Melomakorona: Greek Honey-Soaked Cookies

I thought these were going to be easy...

...and it's not that Melomakarona are 'hard' to make, so much as they're time-consuming. You need to shape each one by hand and then place them in batches in hot honey syrup. I figured they'd be like baklava where you pour the syrup over after they're baked, but no, this one involved carefully picking them up one by one and essentially reverse deep-frying (instead of deep-frying in oil, the olive oil cookies are deep-fried in honey syrup...), then removing them with a slotted spoon and sprinkling with walnuts. They are heavenly, but anything with this much oil that falls apart so easily in your honey-drenched mouth (I initially mistyped "honey-frenched" and I think it may also be appropriate) should be epiphanal.

A Greek friend of mine asked his mom to make me a bunch of these as a Christmas present. Best. Present. Ever. Except I'm one person and there was a big Christmas-y container of them that weighed about 10 pounds.

 "They last a few weeks", says my friend, but mine sure didn't. Dinner of melamakorona? I'm not going to say I didn't...I may have rounded it out with a salad or something.

So I had to make them for myself and I had to make a few different kinds as all the refined sugar and regular flour in this recipe would make them off-limits for my mom. So I did a gluten-free, sugar-free version that ended up a little more crumbly (which was fine since they didn't have to be moved once I put them in a container post honey-soak) and one regular batch. The cookies are naturally crumbly and a little gritty from the semolina called for in most recipes, so I figured it would work perfectly with a mix of rice flours, starches, and sorghum flour.

Melomakorona
3/4 cup of fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup sunflower oil (or other flavourless oil. All olive oil makes the cookies bitter apparently)
1/4 cup of brandy (I think I used whiskey and it worked fine)

1 cup of sugar
3 cups of all-purpose flour (or gluten-free flour blend)
1 cup of fine-ground semolina (or medium-ground, but not corn flour)
grated peel of 1 orange
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of grated cloves (or ground cloves)

For the Syrup and Topping:
2 cups of water
2 cups of sugar (or sugar substitute)
2 cups of honey (or agave, but use only about 1 - 1 1/2 cups since agave is much sweeter)
1 stick of cinnamon (two doesn't hurt...)
3-4 whole cloves
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit (180C.

Stir the baking soda into the orange juice.

Put all the dry ingredients (flour, semolina, sugar, spices, orange peel) in a bowl and mix until blended with a whisk. In the middle, create a well and add the liquid ingredients (oil, brandy, and orange juice).

Knead the dough until it sticks to your hands. It should be wonderfully gooey.

To shape the cookies take a fistful of dough and make it into a log. Press the dough gently with your fingers on one side to flatten slightly. The shape of the cookies can be rounded, oval, or a small log shape. The ones my friend had given me that his Greek mother had made were rounded, so I aimed for that.

Photos from Melomakarona Greek Honey Cookies

Place the cookies well spaced in a cookie sheet (no need to grease the sheet since the cookies have so much oil in them that leeches out anyway), place on the middle rack in the oven and bake until browned (about 15-20 minutes}. A little extra is not the end of the world since they get soaked in syrup and there's no way they'll be tough, but you'll taste a slightly over-cooked flavour. If they're undercooked they may be too crumbly to soak properly. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on baking racks (or plates. Who has a ton of baking racks?).

The cookies need to cool completely before being dipped in the syrup or they'll fall apart, so don't start the syrup until the cookies have cooled.

Put the water, honey, sugar, cinnamon stick, and cloves in a wide pot (like a deep frying pan. The wider it is the fewer batches you'll need to do. It can save a lot of time) and bring to a boil over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes. Turn the heat down to low. As soon as it starts to boil, a foam rises to the top. Scoop this off and throw it out. Remove the cinnamon stick and cloves, or save them to add to the cookie tin after as garnish. Don't eat them.

Put the cookies (as many as will fit on the bottom at a time) into the hot syrup and use a spatula to hold them down completely immersed in the syrup for about a minute, depending on how syrupy you want them to be. Then remove them with a slotted spoon, letting some of the syrup drip, place on a large serving plate in layers (or immediately into a container with a top so you don't have to move them again), sprinkling each layer liberally with the finely chopped walnuts before adding another layer on top.

Melomakarona are not refrigerated. Cover them well with plastic wrap or in tins so they don't dry out, and they'll last for at least a week. The brilliance of not using oil or eggs! You also end up with a ton of leftover soaking syrup...this is the best part. Pour it (only a little at a time) on ice cream or yogurt, or frozen yogurt, or use it in smoothies as a sweetener, or even dip fruit or toast into it. Mmm...cinnamon-infused honey syrup...you could also just make some baklava and use it all up in one go.

So was I meant to be Greek? Well some Greek friends (and friends of friends) came to the 3rd Annual Volk/Watson Christmas Extravaganza and actually said, "They're better than my mother's," and I nearly died. His mother would cry if he told her that. I know what that means in a Greek family. High praise indeed.

My Version of Hamburgers

My cooking is pre-meditated. I think about a recipe I want to make for a long time. Or I think about a food and then set about finding the perfect recipe. Unless I'm making a stir-fry, rarely do I just throw in a bit of this or a bit of that. Substitutions are another matter - discovering you don't have something you thought you had happens all the time. But I believe that food tastes better the first time you make something that you've never made before if you make it according to a recipe.

