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11/30/2004 Archived Entry: "Chinese Almond Cookies"

Just a Reminder
I am at the Manhattan West Side Jewish Community Center (JCC) tonight. Tomorrow evening, Wednesday, I am demonstrating and signing books at Chef Central in Paramus. On Thursday evening, I am at the Chef Central in Hartsdale. On Friday afternoon, I will be at Jerry’s Gourmet in Englewood. For details, check out my appearance schedule.

And now, the recipe …

The cat will be out of the bag any day now, so I’ve decided to confess here: Newsday’s Sylvia Carter asked me what recipes didn’t make the cut for the book. Several of what I consider key recipes are, indeed, not in Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food. I hope you understand. Something had to give. There are only so many pages you can put in a book. As a result you won’t find the Chinese Almond Cookies of my – and possibly your – youth. These predate fortune cookies, if you can believe it or can remember the time. They were thin, crisp, intensely almond-y cookies that were offered with the check in Chinese-American restaurants, sometimes packed into little glassine envelopes. Even after fortune cookies replaced them, they were sold in bakeries in Chinatown – in gargantuan size, as well as the small size. If you go into a Chinese bakery nowadays, however, the so-called almond cookies taste of no nuts at all, have such a large proportion of fat that they barely hold together, and are usually decorated with a walnut or peanut. I’m thinking that almonds have become too expensive.

The cookie’s crispness came from lard as the shortening. The intense nut flavor was from almond extract. After a two-from-column-A, three-from-column-B family Chinese dinner, they seemed slightly Western, bringing you back home from your exotic experience. And they tasted so good with the ice-riddled chocolate or vanilla ice cream that, besides canned pineapple chunks on toothpicks, were the only desserts Chinese restaurants offered then.

Susan Loden, director of the Kings Cooking Studios, the supermarket chains cooking schools in Bedminster, Verona, Hillsdale, and Short Hills, gave them out at the party she produced for me and the new book at the Madison Hotel last night. She gave out the recipe, too, so I thought I might as well share it here.

By the way, the recipe comes from Grace Z. Chu’s “Pleasures of Chinese Cooking” (Simon & Schuster, 1962). Back in the 1960s, Chu was New York’s first Chinese cooking teacher. Her classes, given in her Manhattan apartment, were what inspired Marcella Hazan, a student of Chu’s, to teach Italian cooking in her apartment. But that story is in the book. I’ll let you read it there.

Chinese Almond Cookies
Makes about 4 dozen cookies

Since the flavor of these comes exclusively from almond extract, be sure to buy a very high quality one. Lard produces the particular crisp texture, as it always did. You can substitute solid white shortening, but its flavor is not quite the same. You can also substitute margarine, but it changes the flavor slightly, too. Corn syrup also adds to the texture. If you substitute more flavorful molasses or honey, expect the flavor of the cookie to change. It won’t taste as strongly of almond.

3 cups sifted flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup lard, white shortening, or margarine
4 tablespoons corn syrup, molasses or honey
1 egg
3 tablespoons almond extract
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 cup blanched and peeled almonds (48, to be exact)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cream the shortening and sugar together. Add beaten egg.

Slowly add the flour, baking soda, almond extract and syrup to the mixture and mix until smooth, scraping down the bowl a couple of times.

Take 1 tablespoon of the dough and roll it into a ball. Continue until all dough has been used.

On greased cookie sheets (or parchment-lined sheets), flatten each ball into a thick cookie; about 1/2 inch. Arrange them about 2 inches apart; they spread. Press an almond into the center of each.

Bake on greased cookie sheet in the preheated oven for about 12 minutes. (They are brown when done. Be careful not to overbake.)

The cookies can be made several days ahead. Keep them in a tin or wrapped in foil. They will keep in the freezer for several months.