The Devil Wears Dijon and Brown-Buttered Breadcrumbs

Plus: Claire Saffitz's Chocolate Chip Cookies, Cracked Jars, and White Elephant Glory.

Hey everyone,

We’re gearing up for some holiday travel! Tomorrow we’re drugging Winston and taking him to Bellingham, WA for a week of Christmas festivities. I say “we” because Craig came back from New York on Saturday and I greeted him at the door — like the good Suzy homemaker that I am — with warm chocolate chip cookies!

I decided to give Claire Saffitz’s recipe a whirl; I was entranced watching her how-to video on YouTube.

The gist of the recipe (which you can find in multiple places online) is that you brown half of the butter, mix it with unbrowned butter, whisk in white sugar and brown sugar and eggs and then flour, salt, baking powder (or was it soda), then chocolate. In other words: it’s pretty much like every other chocolate chip cookie recipe, only in different proportions.

The main difference is that you refrigerate the scooped dough overnight.

This not only firms up the cookie dough, but allows it to “cure” in the refrigerator. I first encountered this technique when David Leite recreated my favorite chocolate chip cookie of all time, the one from The City Bakery in NY (RIP) in The New York Times.

Here’s the thing about the Saffitz cookie: she’s going for crisp on the outside and “cakey” in the middle. And that’s what these cookies are… crisp on the outside and cakey on the inside. But is that what I really want in a chocolate chip cookie? Cakey in the middle?

Frankly, I prefer the cookie that I always make: the one from Griffith and Cheryl Day’s Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook (you can read my post about it here). For me, it’s more cookie-like: you get a crisp shell all the way around with a soft chewy center, as opposed to a cookie with split personalities. And you can still let it cure in the fridge overnight for extra flavor and texture improvements. Either way, though, who doesn’t like to be greeted at the door with a sweet dog and a warm chocolate chip cookie? It was a very successful venture indeed.

Now, as for the title of this newsletter, I also welcomed Craig home with a home-cooked dinner. But not just any home cooked dinner. I recreated the first fancy meal that I ever made for him: Suzanne Goin’s Devil’s Chicken Thighs with Braised Leeks from Sunday Suppers at Lucques (click that to see the original post!).

We both have vivid memories of Craig coming over to my apartment in Chelsea back in 2006 (when we first started dating) and me scurrying all around the kitchen like a madman, browning butter, braising leeks, searing chicken. Sixteen years later, I had things much more under control. I read through the recipe a few times and got the gist: you braise leeks, top them with seared chicken thighs (which you marinate overnight in vermouth with onions, chilies, bay leaves, and thyme), coat them in a mustard mixture, and then top them with fresh bread crumbs tossed with brown butter. Got all that?

The result is a crispy, savory, rich, and pungent cozy winter’s night dinner that you’ll be thinking about for a long time afterwards. Smitten Kitchen has the recipe on her blog, if you want to give it a go.

In some sad news, remember that glorious chicken stock that I made last weekend? I didn’t have soup containers, so I used glass jars because that had worked for me before. Only I forgot that liquid expands when it freezes and this happened:

Next time, I won’t fill them up so high! Or I’ll just use plastic. :(

Finally, I attended a most fun White Elephant party at my friends Ben & J’s apartment on Friday. I say “most fun” because, for the first time ever, I had a good number (#22) and got to steal a gift at the end of the proceedings. Look what I stole: a beautiful tagine! (The person I stole it from, who stole it from somebody else, was none too happy.)

White Elephant parties are much more fun when you’re the one doing the stealing and not the one being stolen from. Making things even better was this glazed ham that Ben made along with boozy a bright, boozy punch:

And iced brownies for dessert that I think had candy canes in them?

Now for your Monday links:

• Dwight Garner writes about food in Cormac McCarthy novels (NYT);

• Luisa Weiss tells us all about the books that she read this year (A Letter from Berlin);

• Novelist Sam Lipsyte’s Grub Street Diet is highly entertaining (Grub Street);

• This article about throwing a latke party is brilliantly written… the author is one of the best-looking people that I know (Eater).

My roasted cauliflower and sweet potato bowl with salsa verde and toasted walnuts from Thursday’s newsletter.

That’s all for this week, folks! If you missed Thursday’s paid subscribers only newsletter, you missed a field trip to Knife Pleat in Costa Mesa with Chelsea Peretti, A Roasted Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Bowl, and Too Much Tuna. Don’t miss this Thursday’s! Become a paid subscriber and end your year on the right note.

Until next time….

Your pal,

Adam