Melting Moments (Snowballs)

Melting Moments, another take on shortbread cookies.

To the trinity of flour, sugar and butter some corn starch is added and baked at 250 degrees F for 60 minutes. They were oh, so delicate! when out of the oven and needed to be handled gently. I let them rest overnight on the cooling rack and they firmed up just enough. A light dust of confectioner's sugar and they are snowballs (Mario Batali might say, first step, find the snow's legs).

Cookies for some friends who invited us for lunch!

Grhybe Gorayba Ghrybe Ghoraibi (Lebanese Butter Cookies)

Grhybe/Gorayba/Ghrybe/Ghoraibi...they are spelled in more ways so the search for these on the internet proved difficult. I had this shortbread cookie with the most tender crumb at Kan Zeman, in Palo Alto some weekends back. Shortbreads are my favourite cookies and there seem to versions of it around the world, nankhatai in India, shortbread from Scotland, grhybe from the Middle East...The three important ingredients are all-purpose flour, shortening and sugar. Variations include addition of powdered nuts, rice flour, corn flour, semolina...shortening of choice, butter, clarified butter, ghee and plain old vegetable oil. Some recipes also call for a leaving agent, baking powder and sometimes eggs (squirm) to both leaven and bind. Flavourings and dried nuts to embellish are also used. They do not agree on the temperature of the fat or the state it should be in or the temperature or length of time they should be baked, perhaps all this contributes to the variety but they all share something in common, a pale hue and a delicate texture.

I followed this recipe but baked it at 250 degrees F for 60 minutes as recommended here. They had the hue of the palest brown but, cough, were NOT short (sob) enough. Need to find another recipe...

Kadachakka Oolarthiathu (Sauteed Breadfruit)

Kadachakka Oolarthiathu (Sauteed Breadfruit) adapted from Mrs. K. M. Mathew's Kerala Cookery (May 1999; fifth edition)

made using frozen breadfruit

Kadachakka is malayalam for breadfruit

Oolarthiathu is a style of preparation and translates to sauteed or panfried. It differs from other panfried preparations from Kerala like mezhukkupurattiathu or thoren in that meat is the main ingredient and therefore heavily spiced (cinnamon, cloves, cardamom,...). Certain vegetables taste delicious with this treatment, kadachakka (breadfruit), koorka (chinese potato) and chena (elephant yam).

Rava Laddoo

I'm on a laddoo, ahem...cough, roll: Rava Laddoo

Yes, they are just rava, ghee, sugar and milk. Followed this recipe but omitted the nuts and raisins. Avoided burring sugar in the food processor and used this sugar. Surprised at my self-restraint, the laddoo are cooling and i have yet to dig my teeth into one.

Besan ke Laddoo

Besan ke Laddoo: Cure for a wet day in fall

I found this description of the making really helpful, though i ignored the flavourings. Just besan, ghee and sugar are perfect. I have to admit, the laddoos look like freshly laid eggs with soft shells :). Hopefully they'll get kadak real soon.