Parmesan cheese and Espelette chili shortbread biscuits

Version française disponible ici !

Fifteen days without a single article and I’m coming back with a salty recipe; moreover a spicy one! Don’t worry, I’m ok ^^ and I promise I will soon be back on the right track ;)

I got the idea of this recipe for a “Chili” party this weekend. I’m not usually really found of chili, expect the Espelette chili (really low on the Scoville scale – that probably one of the reasons why I like this one :p)

So the spiced touch was quickly found for me! And then, I thought it could be great with some parmesan cheese. Quite hard to measure the chili quantity for me that is not used to eat chili, moreover because parmesan taste is really tasty. But at the end, the parmesan-chili balance perfect for my taste buds!

Very easy recipe, very quick, and that doesn’t need a lot of ingredients! Perfect for these summer busy days ;)

For 20 shortbread biscuits, you will need:

• 120g cold slightly salted butter, in pieces
• 150g flour
• 120g parmesan cheese
• 2 tsp of Espelette Chili

Into a dish, mix flour with chili. Put the pieces of butter on top of it and stir them in with your fingertips.

When you get a kind of crude crumble, grate the parmesan cheese (if you have the chance to have some from Italy as I have, you’re really going to enjoy it!!) and stir it into the crumble.

Form a ball of this red dough, wrap it with some plastic wrap and keep in your fridge for about 1 hour.

After the resting time, spread the dough out, on some parchment paper, until getting a 1cm height. And form the biscuits with a cookie cutter then.

Do the same with the extra dough until having no more left.

COOKING

12-15 minutes in the oven at 180°C. Be careful not to cook too much the biscuits to keep the “shortbread” texture.

TIPS AND TRICKS

Don’t knead to much the dough to not reheat the butter in it.

You can also crush the dough, 2 or 3 times against the counter, to stir in well the butter. 

To help you to spread the dough out, spread it out with a rolling pin, between 2 parchment papers, it will be really easier ;)

Oh and concerning the quantity of chili, only one advice: trust yourself :D

Those two teaspoonfuls totally brought enough spiciness to me (even more^^). But my man said “yeah, we can feel it a bit” and I’m sure that taste buds of some people weren’t even aware of the spiciness ^^. So, follow your intuition ;)

Enjoy yourself with this recipe and see you soon this time ;)

Rose.