It’s hard to decide what’s best about this cookie. The texture’s a definite attention-grabber: It has a slight flakiness at first and then it’s all melt. The flavors of the rosemary and Parmesan, one of those meant-to-be matches, are front and center. For the crumbliest texture — a good thing here — the cheese should not be very finely grated. A word on the nuts: When I began making these, I used toasted almonds, and the cookies were very, very good. If almonds are what you’ve got, use them. You won’t be disappointed.
Recipes adapted from Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016
Ingredients
- •45 ml (3 tablespoons) sugar
- •30 ml (2 tablespoons) finely chopped fresh rosemary
- •272 grams (2 cups) all-purpose flour
- •60 grams (½ cup) toasted pecans
- •30 grams (⅓ cup) lightly packed grated Parmesan
- •2.5 ml (½ teaspoon) fine sea salt
- •226 grams (2 sticks; 8 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
- •1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten
Preparation
Working in a small bowl, rub the sugar and rosemary together until the sugar is moist and aromatic.
Put the flour, pecans, Parmesan, salt and rosemary-sugar in a food processor and pulse to blend. Drop in butter and pulse until the mixture turns crumbly. Add beaten yolk a little at a time, pulsing until you have a moist dough.
Divide dough in half. Pat each half into a disk. One disk at a time, place between two pieces of parchment paper and roll to a thickness of .6 cm (¼ inch). Slide the dough, still between the papers, onto a baking sheet — you can stack the slabs — and freeze for at least 1 hour.
Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 177°C (350°F). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Have a 4 cm (1½ inch) diameter cookie cutter at hand.
Working with one piece of dough at a time, peel away the top and bottom papers and return it to one piece of paper. Cut cookies and put them on the lined sheet, leaving about 2.5 cm (1 inch) between them. Gather the scraps, re-roll, freeze, cut and bake.
Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the midway mark, or until they’re golden and set. Rest them on the baking sheet for 3 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough, always starting with a cool baking sheet. The rolled-out dough can be wrapped well and frozen for up to 2 months; cut and bake directly from the freezer. The baked cookies can be kept in a covered container for up to 1 week at room temperature.