S’wonderful

S Cookies

No, not scookies, or even s’cookies, but S cookies.

Cookies in the shape of an S.

Stella D’Oro Breakfast Treats are technically an S cookies – but these aren’t the ones I mean. This time.

And being Italian, there’s more then one….

S cookies – almond

S cookies – anise

S cookies….I’ve already lost track and we’re not even out of the ‘A’  varieties….

The cookies I’m taking about are also known as Susameille. Or Susamelli.  Or Suziemella. Or Suzie Cookies.

Real Susameille are a honey of a cookie

These are my favorite cookies of the Christmas Season. I’ve discovered several versions of them and several versions of the back-story as well.  First, a cookbook version.

Suziemella

(Suzie Cookies)

 

15 oz blackstrap molasses

1 cup oil

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup sugar

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp black pepper

5 whole orange rinds, grated (about ½ cup)

6-7 cups flour

1 cup filberts, sliced

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Grease baking sheets.
2. Mix molasses, oil, egg, sugar, salt, pepper and orange rinds. Blend well.
3. Add flour to form a dough that can be rolled.
4. Oil fingers. Take pieces of dough and roll like a pencil.
5. Shape rolls into a 4-5” S
6. Place a sliced filbert on the top and bottom of the S.
7. Bake about 15 minutes, until just brown.

These are great wine ‘dunkers.’

Origin: Carmela Derrico

From Anna Tosti Goodman, Lake Worth/Boynton Beach Lodge #2304. In Preserving Our Italian Heritage. A Cookbook. Sons of Italy Florida Foundation. 1991.p. 178.

According to some sources (and these guys are all cut and pasting each other), Susameillas

are traditional Neapolitan Christmas cookies,also in Ischia, so close enough to Gaeta, that this is the place

and are S-shaped (that much we’ve got)

For two possible reasons:(I think they mean for one of two possible reasons)

First, in the past they were called sesamielli, and covered with sesame seeds.

Sesame seeds  – semi di sesamo

S cookies with sesame

Second, they were (and are) called Sapienze, because they were made by nuns of the Monastero della Sapienza.

This is already longer and more confusing then I want it to be. And there’s more. My back-story version.

1. These are the cookies that my Auntie Anna made at Christmas. She’s the one who passed the recipe down to various of us.
2. Auntie Anna got the recipe from my Nonna. These were the cookies she used to make. Please note: Nonna died before I was was two, so I only know Auntie Anna’s version.
3. Working with honey can be tricky. Auntie Anna’s recipe gave all the right ingredients, but technique is something else altogether.
4. Auntie Anna’s brother Cosmos LOVES these cookies, and since his birthday is December, his wife Jane has been making these cookies for decades as well.
5. Jane’s version appeared in Lo Specchio, the newsletter of the ITALIAN GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA  back in Summer 2001. The version I’m using is based on one Auntie Anna shared with me, and my cousin Flora, and Flora and I talked together and then I made them some more….

Susamelli

1 Lb. honey

1 bottle light molasses (Grandma’s unsulphured)

1/2 cup oil

½ oz almond extract

2 tangerines (preferably organic)

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

6 C flour

Almond halves

1. In a large bowl, mix liquid ingredients together.
2. Wash and peel tangerines. Cut peel into small dice and add to liquid ingredients.
3. Mix together flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Gradually add the dry mixture to the liquid one until it is all well blended.
5. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°.
7. Shape dough by rolling walnut sized pieces between oiled hands (I fill a small saucer with oil to dip my palms in – think Kim Kardashian backside oiled…pretty slick indeed) and shape into an S.
8. Put on a prepared cookie sheet – We’ve been using the no stick Reynolds wrap to good success- these can bake up sticky. Put three almond halves in the crooks.
9. Bake for 10 minutes at 350.
10. They shouldn’t brown – just be firm.
11. Yields 2 ½ dozen

From my Auntie Anna, more or less, and commentary from just about everyone else.

This is from a bakery in Connecticut – I didn’t realize the 2 images were joined. By next Christmas I will be taking my own pictures!

Any way you try them, S Cookies  are S’wonderful!

Have a honey of a New Year!

Super (Salad) Bowl Sunday

I am not a football fan, but it’s Superbowl Sunday and football is hard to avoid/ignore/escape on this day.

So I offer my own Super Bowl –  a really great middle of winter salad. It has the color and flavor and scent of a warm and exotic and very NOT New England place. It’s not a terribly locavore sort of thing for New England. Sometimes the mere sound of the word ‘locavore‘ makes me crave the not from ’round here’. Turnips and bacon and dried beans can wait for another day.

Today is rich and sweet and fragrant and bright and sharp, all at the same time.

Oh, yes, this is one Super Salad.

This salad is from Paula Wolfert’s Mediterranean Cooking.

Mediterranean Cooking – Paula Wolfert

I’ve cut down the original recipe to serve one (or two – it depends, too, on what else you’re serving. And who.).

Salata Letchine

Serves 1 or 2

Romaine lettuce – ½ a head (or however much makes a salad for you)

Romaine lettuce

1 orange

Just one will do – sometimes I use 2 clementines

2 tsp lemon juice

Wash the lemon. Juice the lemon, take what you need and FREEZE the rest. Grate the rind and save that too.If you’re feeling extremely frugal, plant the seeds to see if you can make little lemon trees. I don’t try this in the Winter because my house isn’t citrus sprouting warm then.

2 tsp sugar

Sugar

Pinch each of salt and cinnamon

salt (this is kosher, which is what I usually use)

You’ll want the powdery stuff

2 tsp orange juice

If you don’t have orange juice on hand – juice an orange – then you’ll need 2 oranges

1 tsp orange flower water

Make sure your orange flower water is food grade – it’s also great in cold bubbly drinks (Prosecco) in the summer!

1 oz chopped dates

You can also buy chopped dates (sometimes it’s the only option offered, which is how I came up with a weight ) otherwise 2 or 3

1 oz chopped blanched toasted almonds

These are smoked almonds – what you have, what you like

1. Wash, dry and shred lettuce.
2.  Peel orange and separate into sections.
3. Mix lemon juice, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange juice and orange flower water together.
4. Just before serving, pour most of the dressing over the lettuce and toss. Put the orange sections on top of the lettuce. Top with the dates and almonds. Dribble the remaining dressing over the top.
5. Dust with a little more cinnamon.
6. Serve at once.

Adapted from Paula Wolfret Mediterranean Cooking. 1994, rev. ed. p. 287.