So a cookie… dark chocolate… pistachios oh and sea salt.  End of post.

But really these are quite good.  I used Ina’s shortbread recipe- I don’t have a stand up mixer which means they were kind of a pain in the ass to make.  I suggest instead of rolling them out after the dough has chilled just smoosh them with your hands into a flattened shape and then using a cookie cutter and oh so gently make these cute little circles. 

You could do any shape you want (Ina does rectangles).  Just be prepared that this dough is a crumbly mess and it’s okay and they will stay taste amazing.  It’s shortbread- it’s essentially buttered flour… not really sure who thought this was okay to pass off as a cookie but I’m not mad at them.

One great thing about shortbread is you will always have all the ingredients on hand.  Don’t have baking powder/soda? Don’t worry about it.  Don’t have eggs? Screw eggs. You are just mixing butter/flour/sugar together with a little salt and vanilla.  If you want to up the anti a little bit you can dip them in dark chocolate and sprinkle them with pistachio and sea salt like I did.

You have to temper the chocolate.  I know you don’t want to but if you don’t the chocolate will look grey and dead and not appetizing (though I would still eat it).  All you need to do this is a microwave.  Ina has this in her recipe but I used a lot less chocolate than she did.  I just took one 60% dark chocolate (3.5 ounces) bar and chopped it up.  I put half in the microwave and nuked it 3 times for 30 seconds each time.  Between each time I stirred it with a WOODEN spoon (stir it like you mean it).  After the final time, put the rest of the chocolate in with the melted chocolate and stirred it real aggressively.  The more you stir… the shinier and more appetizing these will look.  Dip each cookie in the chocolate.  Place on waxed paper and sprinkle with crushed pistachios and a bit of sea salt.  I suck and only had pistachios in the shell which I had to shuck out but you could buy a third of a cup of unshelled pistachio and that would do the job (just chop it up well).   

Just so good.