WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: We're making soft chocolate tahini cookies!
Hey there. We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, authors of three dozen cookbooks, including our latest: THE LOOK & COOK AIR FRYER BIBLE. (You can find a copy here.)
We love to share our passion for food and cooking with you. On this episode of our podcast, we've got a one-minute cooking tip about fried eggs. We're in the kitchen with an easy and vegan (!) recipe for chocolate tahini cookies. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week.
Here are the segments of this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[00:50] Our one minute cooking tip: how to make better sunny-side-up eggs.
[03:20] We're in the kitchen, making easy, soft, fudgy, chocolate tahini cookies. They're a one-bowl wonder.
Here's how to make the cookies. Heat your oven to 325F/170C convection. Melt 6 1/2 ounces/180 grams of chopped dark chocolate in a microwave. Melt it in 15-second bursts, stirring after each. Cool for a few minutes, then stir in 1/3 cup/100 grams tahini (sesame seed paste), 3/4 cup/180 grams dark brown sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Then stir in 7 tablespoons/100 grams of plant milk, followed by 1 1/3 cups/150 grams all-purpose or plain flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Drop by 50 gram (a little less than 1/4 cup) balls onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, flattening a bit with a rubber spatula about halfway through the cooking process. Cool on a rack for 5 minutes before chowing down.
[14:40] What’s making us happy in food this week: hacked pheasants in chili sauce and air-fried butternut squash and parsnips
Transcript
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast cooking with Bruce and Mark
Speaker:and I'm Mark Scarborough and on this episode of our podcast We're
Speaker:gonna be back in the kitchen.
Speaker:We are actually making chocolate tahini cookies These are Unbelievable tell
Speaker:you about them when we get to them.
Speaker:We got a one minute cooking tip We're gonna tell you what's
Speaker:making us happy in food this week.
Speaker:And as you know, we are cookbook authors who have published 36 cookbooks
Speaker:we have sold Almost one and a half million copies of those cookbooks.
Speaker:We have developed tens of thousands of original recipes across our
Speaker:career as contributing editors to cooking light and eating well.
Speaker:And the longest serving columnist on Weight Watchers dot com.
Speaker:We've been in the food industry for a while, and we want to talk about.
Speaker:food and cooking with you.
Speaker:So let's get started.
Speaker:Today's one minute cooking tip is all about how to make
Speaker:the perfectly set fried egg.
Speaker:This is a, this is a big one in our house.
Speaker:And this is a sunny side up egg.
Speaker:I will say right now that when I make an egg from Mark, I never flip it
Speaker:because he wants the yolk totally runny.
Speaker:He even likes the white a little bit runny around the yolk.
Speaker:I don't, I like the white totally set.
Speaker:So here's.
Speaker:I want it.
Speaker:I want it a little bit runny.
Speaker:I see.
Speaker:I would win in salt burn.
Speaker:If you know the reference, I'll just leave it there.
Speaker:But I would win at the breakfast table in salt burn.
Speaker:So I like the white totally set, but I don't like to flip my egg.
Speaker:So the way you do it is the French way you fry an egg.
Speaker:covered.
Speaker:That way the little bit of steam that builds up in that skillet cooks the
Speaker:white all the way up to and sometimes even over the top of the yolk.
Speaker:But the yolk stays liquid and the white gets perfectly set.
Speaker:Now because I like my whites crunchy.
Speaker:And not steamed.
Speaker:I take the lid off as soon as I see the white set.
Speaker:I turn up the heat and I let the bottoms get crispy.
Speaker:That's the trick for me.
Speaker:And that's why eggs are hard for me.
Speaker:I don't mean to be a princess.
Speaker:I kind of am.
Speaker:But, uh, anyway, that's why, um, eggs are hard for me in like diners because what
Speaker:I want is the bottom to be really crispy, but I want the yolk to be completely
Speaker:runny and even a little Uh, for me, even a little white around the yolk runny.
Speaker:So I, I, I'm, I'm pretty difficult in diners and I never get them right.
Speaker:That's why I always just order scrambled eggs because I never
Speaker:get it exactly right in a diner.
Speaker:That's a great cooking tip.
Speaker:Cook it covered to set the whites and then take the cover off to get the bottom.
Speaker:It's the French way of doing it.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Before we get to the kitchen and move there on this podcast, let me say that.
Speaker:You are welcome to rate this podcast.
