As much as I enjoy a culinary pun, I also enjoy a culinary trompe-l’œil, like my feta with chilli oil pine nuts which is doing its best to resemble both soft tofu with chili oil, and cream cheese with sweet chilli sauce — a delicious double bluff. In the case of these salty pecan oat sables, they’re endeavouring to appear as banausic and unremarkable as a biscuit can be, and yet below their drab surfaces lurk layers and layers of cunning flavour.

First, there’s the pecans, with their elegant maple-smoky bitterness like solidified lozenges of rye whisky. Warmed through, then blitzed into dust, they raise the warp and weft of the biscuits without being obtrusive. Then the oats, sturdy as a pair of Doc Martens (the kind they used to make, of late they have absolutely changed the recipe and the soles simply do not last as long anymore), toasted till they smell like a sun-warmed woollen cardigan, and themselves blitzed into hessian powder. Next, the muted razzle-dazzle of milk powder — I want to say Momofuku’s Milk Bar popularised the concept of baking with milk powder but there were doubtless other contenders in the mix, including those transfixingly sickly hand-rolled snowball truffles that always appear at Christmas. Here it acts as a magnifying glass, making the butter butter-ier, the pecans richer, the brown sugar more caramelly, and the salt more complex than an apartment block.

Although the recipe is a little — not fiddly, but involved — with toasting all the ingredients separately and waiting for things in the freezer at various intervals, using a food processor to take care of the actual pulverisation makes it feel significantly more do-able than not, and I’ve made numerous batches of these where other more sensible tasks eluded me. Whether that’s more about the value I place in deranged late-night baking over sensible administrative tasks is another question altogether. But now that we’ve been through all that lies below the surface, I need to iterate and then reiterate that the salty element is not to be overlooked here — you need briny waves lapping at your mouth as you eat these, not a coy smattering. Without wanting to be unhelpful, a good fine Himalayan pink salt or fine sea salt works best here, as it’s an ingredient, not just a faint seasoning. Don’t feel you can’t make this if you only have regular iodised table salt, but taste the cookie dough as you go — table salt can have an acrid quality to it, but on the other hand, it’s what most of us are probably used to, tastebud-wise.

Occupying a taste-and-textural place somewhere between cheesecake base and digestive biscuit, these vociferously homely sables can obviously prop up a cup of tea or coffee, but wouldn’t be out of place with a post-dinner liqueur like Drambuie, Frangelico, or Benedictine — indeed, I think you could safely put them on a cheeseboard without changing a single ingredient. Finally, they’re especially good in the middle of the night, just as you’re supposed to go to bed, spread with a little salted butter for absurd, yet good measure.

To further enjoy pecan’s elusive smoky flavour, I recommend my Pecan Pie Crunch Slice, these Vegan Pecan Sandies, and this Pecan Cookie Granola Butter.

Salty pecan oat sables

Very plain, and yet — there’s so much going on, with toasted oats, pecans, and milk powder, and enough salt to warrant the name. For a plain biscuit, I know the recipe looks exhaustingly long, as I’ve said before I am simply incapable of not over-explaining! I want to manage your expectations! Anyway, once you’re used to its quirks this is really quite straightforward, not least because a food processor does most of the work for you, which is good because you’re going to want to make these over and over. Recipe by myself.

• 70g pecans
• 50g whole oats
• 4 tablespoons full-fat milk powder
• 170g flour
• 100g butter (salted)
• 100g brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• fine sea salt, at least a teaspoon

1: Unfortunately it’s more effective, if long-winded, to toast everything separately, so start with the 70g pecans, warming them up over a medium heat in a dry frying pan, stirring occasionally and removing from the heat as soon as they’re fragrant and toasty-scented — with the nuts already being a deep brown colour you’ll have to use your nose instead of your eyes here. Quickly tip the pecans into the bowl of a food processor, and return the pan to the heat.

2: Now, in the same pan over a medium heat, toast the 50g oats, lightly — just until they smell warm and porridge-y, don’t let them get too much colour. Depending on how hot your pan is, this could happen very quickly, so keep an eye on them. Once done — and again, trust your instincts here — tip the oats into the food processor with the pecans. Blend briefly to turn both the oats and the pecans into fine crumbs.

