Chinese Almond Cookies

Chinese Almond cookies are a real favorite of my father. When he lived in Port Washington he used to go to a local Chinese restaurant to eat and loved the cookies they gave diners at the end of the meal. When he moved up to Rochester he moaned that the local restaurants here didn't offer these cookies and he missed them. We tried several restaurants and none had them. In the past I had looked for a recipe for them and found a few, tried them but they didn't taste right.

Then along comes Nick Malgieri and he has a Chinese Almond cookie recipe. His intro to the recipe recounts his childhood experience at Chinese restaurants and recollections of the almond cookie for dessert. Of course this piqued my interest and since Valentine's Day is coming up I thought, okay, I'll make these and send them to Dad. So far so good, but I read the next intro paragraph and here it is: "by the way, lard is the right fat to use for these,…Don't substitute vegetable shortening for the lard, or the cookies wont' have the right taste and texture." Well, that put the fear of God in me. I dutifully went to the store and asked if they had lard. What do you know? It is right next to the butter! An ordinary item, who knew. Please understand that I haven't eaten meat in 27 years so the thought of having LARD in the house did not sit well. I sucked it up and proceeded to create the cookies.

I decided to make a double batch because 1) it's easy and more cookies for Dad and 2) I will get rid of the lard faster. The cookie production was straightforward and the cookies were in the oven in no time flat. But they have a weird and not so pleasant smell as they baked. The double batch made 94 cookies. I have packaged them up and am now on my way to the post office where they will be shipped to Cape Cod. I can't wait to hear the verdict on the cookies!