Cookies 'n' Stuff

Yesterday afternoon, in a fit of boredom, I decided to do some cooking and ended up with: cowboy cookies and 2 varieties of musubi/onigiri. The recipe for the cowboys came from a Moosewood Restaurant dessert cookbook that my brother gave me for Christmas. Here's a bit of the back story:

Since my brother is a professional chef, even having a few years as a head pastry chef under his belt, I regularly ask him for advice on variety of cooking topics: substitues for recipes, flavor combos, menu planning, etc. One of my favorite topics to bug him about is vegan baking, which, though not impossible, can be tricky. Now, my brother is a nice guy, but he strongly dislikes (one may go so far as to say 'hates') cooking for vegetarians and/or vegans, especially when baked goods are involved. This past year he finally wisened up, though, because this year for Christmas he gave me a couple of cookbooks from the Moosewood Restaurant. "Now," he said, "don't ask me about vegan baking anymore. Ever."

Anyway, I haven't had a chance yet to try out any of the vegan recipes, but I have made the cowboy cookies a few times now. They are absolutely delicious. My history with the cowboys goes back to my days in Seattle. It's hard for me to decide why I like the cookies so much: is it because of how they taste or the fond memories I associate them with? Being the hopeless nostalgic that I am, I think it's more of the latter.....but I digress.

A cowboy cookie is basically a chocolate chip cookie with a bunch of extra stuff thrown in. The cowboys I've always known have included coconut shavings and walnuts, though you can get as crazy as you like. The Moosewood recipe is actually more like an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, so I added some coconut and called it 'good'. Perhaps next time I'll add some almonds as well....


After the cookies, I decided to try my hand at a classic Japanese snack food: onigiri. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Japanese food, onigiri are basically balls of rice with a filling. Traditionally, the filling for onigiri was some kind of pickled vegetable (tsukemono).

When I visited Brien in Japan during the tail end of spring in 2005, I think I ate these every day, usually for breakfast. Prepackaged onigiri usually comes with a sheet of nori as well, and the Japanese have devised an ingenious wrapper that separates the nori from the rice until it's ready to be eaten. The first time I tried to open one, I invariably failed....good times.

Onigiri are dead simple to make, and I'm a little disappointed in myself that it's taken me so long to bang out a batch. The following links are from one of my favorite food blogs and are the recipes I used.

http://www.justhungry.com/2003/11/japanese_basics_1.html

http://www.justhungry.com/onigiri

http://www.justhungry.com/2007/01/onigiri_omusubi_revisited_an_e.html

http://justbento.com/handbook/bento-basics/onigiri-on-parade-guide-onigiri-omusubi-rice-ball-shapes-types-and-fun

*note: this site has a TON of awesome recipes....more posts on them later.....

I can't remember if any of the recipes mention this, but if you live near/can get to a decent Japanese grocery store, odds are you can get your hands on an onigiri mold. I used one for the onigiri I made, and it made the assembly part a bit easier.

When making the rice for the onigiri, I added a bit too much water. This lead to slightly mushy rice, but for this recipe it wasn't too big of a deal. While I am a HUGE fan of salmon onigiri, I decided to make vegan variations so that Jana could enjoy some too. The white onigiri contain a center of chopped teriyaki edamame and the other onigiri are just rice mixed with wakame and sesame seeds (my other favorite variety from Japan).

To make the edamame filling I used frozen shelled edamame beans and a basic teriyaki sauce, 1 part soy sauce and 1 part mirin. Though you can buy mirin in just about any grocery store, I noticed a big difference in taste when I use actual fortified sake (which is what mirin is supposed to be). It imparts the teriyaki sauce with a better balance between the sweet and salty without the need for adding sugar. Anyway, heat the frozen beans and teriyaki sauce until the sauce reduces to a pretty thick consistency.

The wakame onigiri is even easier. You can buy dried wakame seaweed at any good Asian market, and I bought mine at Whole Foods. I soaked the wakame for about 5 minutes in a mixture of 1 part soy sauce to 2.5 parts water, but straight water is okay too. After draining off the liquid I added sesame seeds, folded the mixture into the rice and formed the onigiri.

Yay! Another hour at work has passed and it's almost time for me to get on home. If anyone wants the cookie recipe, feel free to e-mail me or copy it down at your local book superstore.

Cheers,
nickdoll