Saffron lemon cookies and Claire Danes

Those of you around here for a while know how much I enjoy movies and TV awards – I root for my favorites, hate it when the ones I find untalented and undeserving win and usually go to sleep at 2 in the morning. :)

For a couple of years I saw Claire Danes take home lots of awards for her role in Homeland and I did not quite understand why: I like her, I find her a talented actress and very versatile, too – who doesn't love Angela Chase? –, but those were the years she was going against Glenn and Mireille, and those two certainly deserved taking the awards home – I was rooting for them for Damages and The Killing are deep favorites of mine.

Now that I have started watching Homeland – and got completely addicted to it – I understand all the fuss: Claire is really amazing in it! If at first I did not understand all the awards, now I say “keep them coming!” :)

I’m OK with my favorites not winning as long as the ones who do actually deserve the awards, and now I see that is exactly what happened with Claire Danes; in September my heart will be divided for I would love her to win, just as much as I would love Viola Davis, Elisabeth Moss and Robin Wright – I haven’t watched season 3 of House of Cards yet but I am sure she’s fabulous in it.

As for these cookies, they look plain but they have a very special ingredient in them: saffron (which was the name of a character’s dog in Damages). :) I don’t use it very often for it is an expensive ingredient, but I could not resist trying them in cookies along with lemon and almond – they were delicious! The almond meal gives the cookies a wonderful texture that is why I recommend this recipe even if you don’t have saffron around: I am sure that cardamom would be beautiful here, or nutmeg, for instance.

Saffron lemon cookies
slightly adapted from the beautiful and delicious Annie Bell's Baking Bible: Over 200 triple-tested recipes that you'll want to make again and again

1 cup (100g) almond meal
1 cup (140g) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon table salt
½ cup (113g/1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
1 egg
finely grated zest of 2 lemons
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
20 saffron filaments, ground and mixed with 1 ½ teaspoons boiling water – let it cool before using

In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond meal, flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light. Beat in the egg, lemon zest, vanilla and saffron infusion. On low speed, mix in the dry ingredients just until a dough forms. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
Roll 2 teaspoons of dough per cookie into balls and place 5cm (2in) onto prepared sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden around the edges. Cool on the sheets over a wire rack for 5 minutes then carefully slide the paper with the cookies onto the wire and cool completely.

Makes about 45

Kulich

When I was little I hated panettone – all those crystallized fruits and raisins drove me nuts! My mom used to remove them all from the bread so I could eat it (mom was a saint, wasn’t she? :D). Years later the industry came up with the chocottone and that pretty much solved my problem. :)

Nowadays I love crystallized fruits and raisins and adore sweet breads studded with those ingredients. When I saw this kulich on Gourmet Traveller I couldn’t wait to make it, and it would be a good way to use the saffron I’d bought long ago and that was sadly sitting in my pantry – I tend to accumulate ingredients, I believe you’ve noticed that. :D
The saffron adds a nice yellowish tone to the dough, but I am sure the kulich would be wonderful without it anyway, so don’t let that stop you from making this great recipe.

Kulich
slightly adapted from the always gorgeous Gourmet Traveller

7g (1 sachet) dried yeast
½ tablespoon granulated sugar
140ml whole milk, lukewarm
½ cup (55g) golden raisins
2 tablespoons dark rum
pinch saffron threads
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
4 egg yolks, room temperature
360g all purpose flour
¾ cup (105g) icing sugar, sifted
50g almonds, coarsely chopped
50g candied orange peel, diced
1/8 teaspoon salt
100g unsalted butter, softened
1 egg, lightly beaten with a fork, for brushing
icing sugar, extra, for dusting

