Where sweet, salty and nutty are in a committed relationship
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PG food writer, Gretchen McKay, was pining for cookies on a recent afternoon. Actually, make that bugging me for cookies.
So I thought I would bake something for her that I have never tried before and picked up the top cookbook from a pile of books on my desk to find a recipe. I looked at the book cover, paused for a few seconds and then started flipping through the pages.
“Almonds, Anchovies and Pancetta: A Vegetarian Cookbook, Kind Of” (William Morrow Cookbooks; $25.99; Sept. 25, 2018) didn’t exactly scream cookies to me but I found the title intriguing and it is written by Cal Peternell, who wrote the IACP Award-winning “Twelve Recipes” and was a chef at the famed Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., for 22 years.
The book is divided into three obvious chapters — almonds, anchovies and pancetta — and does not have any food-porn photographs. Instead, it has beautiful line illustrations sprinkled throughout. Directions for the recipes are written conversationally and the chapters are loaded with tips from how to pound garlic with anchovies to toasting, chopping and blanching nuts to curing pork belly for pancetta.
As I got toward the end of the first chapter — almonds — I was on the verge of giving up hope as I didn’t think the next two chapters were going to help me when I came across the recipe for almond butter cookies with chocolate. The first thing that piqued my interest about them was the almond butter. I love a chunky salty almond butter and when it is combined with chocolate, I think cookies get only better.
It was Girl Scout cookies that inspired Mr. Peternell to come up with this creation. “Nostalgically, scouty, but crisp and chewy with dark chocolate chunks that combine with the almond’s warm toastiness to make them a singular joy!,” he writes.
And what did the office cookie craver have to say about them. She found them grainier and healthier than the chocolate chip cookies she makes with shortening. “But they are good. I ate them, right?,” she adds.