3: Finally, toast the four tablespoons of milk powder — with this one you really need to move quickly and to keep the heat low or it will immediately burn. If your stovetop is like mine and holds its heat, you may not even have to turn it back on. But enough of what not to do, what you are going to do is tip the milk powder into your (not still completely boiling hot) pan and stir briskly and briefly until you see it starting to turn golden brown, then immediately remove the pan from the heat and spatula the milk powder into the food processor. Pulse once or twice to combine the milk powder with the pecans and oats, and allow this mixture to cool down to room temperature.

4: While this cools, place the 170g flour into a small bowl, then roughly cube the 100g salted butter and add to the flour. Place the bowl into the freezer.

5: Once the pecan-oat mixture has cooled, add the 100g brown sugar to the food processor and pulse to combine, then add the freezer-chilled butter and flour along with a generous 1/2 teaspoon of salt and blend just until it forms fine, dusty but damp crumbs. Crack in the egg and add the teaspoon of vanilla and briefly pulse again until it just starts to clump together. Tip the dough out onto a sheet of baking paper and press together with your hands to form a ball.

6: Split the dough into two even portions, and shape each portion into a squat, square-ish log, wrapping each log in a piece of baking paper. Place them both in the freezer for ten minutes, and set your oven to 170C/325F.

7: You’re nearly there! Once the ten minutes is up, carefully but decisively slice the logs into oblong-y rounds of about 1cm thick, placing them a couple centimetres apart on a baking paper-lined baking tray. You could always use one of the sheets of paper that encased the cookie dough, if it’s large enough. Sprinkle the sliced cookies with another 1/4 teaspoon of salt — at least — and bake for 15 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack while you get on with the remaining dough.

Makes 26-30 cookies. Store in an airtight container once cooled.

Notes:

• If you can’t get hold of milk powder you can leave it out — the cookies are still good, though they lack that beguilingly spectacular something. Without the milk powder you only need to cook them for 11 minutes.
• Salt is subjective — taste the dough as you go, if you think it needs more then add more. I have probably added more than what I’ve listed here, but you have to start somewhere.
• If you don’t have a food processor, you may want to replace the rolled oats with about 30g oat flour (untoasted) and chop the pecans as finely as you can, and try grating the butter before freezing it. Otherwise, rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips before stirring in the oat flour, pecans, and milk powder, and then stir the egg in with a wooden spoon. I haven’t tried making it without a food processor so am making assumptions here rather confidently. If you only have a blender, but not a food processor, you can use it to pulverise the oats and pecans but be careful to not overblend.

music lately:

Miss Drugstore by Medicine, makes you feel like every single refracted atmospheric particle of water suspended within the particoloured arch of a rainbow.

Company by the Trotter Trio, I know for some people the only thing more easily maligned than musical theatre is a jazz interpretation of musical theatre, in this case the title song from Sondheim’s musical, but I for one (and it really might just be me on my own) thoroughly love the genre.

No. 1 Fan by Majesty Crush, every time I hear this it’s more overwhelming and unbearably beautiful. Great lyrics, too!

Alive by Pearl Jam, I happened to catch them spontaneously this week with my Dad and while I’m not a particularly dedicated listener beyond their second album, this song still gets me squarely in the solar plexus and they are possibly the most aggressively competent band on the road right now, which sounds mildly damning but in this economy it’s a rare and admirable quality.

PS: Again I’m bringing your attention to ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal. Their latest message on 30 October reports that their team are “tirelessly delivering safe drinking water daily to families facing unimaginable hardship.” Further afield, if you have paypal you could also consider donating to Gaza Soup Kitchen — in their words, “in a world abundant in resources, no child should ever go to bed hungry. Right now in Gaza, every bite is a story of resilience and hope…your donation is their tomorrow.” Finally, here in Aotearoa you can find out more about the powerful and momentous Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti currently underway and contribute to the kaupapa.