Last month, I attended the kick-off soiree for this year’s Chicago Food Film Festival. If you’ve never heard of the event, it’s exactly what it sounds like: you get to watch films about food…and then sample the featured foods! NOMS city. (They even inserted napkins in our programs!)
To preserve the authenticity of the dishes and the tasting experience, the event organizers flew in ingredients (and in some cases, the chefs, too!) from the places profiled in the food flicks. The biggest draw at the party was by far the Ramen Burger. YES. You heard me right. A delicious patty enclosed in a ramen “bun.” Dreamed up by ramen connoisseur Keizo Shimamoto, this noodle nosh caused quite the craze this year, right up there with the cronut. (Like the cronut, the lines to try the Ramen Burger in New York can be quite long; Shimamoto once even swapped a customer a burger for a cronut!)
Ramen Burger team, assemble! Chef Shimamoto and crew built their creations in front of our drooling eyes. Want to learn more about this burger bliss? Check out the trailer for the Ramen Burger film: http://vimeo.com/75558527
Burger aside, one of the surprise showstoppers for me was the Compost Cookie from David Chang’s Momofuku Milk Bar. It’s called a Compost Cookie because it crams in a TON of ingredients, including (but not limited to) potato chips, oatmeal, chocolate chips, pretzels and ground coffee. The coffee grounds really gave the cookies a mighty fine finish. They flew Compost Cookie samples in straight from NYC that morning! We even got to take a few pieces home in our goodie bags to enjoy for breakfast the next morning. :)
Inspired by this everything cookie, I knew I had to try to make a simplified version: Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Coffee Cookies.
The Makings: (Yields about 3 1/2-4 dozen cookies)
- Flour – 2 1/4 cups
- Baking soda – 1 teaspoon
- Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
- Ground coffee – 2 teaspoons
- Butter or margarine – 1 cup (2 sticks)
- Sugar – 3/4 cup
- Brown sugar – 3/4 cup
- Vanilla extract – 2 teaspoons
- Eggs – 2
- Chocolate Chips – 2/3 cup
- Butterscotch Chips – 2/3 cup
- White Chocolate Chips – 2/3 cup
The Sweetness:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and coffee grounds together in medium bowl.
2. In a large bowl, beat butter with sugar and brown sugar until creamy. Slowly mix in eggs and vanilla extract. Gradually add dry mixture into large bowl until incorporated.
3. Stir in chocolate chips, white chocolate chips and butterscotch chips. Use tablespoon to drop dough onto lightly greased cookie sheet. (Use extra chocolate and butterscotch chips to position on top of cookie dough drops.) Bake in oven for 8-10 minutes.
Next time around, I’d add in more coffee grounds, as the butterscotch dominated the flavor profile of these cookies, but overall I liked that you got a slightly different blend of flavors with every bite. Serve them up as a snack with a glass of milk or mug of coffee. (Hey, there’s coffee in ’em, so go ahead and take a couple for breakfast. ;)
More Sweetness:
Make Me Something Sweet 