Speaker:You are welcome to write a review of this podcast.
Speaker:That is really fantastic.
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Speaker:And this is the way that you can in fact help support us is you can write.
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Speaker:Okay, give us a rating or write a review and or write a review on any
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Speaker:Okay, let's get.
Speaker:We are making chocolate tahini cookies.
Speaker:Now I know tahini is not an ingredient most people think about in cookies.
Speaker:We wrote a book a while back called The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book.
Speaker:And in that book, What book haven't we written?
Speaker:We put a recipe for vegan tahini cookies.
Speaker:Chocolate chip cookies, which use tahini in them to add protein
Speaker:and to give a crunchy texture.
Speaker:And what's really fascinating is that those cookies are crunchy,
Speaker:crunchy, crunchy, crunchy.
Speaker:But the cookies we're making today with tahini are fudgy, and
Speaker:they will stay fudgy for days.
Speaker:And these are chocolate tahini cookies, not chocolate chip tahini cookies.
Speaker:These are actually chocolate cookies.
Speaker:We're gonna actually melt some chocolate here.
Speaker:So, we should say before we get going, that this is a recipe from Philip
Speaker:Khoury's book, A New Way to Bake.
Speaker:It's a vegan cookbook.
Speaker:If you don't know, Philip Khoury was on this podcast.
Speaker:Go back and check out the episode with him.
Speaker:He is the pastry chef for Harrods.
Speaker:The head pastry chef.
Speaker:parents.
Speaker:And he has a vegan baking book that honestly has gotten
Speaker:so much use in our house.
Speaker:You, you must realize that cookbooks come through our house on a daily
Speaker:basis because we're on every publicist and every publisher's list, of
Speaker:course, to get free books and we get.
Speaker:Dozens of cookbooks, really.
Speaker:And I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker:And Phillips came through and it's actually one that's gotten kept and used.
Speaker:The Bakewell tart is astounding, but okay, let's go on the chocolate.
Speaker:And what's really unexpected from a world class pastry chef is that
Speaker:this is a one bowl recipe and it's all in weight in ounces and grams.
Speaker:So I've already turned the oven on.
Speaker:So you heard all that beeping.
Speaker:The oven is at 325 convection or 170.
Speaker:So it's a 325 convection or 170 fan.
Speaker:And I am now lining a baking sheet with parchment.
Speaker:I have become the fan of parchment recently.
Speaker:Me too.
Speaker:And we're going to probably do a whole episode talking about why parchment is so
Speaker:fabulous.
Speaker:I have to tell you that I have gotten incredibly into parchment because I'm
Speaker:cooking, as you probably know, more vegan.
Speaker:What does vegan and parchment have in common?
Speaker:Because you have to roast so many things in the oven and I don't I think they
Speaker:come out well on Silpat, like when I roast cauliflower that's coated in
Speaker:miso, it comes out better on parchment because it's closer to the hot surface.
Speaker:And I don't want to be cleaning metal pans.
Speaker:Well, yeah, that's also true, but it's closer to the hot surface, the pan.
Speaker:So, hey, let me also say before we get going and rolling here with the
Speaker:microwave, let me also say that.
Speaker:Uh, if you're baking sheets are warped, now is the time to replace them.
Speaker:Okay, so I'm moving on and I've got 180 grams or about six and
Speaker:a half ounces of dark chocolate.
Speaker:And I'm chopping it, but while I chop it, why don't you talk about
Speaker:what dark chocolate actually is?
Speaker:Okay, so the whole thing about chocolate, uh, involves the percent
Speaker:of cocoa solids in the chocolate.
Speaker:And the bigger the percent of cocoa solids, you've obviously seen this, 70,
Speaker:80 percent, the darker the chocolate.
Speaker:We don't want to go all the way here up to 85 and 90%.
Speaker:That's too bitter and dark for these cookies.
Speaker:So we want to sit at 70, 75, 80 percent cocoa solids in our dark chocolate.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Now I'm putting this in a glass bowl because he, the author, Philip Curry,
Speaker:the head pastry chef, says the best way to do this is in the microwave.
Speaker:So I'm setting it for 30 second increments.
Speaker:And what's fascinating is that it's in the microwave.
Speaker:Now, there are other.
Speaker:Waze.
Speaker:To do chocolate, right?
Speaker:Usually you hear about it in a double boiler, which means set this bowl I
Speaker:have over a small pot of simmering water and let the steam heat the bowl,
Speaker:but that can cause a problem, can't it?
