Nuts to you: meringue cookies

Nuts are one of those foods that seems, for some reason, to say "autumn" and "winter." I don't quite know what it is. Perhaps it is because they do ripen in the fall, but nuts are available all year. The technology for storing them so that they stay fresh is pretty good. If your market is scrupulous, you can get fresh nuts all year long. Still, there seems to be a thing about them. I don't use them much, until the fall comes around. Then they are a regular part of my cooking. I don't understand it. I just like them.

It seems to me that, over time, more people have become allergic to nuts . We used to read about an occasional allergic reaction to peanuts, and the consequences. In fact, in law school, when they teach product liability law, we almost always get the case of "peanuts in the chili," and an allergic vegetarian eats the chili, goes into shock at the table, with dire consequences all around. But like I say, these were taught as unusual cases. These days, we all find ourselves leaving nuts out of things when we're cooking for groups of people, or having a nut free option, and that kind of thing. Sigh. Tempus mutantur.

So, with my thoughts turning to various nuts, yesterday I made cookies with a young lady who likes to bake. And who doesn't care for nuts. It was news to me, and I was set up for the cookie, so we made it anyway. It's a good cookie, from a good cook, a woman named Joanne Weir. She works out of San Francisco and the Bay Area, and I encourage you to look up her books and to use them.

The cookie is based on egg whites. I like that, because I always have egg whites left over from ice cream m aking. I don't ALWAYS make these cookies, but they're really good. Even people who don't like nuts, and who don't like chocolate, seem to like them.

You will need 3 egg whites. Now, if you are using small eggs, know that each large egg white is about a quarter of a cup. And you'll need 3/4 cup of egg whites. Also a cup of sugar, a tablespoon of vinegar, and a teaspoon of salt. You will also need two cups of c hopped hazelnuts, and 8 ounces of chopped chocolate. Use either all semisweet, or half semi and half bitter, and spend the money for good stuff. Finally, you'll need a vanilla bean.

You need some techniques here. You can buy chopped hazelnuts, but if you have whole ones (toasted, and unsalted), chop them by pulsing them in a food processor, or put them in a sturdy plastic bag and beat the crap out of them.

To chop the chocolate, it may help to freeze it for about fifteen minutes. Then take a big, heavy knife and carefully shave off the chocolate at an angle. It will take a few minutes to do this, but it's a good technique to have.

For the vanilla bean, slice it in half, horizontally, and then with the tip of the knife, scrape out the seeds.

Preheat your oven to 250. Meringues bake at a low temperature.

Get out your mixer, and combine the egg whites, the vinegar and the salt. The vinegar and the salt take the place of cream of tartar. Most of us do not have "c of t" around, but always have vinegar and salt. With the whisk element of your beater, start whipping the eggwhites, first to a foam, then to the soft peak stage. Know what that is? Stop the whipping, and pull the beater out of the whites. If you get a "peak" that curls back, that's soft peak. When you have it, start beating in the cup of sugar slowly. You can speed it up as you go along, but DO start slowly. You'll have a thick, sweet mass that you COULD bake as it is. But we're going to take that vanilla seed, the chocolate, and the nuts and pour them into the meringue. Gently fold everything together.

You now layer out heaping tablespoon sized portions onto a baking sheet lined with paper. You'll be able to get about 15 on a sheet, spaced correctly. And you'll probably have three sheets worth. So, to speed things up, bake two sheets at a time. If you know that part of your oven bakes hotter than the other (for example, the bottom of my oven is hotter) , double tray the cookies you put on the bottom. Set a timer for forty minutes. After twenty minutes, reverse the trays in the oven, and after 40, take them out. Put in the third sheet while the first two are cooling.

These cookies come out of the oven soft, and almost rubbery. As they cool, they'll get REALLY crisp and it will be easy to take them off of the paper. Store them in a metal tin. DON'T put them in plastic, and whatever you do, do not store them near other cookies. They pick up moisture, and get soggy, spoiling all of your work.

There will be more to come with nuts in the future, but here's one to start. Thanks Joanne. I LOVE you!