Sweet and Salty




The combination of sweet and salty is something that I was brought up with. For as long as I can remember, my mother has made variations of a sweet, aromatic chai that I love, milky black tea with strong notes of green cardamom and cinnamon. Some weekends, taking a break from the hundred-and-one errands that inevitably pile up during the all-too-busy week, she and my father would sit at the kitchen table and pause, drinking large, piping hot mugs of chai and snacking on a salty treat known to us kids simply as the “mixture”  - puffed rice, flattened rice, dried bay leaves, peanuts, bits of fried chickpea dough and dried coconut slivers, tossed in a melange of a hundred different spices, roasted and then studded with dried raisins. A strange mix of ingredients, maybe, but dangerously addictive . The sweetness of the tea, combined with the crunch and spice of the “mixture”, brought out the spice in the cardamom and the cinnamon, gave the sweetness dimension, added depth and smokiness to the creaminess of the peanuts.

I have always loved the combination of sweet and salty, and when I started cooking for myself,  I tried a number of recipes that combined these elements, one of my favorites being a version of a salty, sweet and spicy caramel popcorn (for another day). All of that to say, last night, baking a batch of (rich, buttery, caramelly) chocolate chip cookies, I decided, on a whim, to add some salted peanuts I had on hand, the relics of a past (failed) attempt to make caramel popcorn (I blame the kernels). The result: peanuty, chocolatey, diabetes inducing pillows of dough that come out of the oven begging to be eaten. Ok, just one more….

My chocolate chip cookies
Adapted from “Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy, Melt-in-your-mouth Cookies” by Alice Medrich

Ingredients

2 ¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and still warm
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup roasted, salted peanuts

1.     Line 1 ungreased cookie sheet with aluminum foil, dull side up.
2.     Preheat oven to 375F.
3.     In a large bowl, mix together flour and baking soda. Set aside.
4.     In another large bowl, mix melted butter with sugars, vanilla and salt. Mix in the eggs.
5.     Sir in the flour mixture until all dry ingredients are just combined. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
**Here, Medrich suggests letting the dough rest for 2 hours or, preferably, overnight – not necessary, but it would allow the flavours to become more incorporated into the dough and the sugar to caremalize a bit more **
6.     Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the foil, taking care to leave 3 inches between cookies to account for spreading. Bake for 9-11 min at 375, or until cookies are golden brown and no longer appear wet on top.
7.     Remove from oven, and let rest on the pan for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container at room temperature – keeps for several days; alternatively, freeze (to prevent you from eating the whol

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