Speaker:Yes, it can.
Speaker:And in fact, chocolate can seize in a double boiler because the steam can
Speaker:escape from the sides and actually come down and condense into the melting
Speaker:chocolate, which causes the cocoa solids to break out in it, quote unquote.
Speaker:seizes, which means it becomes grainy and not smooth.
Speaker:But if you do this in the microwave, it's easier.
Speaker:But here's my trick.
Speaker:And what I would really encourage you to do is let this go for a bit as we've
Speaker:done, but then in subsequent heatings in the microwave, cut down the time.
Speaker:So go for 20 seconds, 15 seconds, five seconds, just keep cutting it down
Speaker:until about, and this is the really key.
Speaker:Two thirds of the chocolate is melted.
Speaker:So Mark and I can see, but you can't see, that this chocolate
Speaker:is not at two thirds melted yet.
Speaker:And I don't want to risk it burning, so we're going to cut and come back when
Speaker:it is all totally melted and stirred up.
Speaker:We actually cut down, as we said, the microwaving each time in terms of time.
Speaker:And we stirred a lot until it was about Two thirds melted, as we told you, and
Speaker:then we took it out and put it on the counter and we just kept stirring because
Speaker:the residual heat of that chocolate will go ahead and melt the rest of it.
Speaker:Okay, so this is a one bowl technique.
Speaker:So now what do we do?
Speaker:We have this bowl on a scale, which is going to be the best way to
Speaker:measure everything that goes in.
Speaker:And we're putting in 100.
Speaker:Grant, you've heard us talk about scales before.
Speaker:They are the best.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker:You're running against the grain here in North America, but
Speaker:go ahead.
Speaker:I am whisking in 100 grams or three and a half ounces of tahini.
Speaker:What's tahini?
Speaker:It's a sesame paste, and it is used in a lot of different applications, which
Speaker:you might know it best from hummus.
Speaker:Oh yeah, can't make it without it.
Speaker:The base flavor of most hummus.
Speaker:If you keep tahini in the refrigerator, This is the problem.
Speaker:It'll seize the chocolate.
Speaker:So your teeny must be at room temperature.
Speaker:It must be.
Speaker:Otherwise, the chocolate will basically re solidify from the cold of the tahini.
Speaker:And if you see any oil separation in the teeny, you need to stir that back
Speaker:into the teeny before you measure out 100 grams or three and a half ounces.
Speaker:Okay, so enough of that.
Speaker:So now that we've got that Bruce is going to whisk in 180 grams or let's 12 ounces
Speaker:of dark, dark, dark, dark, more molasses flavor here please, dark brown sugar.
Speaker:And this is really smooth and this is beautiful and it's thick
Speaker:and it's like a syrup and now I'm putting in a half a teaspoon.
Speaker:of cinnamon, of ground cinnamon, ground cinnamon.
Speaker:And now we come to the secret ingredient in most of this vegan cooking.
Speaker:So what we're going to do is we're going to still got the bowl on
Speaker:the scales and we're going to put in a hundred grams or three and a
Speaker:half ounces of a plant based milk.
Speaker:Now we are using unsweetened almond milk, my favorite, but
Speaker:you could use unsweetened.
Speaker:Notice my words, unsweetened oat milk.
Speaker:You could use cashew milk, soy milk.
Speaker:Soy milk, pea milk, you just need a plant based milk here as your egg substitute.
Speaker:And the reason we want to do this with the plant based milk is because
Speaker:it's got some proteins in it in the same way that eggs have, not the same
Speaker:proteins, but in the same way that eggs have some proteins, different proteins
Speaker:in them.
Speaker:And that's what Phil explained to me in that interview is that
Speaker:this liquid is basically an egg substitute in this recipe.
Speaker:Both protein and moisture.
Speaker:So now you're going to put in a teaspoon of baking powder and three
Speaker:quarters of a teaspoon of baking soda.
Speaker:And then, you know, tear your scale, set it back to zero again.
Speaker:And now without doing anything fancy at 150 grams or 5.
Speaker:3 ounces of all purpose flour to the batter.
Speaker:And I'm going to mix this in with a rubber spatula.
Speaker:I think that's a very old fashioned thing, right?
Speaker:Everything is silicone now, right?
Speaker:It's a silicone spatula.
Speaker:It is, it is.