Combine yeast, sugar and 100ml of the milk in a small bowl, stirring to dissolve, then stand in a warm place until foamy (5-10 minutes).
Meanwhile, combine raisins and rum in a small saucepan over medium heat until rum starts to boil. Remove from the heat and set aside until raisins are plump (4-5 minutes), strain liquid into a bowl (reserve raisins), then add saffron, vanilla, yolks and remaining milk to rum, whisking to combine.
Combine flour, icing sugar, almonds, candied orange and salt in a large bowl, make a well in the centre, add yeast mixture, rum mixture and reserved raisins. Stir to combine, add butter and, mix with your hands to combine. Turn onto a well floured surface, knead until smooth, dusting with extra flour if dough is too sticky (5-6 minutes) – I did the whole thing using a stand mixer with the dough hook.
Place in a lightly buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap and stand in a warm place until doubled in size (1-1½ hours).
Divide dough into two, roll each piece into a 50cm-long cylinder. Twist two cylinders together, join ends to form a ring shape, place on a large baking sheet lined with baking paper. Cover with a tea towel and stand until risen (35-40 minutes).
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 120°C/250°F. Brush kulich with the beaten egg, bake for 15 minutes, increase oven to 180°C/350°F and bake until golden and an inserted skewer withdraws clean (25-30 minutes), then cool on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Serves 8-10

Santa Lucia sour cherry and saffron buns

Usually it takes me some time to consider a cookbook a top favorite – I love beautiful books and they certainly get my instant attention, but I like to try some of the recipes first to be sure they actually work. However, Signe Johansen’s Scandilicious Baking is so pretty and everything in it sounds so delicious I came to the conclusion that it was the best cookbook I purchased in the last 11 months. Absolutely gorgeous.
Picking the first recipe to try was hard – I actually feel like making all the recipes in this book! – so I settled for one that reminded me of my mom: when I was little, she had a small statue of St. Lucy at home, and I was very intrigued and even a bit scared by the image of a woman holding a tray with two eyes in it. Later on in life, when I was 8 or so, I found out that my dad had had an accident in the late 70s and lost one of his eyes in it – that is why mom had St. Lucy around the house.
I don’t believe in God or in saints but could not resist making these buns just because of my mom.

Santa Lucia sour cherry and saffron buns
from the absolutely beautiful Scandilicious Baking

375ml whole milk
pinch of saffron threads
2¼ teaspoons (7g) dried yeast
¼ cup (56g) unsalted butter, melted and warm
350g all purpose flour
150g whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
24 dried cherries (double the amount if they’re too small)
1 egg, extra, lightly beaten with a fork, for brushing the buns

In a small saucepan, heat the milk with the saffron strands until it starts to come to a boil. Remove from the heat and set aside until lukewarm. Sprinkle the yeast in a large bowl, pour over the milk and mix with a fork. Stir through the melted butter. Add the flours, cardamom, sugar, salt, egg and vanilla to the milk mixture and mix with a spoon until a sticky dough forms. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes until the dough starts to feel smooth and elastic – the dough is quite wet so you may want to use a dough scraper during the early stages of kneading (I used the Kitchen Aid with the dough hook and added 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour to the dough because it was too liquid). Transfer the dough to a lightly buttered large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm place to rise. Leave it for about 1-1½ hours until it has doubled in size.
Line a large baking sheet with foil. Punch the dough to remove the excess air then transfer it to a lightly floured surface. Knead it in to a log and then slice into 12 pieces of roughly equal size. Shape these into balls and then splay your hands to roll the bun into a sausage shape, then fold the ends into an S shape and carefully place them onto the prepared sheet. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove and double in size again. This should take 20-30 minutes – in the meantime, preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
Once the buns have risen, stuff each crevice of the S shaped bun with a dried cherry (two each if they’re too small). Poke them into the dough so they don’t pop up during proving or baking. Lightly glaze each bun with a little beaten egg and bake for 20-30 minutes or until they’re golden and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Makes 12

Saffron scented chicken pilaf

Like a good Brazilian, I love rice – not only the good old plain rice that is usually paired with beans here, but all sorts of dishes with this ingredient. And, of course, rice pudding. ;)
That is why I could not take my mind off this recipe after watching Nigella make it: my beloved rice combined with chicken and nuts in a one-pot-wonder. Delicious, easy to make and economical as far as dish washing is concerned: win/win recipe. :D

