By Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff

San Francisco celebrates the Chinese New Year in a big way. There are parades, dances and other cultural activities held in many parts of the city in February. As I am getting ready to celebrate year of the Dragon, I want to share this festive Chinese cookie recipe and a personal story to go with it.

In the good old days of the Seventies, when the rents were low in San Francisco, I lived in a large flat right across from Golden Gate Park on Lincoln Way near Ninth Avenue. I would take my 4-year-old son to the park near the Japanese Tea Garden almost every afternoon to play. After a couple of hours of play time, we would sit down by the tea house and have green tea with almond cookies. That was a wonderful break. Perhaps, the only almonds those cookies may have had were the whole nuts in the center to decorate the cookie. Nevertheless, those precious moments and the cookies lingered in my memory. 

Years later, I started to make almond milk when my husband found that he could not consume dairy milk. The fibrous byproduct obtained from this liquid motivated me to create this nutritious recipe. Making almond milk is really simple. You boil a cup of almonds in 3 cups of water for 5-7 minutes. Then peel the nuts to remove the skin. Place the skinned almonds with a quart of hot water in a blender and blend at a high speed for 5 minutes or longer until the mixture is pulverized into a white “milk.” Next, strain the almond milk using the double thickness of a cheese cloth or a piece of muslin to extract as much almond milk as possible. Wring the cloth to obtain all the liquid. What remains in the cloth are the almond fibers that you can use in the cookies or other baked goods to give them a protein boost, added flavor and texture. (If you don’t want to make the milk to get the almond fibers, no problem. Use almond flour, available in many stores throughout the City.)

1 ¼ cup almond fibers (a byproduct of making almond milk) 

Or 1 1/3 cup almond flour (not almond powder)     

1 ¾ cups al purpose flour 

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder            

1 cup (2 sticks) chilled butter or vegan spread, cut into small pea-size bits 

2 eggs

1 cup sugar 

4 teaspoons almond extract 

Whole almond nuts as needed 

In a mixing bowl, sift the flour with baking powder. Next, add pieces of butter, almond fibers or almond flour, sugar, the eggs and almond extract. Then, using a mixer (or by hand), mix the ingredients together briefly until the mixture is wet enough to form a loose ball. Do not overmix.

Next, divide the ball into two portions and roll them into 2 logs, 2 inches in diameter. Pack the logs in a container with a lid and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Set the oven at 350 degrees. Cut the logs into ½-inch-thin circles.  

Place them onto a cookie sheet that has been lined with a parchment paper. Place a whole almond in the middle of each cookie. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until the edges of the cookies start turning golden. Allow the cookies to cool before storing. Share with friends and enjoy!

Makes about 24 cookies.