shanghai soup dumpling), spinach-dough dumpling, an unusual tomato-filled dumpling and a leaf-wrapped rice flour roll with sweet bean filling.

In Shanghai, I watched a dumpling crew make the soup dumplings with astonishing speed. Each one is rolled out, filled with a meat filling that includes jellied broth, then closed up with an impossible number of pleats. The broth melts during steaming, making a little soup inside and accounting for the slightly saggy shape. I didn't paint the shreds of ginger or vinegar that usually go with these.

Dim Sum-Day 2

© Ellen Blonder

I've changed some of the dumplings to balance colors and shapes better. Still needs a lot of work, though.

Dim Sum-Day 1

© Ellen Blonder

Part of the fun of China was eating different dim sum from what I've had at home. I'm just starting to work out a painting of some of them; it's pretty rough so far. I might change some of the dumplings. This canvas is 8 x 16 inches, and the dumplings are about twice their actual size.