I've made hamburgers before. I understand the concept well. You take ground meat, spices, breadcrumbs (usually soaked in milk) and an egg, mix it all together, shape into patties, and grill it. That's all well and good, except I usually like to skip the breadcrumb bit (or at least cut back so it's not mostly bread inside two pieces of bread), I always want more flavour or spice in the meat, and I try to dilute the meat with vegetables or beans so I'm need eating a whole animal every time I grill. I'm all about eating an entire animal from head to hoof, but in small portions. So I combined my general disappointment with hamburgers with my general disappointment with veggie burgers and made something delicious.

See the problem with veggie burgers is they're not meat. Wait, vegetarians, don't hate me yet. Meat has fat and flavour (they're often synonymous) so it's really easy to make a good hamburger with meat. Vegetables need some help. That's why if a Chef makes me an amazing veggie burger I'll have a lot more respect for him or her than if he or she makes me an amazing meat burger. Unfortunately I've had a whole lot of awful veggie burgers in my life. To get a bunch of vegetables to stick together into a quasi-patty you need an emulsifier (egg, or oil if it's vegan, often) and you probably need to purée some if not all of the vegetables. That can mean potatoes, beans, onions, garlic, grains, carrots - all of which are good things, but they just aren't meat. Finally, you need to coat it in something since the sticky vegetables won't really get great grill marks if they're slimy enough to stick together. So you season well. You add salt and pepper, soy sauce, anything to give your meal flavour, but often it just doesn't work out. If you have to add a litre of ketchup to a cooked veggie burger something went horribly awry along the way.

The trick is to get to the point with the seasoning where you think you've added enough and then add more. Not necessarily more salt because that's not great, but more interesting spices, such as cumin or coriander. I even like fennel now. A smoky paprika is not a bad idea either, and my personal secret is dijon mustard. Not a spice, no, but a good distraction from the mild vegetables. My other trick? Skip the breadcrumbs and egg (skipping the egg also cuts the fat) and try to create an emusifier from psyllium powder. It's very high fibre and ridiculously good for you. So I used a breakfast cereal, All Bran Buds (weird, I know, but great) mixed with a whole lot of smoky Kozlik's dijon from St. Lawrence Market.

The smoke in it also makes it more bbq-y. That's an adjective, yes.

So here I combined the best of both worlds: fresh vegetables with some meat and a whole lot of heat and spice. It didn't stick together very well the first day but the leftovers were perfect.

Ingredients:
1 tsp olive oil
2 small onions (or 1 large), diced
1 green pepper, diced
3 small carrots, diced
1 hot red pepper, diced (seeds and membrane removed)
1/2 cup chicken stock (or vegetable or beef)
2 tbsp water
2-3 tbsp Emeril's Essence
1 cup to 1 1/2 cups ground meat of choice (my was pre-cooked but raw is fine as long as you cook until all the pink is gone. You end up with more fat in the dish this way which helps the burgers stick together, but you could cook it separately and then drain on paper towels before adding it.

1 cup All Bran Buds (or 1/2 cup bread crumbs plus 1 tsp psylllium fibre...approximately. Check the serving size recommendations because I've never used the straight powder)
3 tbsp dijon
1/2 tsp liquid smoke (my dijon had smoke flavour in it, so I didn't need this, but it's nice)

I was going to add puréed black beans but I forgot. This would have helped it all stick together well but also would have diluted the flavour.

Directions:
To get the All Bran all soft and emulsifying, stick it in a bowl and stir in the dijon. I think I would also add the 2 tablespoons of water at this point next time. The buds really suck in all the moisture. I would also mash them or purée after about 15 minutes to make it a smoother texture.

Dice all the vegetables and throw the onions into the hot oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Let them sweat for about 5 minutes then add the carrots. 3 minutes later add the green pepper. 3 minutes later add the cooked or uncooked ground meat. Stir it all in and then add the hot red pepper. Cook 2 minutes then add Emeril's Essence (creole seasoning blend) and let it cook for 1 minute before adding the chicken broth and water. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer about 5 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Then remove the pot from the heat and stir in the All Bran and dijon.

You may be able to shape these into patties now, but if you can't, you can always serve them like sloppy joes on buns or bread, like I did for night one. Night two, they got turned into hamburgers and topped with my fresh chili paste instead of ketchup.

Some other options that might work well are to purée the vegetables before adding the meat. That'll make them stick together better. I kind of liked the texture and chew of keeping them all finely diced. I've eaten things with the consistency of baby food lately.

This worked out amazingly well because the All Bran seemed like meat, so even though there was just a cup of meat in the whole dish, it felt like a really rich chili. The dijon and spice mix added a whole lot of punch, but I should have used a sweeter bun. My toasted bread made the whole thing seem too dense. Something fluffier would have been better. It's really nice with lettuce, though, because the cold crunch complements the heat of the highly cooked ground meat. AND I also added my newest favourite condiment (way better than ketchup): Thai Chile Paste, and then cooked some zucchini and tomatillos in the same pot that I'd cooked the chile paste in, after just adding a little water. So they were spicy but tangy and the chile paste was sweet and hot! Recipes to come.