Speaker:Okay, I'm still calling it a rubber spatula.
Speaker:I know, I know.
Speaker:In fact, I've had a fight with copy editors in our cookbooks because
Speaker:I still call them a rubber spatula because I think that's the terminology.
Speaker:And the copy editors are always saying, is it a silicone spatula?
Speaker:I'm like, I know, but, uh, okay, rubber spatula.
Speaker:And we're doing it just until this batter is streak free, meaning that
Speaker:all this flour is incorporated.
Speaker:And this is thick.
Speaker:This is a thick batter.
Speaker:This isn't a cake batter.
Speaker:This is a cookie batter.
Speaker:And the reason we didn't do it in the mixer, which would have made
Speaker:this part so much easier is we don't want to overwork this flour.
Speaker:We don't want to develop the glutens.
Speaker:We want soft and fudgy.
Speaker:So now tare the scale, you know, set it back to zero.
Speaker:Make sure you press that button and put the scale back to zero
Speaker:and we're going to scoop out.
Speaker:50 gram blobs of this mixture.
Speaker:So that means when we take out the right amount, the scale will
Speaker:go down to negative 50 grams.
Speaker:Very cool.
Speaker:I do the same thing when I make meatballs.
Speaker:So we're pulling them out.
Speaker:And as we do that, we're both rolling these into balls.
Speaker:We're putting it on the cookie sheet.
Speaker:We're going to make 12 of them and it should come out
Speaker:exactly if we've measured it.
Speaker:They are going to bake.
Speaker:10 minutes.
Speaker:You don't press the balls down.
Speaker:You just let them be.
Speaker:And then we're going to essentially melt down.
Speaker:They will melt down a bit.
Speaker:We're going to cut and come back when they come out of the oven.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:They'd not only come out of the oven, but they have cooled on the baking tray
Speaker:on a cooling rag for 10 or 15 minutes.
Speaker:So what's going to happen here is the longer they cool, the
Speaker:more they're going to firm up.
Speaker:So what we should do now is take them.
Speaker:off this baking tray with the parchment and put them right onto the wire rack.
Speaker:But you know what's going to happen.
Speaker:We're going to actually taste one while it's still hot.
Speaker:They will firm up more as they cool.
Speaker:They're going to be a little gooey right now, but they are really super delicious.
Speaker:I, this recipe is so easy because it's a one ball recipe.
Speaker:By the way, if you want to see a video of Bruce making this recipe, check out
Speaker:our TikTok channel, cooking with Bruce and Mark, or check out our Facebook.
Speaker:group, cooking with Bruce and Mark, you can see Bruce actually making
Speaker:these cookies in a video and, oh, yours truly tasting them there, but
Speaker:we're going to taste them right now.
Speaker:So, they're, wow, God, they're so hot.
Speaker:Yeah, they're good.
Speaker:They're fudgy.
Speaker:I swear these are like brownie cookies.
Speaker:These are much better when they come to room temperature.
Speaker:We're just raising this because we want them.
Speaker:They do taste like brownies.
Speaker:The tahini has a slight savory taste in them.
Speaker:I can't explain it any other way.
Speaker:It has a slight nutty, savory taste.
Speaker:What is that taste?
Speaker:It's, it's really,
Speaker:well, it is a sesame taste.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's, it gives it a savory note inside of all the sweetness.
Speaker:Well, it's really nice because the sweetness is all from brown sugar, right?
Speaker:So it's a very molasses flavor.
Speaker:And then you have the dark chocolate, which isn't terribly sweet.
Speaker:And then you've got this earthy umami of the sesame paste.
Speaker:So these are.
Speaker:really high protein cookies to begin with.
Speaker:They're not very high in sugar and they just have a deliciousness
Speaker:that, uh, thank you, Phil.
Speaker:These are great.
Speaker:Yeah, these are great.
Speaker:I wonder, and now you, maybe you could try that and tell me, um, I wonder, I think
Speaker:these would still freeze a bit soft and if you froze them soft, then you could
Speaker:make ice cream sandwiches out of them.
Speaker:And then, then we would be talking life itself.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's the recipe from the kitchen today.
Speaker:We made Phil.
Speaker:Corey's recipe for chocolate tahini cookies.
Speaker:It was super simple, a one bill technique.
Speaker:We drew it out as long as we possibly could, but still
Speaker:nonetheless, it goes a lot faster without our talking on top of it.