Saffron scented chicken pilaf
from Nigella Fresh

500g chicken breast, cut into 2cm pieces
¾ cup (195g) plain yogurt
juice of ½ lemon
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon saffron thread
4 cups (960ml) vegetable stock
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2-3 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil
500g basmati rice
juice and zest of 1 lemon
50g cashew nuts
50g flaked almonds
25g pine nuts
small bunch fresh parsley, chopped

Marinate the chicken pieces in the yogurt, lemon, cinnamon, salt and pepper for about an hour. Soak the saffron threads in the vegetable stock.
Over medium heat, in a large pan with a lid, melt the butter along with 1 tablespoon of the oil and add the rice, stirring it to coat until glossy. Pour in the saffron and stock (still hot), add the lemon juice and zest and bring the pan to the boil, then cover and turn the heat down to very low. Cook like this for about 10-15 minutes, by which time the rice should have absorbed the liquid and be cooked through.
While the rice is cooking, shake the excess yoghurt marinade off the chicken using a sieve the fry the meat in a hot pan with the remaining spoonful or so of oil, and do this in batches so that the chicken colors rather than stews.
When the rice is cooked, take it off the heat and fork through the golden and cooked chicken pieces. Toast all the nuts in dry frying-pan over a medium heat until they are lightly golden and fragrant, and then add them to the pilaf along with the chopped parsley. Check the salt and serve immediately.

Serves 6

Leek and chickpea soup

If someone asked me what I would like to be doing right now, I’d say that I’d like to be on my couch, under the blankets, having this soup for lunch – and Lisa’s cherry peach almond crisp for dessert. :)

Leek and chickpea soup
adapted from Kitchen: The Best of the Best

2 tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter
8 saffron threads
1 large leek, cleaned and finely sliced
grated zest of 1 small lemon
1 carrot, peeled and coarsely grated
2 tablespoons roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
2 ¼ cups (540ml) chicken stock
150g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and cooked in salted water for 40 minutes or until al dente (or canned chickpeas, if you prefer)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the butter and saffron threads in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the leek when the butter begins to bubble, and cook until it is soft and transparent. Add the zest, carrot and parsley and cook for a further minute before adding the stock and chickpeas. Season to taste and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Note: I’ve made this soup twice already and the second time I added small macaroni to it - the soup was even better!

Serves 2

Arugula with baked saffron ricotta and your opinion about something

Before I start with the salad, I’d like to ask you guys something... Have you ever purchased something on King Arthur Flour.com? If you have, how was it? Any problems?

I was more than glad when I found out they would deliver their products here in Brazil – I won’t even mention things I desperately want but the stores won’t send them over – so I purchased a couple of things (butterscotch chips, vanilla paste, cookie scoops in different sizes). That was on late December and I haven’t received the products yet. Even though I know that sometimes things coming from other countries may take forever to arrive here (and vice versa), I sent King Arthur an email asking about my stuff. I have sent them 3 emails, and I know they’ve read those (I have the “read message” receipts) but no answer so far. I’m truly disappointed – not to mention I have paid for the products already - and that is why I’m asking for your opinions. I appreciate your replies and apologize for bringing this subject to the blog.

Now, the salad: another recipe from this book – one of my absolute favorites. I chose it because it involved a lot of “firsts”: first time eating fennel bulbs, first time cooking with saffron.

I think I didn’t season the ricotta enough – the flavor was too mild, not what I expected. Even though I would not make this again, it was great to start using saffron in my kitchen and I also loved the fennel – that’s why I’m sharing this recipe with you.

Arugula with baked saffron ricotta
from Kitchen: The Best of the Best

500g (1lb 2oz/2 cups) ricotta cheese
pinch of saffron threads
2 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon walnut oil*
2 fennel bulbs, thinly sliced
300g (10½ oz/2 bunches) arugula, stalks removed

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF. Put the ricotta cheese in an ovenproof dish lined with lightly oiled baking paper. Sprinkle with saffron, drizzle with olive oil and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Combine the vinegar and walnut oil in a bowl, add salt and pepper, then add the fennel and arugula leaves. Toss together and serve with the baked ricotta.

* at 80 reais (45 dollars) a tiny bottle, I used extra virgin olive oil instead.

Serves 4