2 Lemons; (2 to 3)
1/2 lb Unsalted butter
1/4 ts Vanilla extract
2 c Sugar
1 ts Salt
1 Egg
3 c Semolina
1 c All purpose flour
1/4 c Sugar
(to dust cookies) (1) Remove the zest, and juice from at least 2 lemons to have 2 tablespoons peel and 1/2 cup juice. Set aside. (2) Cream the butter, vanilla, sugar and salt. Add the egg, lemon juice and zest, and beat until just combined (3) Divide dough in half, forming 2 balls. Wrap balls in plastic and chill for one hour. Keeping dough refrigerated between steps, roll each ball into a log 10 1/2 inches long. It will be about 2 inches in diameter. (4) Set oven to 325 degrees. (5) Cut 1/4 inch slices and lay out on plastic wrap, sprinkle lightly with sugar, roll lightly with rolling pin to press in sugar (or use the bottom of a glass for this step). Lay cookies on unbuttered baking sheet, reforming with fingers to make nice even rounds. Chill 10 minutes or until firm. (6) Bake in the center of the oven about 10 minutes or until surface starts to crack slightly. (Not big cracks like crinkle cookies get, more like a change of texture.) Let cool some before removing from baking sheets. They are very tender while hot. Will be chewy at first, but will harden as they cool. From Michael Roberts, Guest Chef on Prodigy 4/26/91, recipes for cookies served at Trumps, his LA restaurant. Note: I severely edited his instructions, removing several ‘in the oven’ and ‘in the refrigerator’ phrases and working on marble or wooden surfaces. All items in ( ) and some other words here and there are my additions. His instructions did say make a 2″ diameter roll, slice 1/2″ thick, and this makes 7 dozen cookies?! Couldn’t go along with his arithmetic on that, so changed it to the way I did them. I did NOT alter his ingredients list. Millie Othman —–