Miso-Mayo-Peanut butter cookie 味噌マヨネーズ, ピーナッツバタークッキー

This unusual recipe came in a freebie cookie recipe book from the local Giant grocery store. This recipe drew my wife’s attention because of the unusual combination of ingredients, i.e. miso, mayonnaise and peanut butter.  She came to me and asked which miso she should use (I have a collection of miso). Since it was for a cookie, I suggested “Saikyo” miso 西京味噌 which is a white sweet miso famous in Kyoto 京都 (“Sai” 西 meaning “West” and  “kyo” 京 meaning “capital” i.e. “West capital” which is “Kyoto” as opposed to “To(u)” meaning “East” 東”  and “kyo” 京 meaning capital which is “Tokyo”  東京).  In any case, she made this cookie which was quite good. I could certainly taste the peanut butter but if I had not been told I would not have guessed “mayo” and “miso” were included. Although I have to say they probably added to the overall peanut butter taste which was very rich; more so than other peanut butter cookies I've tasted. She also added a Hershey’s chocolate chip in the center of the cookie for "good measure".

I will ask my wife to fill in the rest.

Ingredients:
2 cups AP flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter at room temperature

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 cup miso paste

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

Hershey's chocolate chip (optional)

Sugar to coat the cookies

Directions

Mix together the dry ingredients flour through salt. In another bowl cream the butter, mayo and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla mixing to combine. Then add the miso and peanut butter mixing until completely combined. Slowly add the butter, egg, miso, peanut butter mixture to the dry ingredients to form a dough. Refrigerate the dough for at least and hour until it is thoroughly chilled and can be rolled into the ball. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls. Roll the balls in the coating sugar and place on a parchment covered cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Cook in a 350 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Remove from the oven and while they are still hot press a chocolate chip into the middle of the cookie. 

These are without a doubt the best peanut butter cookies we've ever had. They are nicely chewy but the main thing is the flavor is very intense and rich. We figure this must come from the umami provided by the mayo and the miso. They are also very good slightly heated in the microwave. 

Homemade peanut butter 自家製ピーナッツバター

 My wife wanted to make some peanut butter muffins from a recipe she found in a long forgotten and recently re-discovered "Mostly Muffin" cookbook. We did not have any peanut butter (I can't even remember the last time we even had a jar of peanut butter in the house) but we did have jars of roasted peanuts which we keep to feed the squirrels and friendly birds. My wife suggested, "we have peanuts, we should be able to make our own peanut butter". A quick search on the internet produced many recipes/instructions on how to make peanut butter from peanuts. This is the result. It came out really well.

Ingredients and directions for peanut butter.
1 16 oz. jar of dry roasted unsalted peanuts
Place the peanuts in a food processor with a cutting blade.
Keep the food processor running. The peanuts will go from light crumb, to clumps and finally to a smooth peanut butter consistency. This will take some time and is a bit nerve wracking to have the food processor running for so long and the way it thumps and bumps through the various stages.

This peanut butter was the epitome of peanut-buttery-ness. It was characteristically sticky with a clear deep flavor of peanuts which lingered long on the tongue.  The taste evoked childhood memories of PB&J lunch sandwiches for my wife. (Not for me since peanut butter was not a childhood delicacy in Japan when I was growing up).  My wife came up with her "adult" version of PB&J; a peanut butter canapé to have with wine. 

Ingredients: for PB&J canapé
1 slice of white bread toasted and cut into 4 piece
A slather of homemade peanut butter on each piece
Top 2 with Strawberry puree (I made this with strawberries, sugar and triple sec whirred in the food processor).
Top 2 with fig puree (this was a leftover of fig stuffing my wife made for the fig muffin).

My wife declared "Yup this was prototypical PB&J all right". It was astounding at how well the peanut butter went with the red wine. Needless to say the wine component bumped it up to "adult" status.