Speaking of lemons….

…..there are still a few kicking around in my fridge.  They are a little softer than they were a week ago and I finally made myself throw out their leaves and thorns.

The thorns just amp up the coolness factor of all this.  Don’t think you can just reach in and grab the luminous fruit whenever it pleases you.  As lovely as they look, the tree doesn’t give them up without a fight and you are likely to get jabbed in the finger by that crafty defence mechanism.

You won’t see it coming of course, not with your eyes fixated on those shiny skinned lemons.  They will be yours eventually but don’t expect the tree to give in without a fight.

I squeezed and zested as many as I could and although I can use the juice gradually, I was aware that I needed to use the zest pretty quickly.  Lemon zest, by the way, is my current favourite ingredient.  There is only so much lemon curd one needs to have in the fridge so that wasn’t an option.

With perfect timing, the August Sweet Adventures Blog Hop was announced, hosted by Sophie from The Sticky and Sweet.  Cookies are the name of the game this month and I decided to try and make a biscuit that has been on my mind lately.

(Let’s just pretend for now that it’s perfectly normal to have baked goods on one’s mind.)

The biscuit in question is nankhatai, a traditional Indian cookie that is almost shortbread like in texture.  The chickpea flour gives it it’s richness and mouth-coating quality.  Semolina provides little spots of crunch and substance in an otherwise buttery crumbly world.  That lemon zest found it’s calling in my version and joined pistachio and cardamom to flavour what turned out to be a gorgeous tea-time biscuit.

I just love it when a plan comes together.

Lemon and Pistachio Nankhatai

Modified from this recipe

Makes 28-30

Get:

180g butter at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
Zest of 1 1/2 lemons, finely grated
Insides of 8-10 cardamom pods
1 tsp white sugar
1 1/4 cups besan (chickpea) flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup coarse semolina
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup pistachio kernels

Make:

Preheat the oven to 175 C.

Using a mortar and pestle or spice grinder, powder the cardamom and white sugar together.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and lemon zest with the sugar and the cardamom/sugar powder.

In a separate bowl, sift all the flours, baking powder and salt together.  Grind the pistachios very coarsely so that there are still lots of small pieces rather than a powder.  Add this to the flours and stir through.

Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture and combine with a spatula.  You will then have to get your (clean) hands in there to form a dough. Knead the dough for a couple of minutes until it is smooth.  If it is too sticky, put it in the fridge for about 10 mins. Knead again for a minute.

Form tablespoon sized balls.  Roll between your palms and flatten a little.  Mine were 3-4 cm in diameter and about 1.5 cm thick.  Press down in the middle with your thumb to make an indentation.  Lay the cookies out on baking trays lined with baking paper.  Leave 2-3 cm between cookies as they will spread.

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 16-20 mins.  The cookies are done when they have spread a little and are browned at the top and bottom.  They will be soft initially but will crisp up after they cool.