Lemongrass Sugar Cookies

Lemongrass Plant

I didn't realize lemongrass could grow in the midwest. It's primarily used in Southeast Asian cuisines, and I've only ever seen it growing in the wild or even discussed in tropical climates. True, it's possible to get it pretty easily here, but I guess I assumed it was coming from warmer places.

When I went to buy flowers and herbs to plant on my patio, though, there it was: a lemongrass plant at the local nursery in Chicago. It looked different from Asian lemongrass in that the stalks were thinner and more like regular grass. And when I rubbed the leaves, there wasn't much of a lemon-y scent. But I figured I'd try it and bought 2 plants.

As the plants grew, the stalks grew a bit thicker; though they're still not nearly so thick as typical Asian lemongrass. I picked a stalk just to see if it was even viable and...sure enough, it had a very strong lemongrass scent. I used it in the syrup for last week's Flying Tuber cocktail, in fact. And I had lots more plants to use, so I thought about what to do with it.

Lemongrass and sugar in
food processor

In thumbing through Dorie Greenspan's excellent Baking From My Home to Yours I came across her sugar cookie recipe. It's a really simple recipe that's not as buttery as shortbread, and has some egg to hold it together. It seemed like an ideal canvas for my abundant lemongrass.

Completed Cookies

So I picked a few stalks of lemongrass, chopped it up (and got rid of the really leafy parts that had no flavor), and then spun it in the food processor for a few minutes with the sugar for the cookie recipe. Taking off the lid of the food processor was an intense experience, as the smell and essential oils from the lemongrass overpowered the senses and nearly made me gasp.

I mixed that with the butter and proceeded with the recipe as described in the book. (This same technique would work for any cookie recipe that's fairly mild in flavor.)

The cookies were good. They didn't overpower with lemongrass flavor, but definitely had a bit of kick to them. The flavor was more subtle than I expected, and kind of hung in the background. It could possibly benefit from some citrus zest or maybe even ginger or another aromatic to make it pop. As I think about it, I might try mixing some lemongrass into a ginger snap recipe. Hmmmm... stay tuned!

The Flying Tuber: A Party Cocktail

I was recently faced with a minor challenge. My sister proposed that we throw a surprise party to celebrate our uncle's recent 50th birthday. Ok, no problem. I'm always game for prepping food and drinks. The challenge was that she wanted to do it at Camp. "Camp?" you may be wondering. "Aren't you a little old for camp?" Well, in our family and some others, the generic "camp" means Camp Michigania, which is the University of Michigan Alumni Association's family camp on beautiful Walloon Lake in northern Michigan. For an embarrassing number of years, our family has spent a week there each summer with more-or-less the same people doing more-or-less the same things every year. It's a reliably amazing week, but I digress.

The challenge this presented was that we had to do the party with no refrigeration apart from a couple coolers and a nearby ice machine shared by 200 others, and no kitchen or cooking equipment at all. (Food at camp is served in a common dining hall and prepped by a kitchen staff.) One of my tasks was to come up with a cocktail that could be made en masse and served from a giant drink cooler. This presented further challenges. I have pretty high standards for myself, so wanted to make something that I'd be proud of and that people would enjoy. It also had to be something that our uncle, who is not a big drinker and enjoys beverages on the sweeter side, would enjoy. I also wanted it to be potent enough to feel like a cocktail, but not something that would wipe anybody out before dinner at family camp.

The easy part was coming up with the name. Our uncle loves to pull people behind his boat on giant inflatables, often creating waves with his wake and launching the tubers into the air. "Tuber" also has the delightful double entendre of referring to certain root vegetables, such as potatoes. Thus, it had to be a vodka-based drink [1].

With a name and liquor settled on, the next challenge was to come up with something that could be made in a big batch using relatively shelf-stable ingredients. The drink gradually took shape during a walk on a Lake Michigan beach with my friend Amy. (Whether you are concocting cocktails or not, I recommend such a stroll.) Vodka and cranberry juice are a natural pairing, of course. Lemon vodka and cranberry would have a nice tartness that could be balanced out by some sort of sweetener. Lemon also plays extremely nicely with ginger, and ginger can easily be steeped to make a spicy and sweet simple syrup [2] that can serve as the base for ginger ale. This set of ingredients seemed like a good starting point.

I then got the ingredients and did some testing with my neighbors. We agreed that it could use a bit of sweetness and maybe a bit more alcohol content. We decided to add some Triple Sec, which was a clear win. It played perfectly with the other ingredients and added some sweetness.

Almost everything was shelf stable, except the syrup. For that, I made it at home and froze it overnight in a plastic pitcher. It took about 2 days to melt in my cooler (with some ice), which was just in time for the party!

The recipe we settled on was:

1 part Absolut Citron
2 parts cranberry juice
1 part ginger-and-lemongrass-infused simple syrup
1/3 part triple sec

I'm happy to report the drink was a hit. I used 2 750 ml bottles of Absolut and almost all of it was gone after an hour or so. It was sweet enough to be enjoyable by everybody. Not dangerously potent at all. But the ginger syrup gives it a bit of a bite that keeps it, in my mind, respectable. This could also be made stronger with more vodka or maybe a ginger liqueur (like Domain du Canton) instead of the syrup. For our purposes, though, it was perfect.


[1] Yes, I know most vodka isn't made from potatoes these days. Just give me credit for the cleverness and move on, ok?

[2] Note that I used the linked recipe, but I added a couple stalks of fresh lemon grass with the ginger.