Speaker:But still nonetheless, these are a really delicious cookie and you should try them.
Speaker:And again, check out our TikTok channel and check out our Facebook
Speaker:feed for Bruce making them in a video.
Speaker:Okay, up to our last segment of this episode of Cooking With Bruce and Mark,
Speaker:what's making us happy in food this week?
Speaker:For me, it's pheasant.
Speaker:And here's the thing.
Speaker:We have a friend who shoots pheasant.
Speaker:It's so crazy.
Speaker:Give
Speaker:us pheasant.
Speaker:What a snotty
Speaker:cook.
Speaker:No, it's going to get, it's going to get even better.
Speaker:Sadly, our chest freezer broke last
Speaker:week.
Speaker:Oh, this was a terrible nightmare.
Speaker:If you know Bruce, his entire well being is connected to having a freezer
Speaker:that could survive the apocalypse.
Speaker:And we always have enough meat that we could survive years
Speaker:at the societal breakdown.
Speaker:But the
Speaker:freezer busted.
Speaker:And not everything fit in the other freezer.
Speaker:So one of the things that had to be cooked right away were these pheasants.
Speaker:And these were pheasants from our friend.
Speaker:So I did something that I've never done before.
Speaker:I did this Chinese dish, which is usually cold hacked chicken in a
Speaker:chili sauce, and I used pheasant.
Speaker:So I blanched these birds just until they were cooked, so they're not really
Speaker:boiled, but they're sort of just cooked.
Speaker:You chill them, you chop them up, and you toss them in chili sauce.
Speaker:So what's making me happy this week is cold chopped pheasant in chili sauce.
Speaker:It's amazing.
Speaker:And what's making me happy in this week is the opposite end of things.
Speaker:And that is, um, butternut squash and parsnips from an air fryer.
Speaker:And we may have used the other night and we had leftovers and Bruce just made these
Speaker:in the air fryer to go with leftovers.
Speaker:And they were so delicious that I have to admit that I don't,
Speaker:well, it was a leftover piece of roast beef that we were eating.
Speaker:And I have to admit that I didn't eat much of the roast beef.
Speaker:I ate the vegetables and you just got these into, um,
Speaker:what three, four inch Ling.
Speaker:Basically
Speaker:I cut them all.
Speaker:So they looked like baby carrots.
Speaker:Yeah, about that size.
Speaker:And then he sprayed them with olive oil spray, right?
Speaker:And you put them in the, uh, air
Speaker:fryer.
Speaker:400 degrees, took about 20, 25 minutes.
Speaker:I tossed them every five minutes or so, and they were
Speaker:browned and crispy and tender.
Speaker:There was something about that combination of butternut squash
Speaker:and parsnips that was really Great.
Speaker:I think it was the sweetness and the softness of the butternut squash and
Speaker:the somewhat bitter edge to the parsnip.
Speaker:Parsnips are sweet, but they do have a bitter edge.
Speaker:They don't get that same creamy softness.
Speaker:No,
Speaker:no.
Speaker:They get almost crunchy and the butternut squash got creamy.
Speaker:It was a combination of flavor and texture.
Speaker:It's a really
Speaker:great.
Speaker:thing.
Speaker:Uh, try it in your air fryer and cut down butternut squash and, um,
Speaker:uh, parsnips into, well, I keep wanting to say thick matchsticks.
Speaker:They're thicker than a pencil.
Speaker:Again, like baby
Speaker:carrots in the bag.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:About like that.
Speaker:Like your finger.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And, uh, uh, try it in the air fryer.
Speaker:It's absolutely delicious.
Speaker:Okay, that's our podcast for this week.
Speaker:Thanks for being a part of this journey with us.
Speaker:If you want to be on this journey more with us, we have a newsletter.
Speaker:You can find it on our website, bursonmark.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:Sign up there.
Speaker:I do not capture your emails.
Speaker:I do not allow the mail provider, the email service provider to capture your
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Speaker:The newsletter is sometimes connected to this podcast recipes and such, but
Speaker:often not, it's often about our lives in New England or the books we're
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Speaker:BruceAndMark.
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Speaker:And every week we tell you what's making us happy in food this
Speaker:week, so go to our Facebook page CookingWithBruceAndMark and share what
Speaker:is making you happy in food this week.
Speaker:And if it's really fun and delicious, we'll talk about it
Speaker:here on CookingWithBruceAndMark.
