Cardamom hamantaschen cookies with kumquat walnut jam

No, that's not a typo. Hamantaschen is a hybrid Hebrew-Yiddish-Persian word referring to cookies traditionally eaten by Ashkenazi Jews on the holiday of Purim. The holiday commemorates a particular, yet familiar, refrain in Jewish history: they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!

The longer version of the story involves the credulous yet powerful King Ahasuerus, his courageous Jewish wife Esther and the king's evil, power-hungry prime minister Haman. Haman hatches a plan to eradicate all the Jews throughout the vast kingdom. But Esther and her uncle Mordecai save the day by learning of the plan and revealing the truth to the king. The story is all the more poignant as Ahasuerus is hitherto unaware of Esther's ethnic background, and is incensed that Haman would want to kill his beloved new wife and her family. Haman is punished for his crime, and the Jews of the kingdom rejoice in their salvation. 

Jews today celebrate their ancestors' near brush with death by reading aloud the story of Purim and jeering loudly at the sound of Haman's name. They also disguise themselves with costumes to remember Esther's secret identity. (The Book of Esther, quite the page turner, includes melodrama worthy of any televised soap opera, an intricate plotline and complex themes such as the concealed and revealed, truth and obfuscation, the presence and absence of a ruler or deity. The idiomatic phrase "the whole megillah," meaning "the whole saga, " derives from the Hebrew term "Megillath Esther," or the scroll of Esther.) The celebration of Purim also involves giving food baskets to friends, gifts to those in need, plenty of food and copious alcohol. Purim revelers are encouraged to drink until they can no longer distinguish the villain Haman from the hero Mordecai.

So where do hamantaschen fit in? Translated literally, hamantaschen are "Haman's pouches," perhaps a convenient corruption of the German "mohntaschen" or poppyseed-filled pastry pouches. In Hebrew the cookies are called "Oznei Haman," or Haman's ears, while a popular Hebrew children's song refers to Haman's triangular hat. The ear and hat hypotheses seem a bit too surreal, but good enough for what is essentially opposite day, a subversive celebration of the idea that everything is the diametric of what it seems. It seems more likely that Eastern European Jews adapted their own serendipitously homphonic version of local poppyseed cookies. (Per Wikipedia, "In the countries belonging to the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, poppy seed pastries called Mond Kuchen are popular. These pastries predate Christianity; the poppy was dedicated to Diana, the goddess of the moon. In German, the seeds are still called mohn, 'moon seeds.'") Traditionally, the Jews of Eastern European filled their Purim hamantaschen with poppyseed paste, prunes or dried apricots. Modern fillings are typically some sort of store bought jam, or even chocolate chips. Sephardi, Turkish and North African Jews prepare their own version of "Haman's ears" called fazuelos, made of thin, half-moon shaped dough that is deep-fried and seasoned with cinnamon and syrup or brandy.

My interpretation of hamantaschen fuses east and west by adding cardamom to the cookie dough and stuffing Haman's pouches with allspice-scented kumquat and walnut jam.

Cardamom Hamantaschen Filled with Kumquat Walnut Jam

The recipe for the dough was adapted from a recipe by the inimitable Burekaboy of "Is that My Bureka?" Burekaboy recommends making the dough in advance and chilling it at least overnight. The dough is very sticky, and requires quite a bit of flour when rolling. The jam recipe is my own creation. Be sure to save the kumquat seeds as these provide pectin for this quick and easy jam. You can prepare the dough and filling in stages, and assemble the cookies the next day.

For the dough:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
zest of a meyer lemon, or regular lemon
2 TBS juice of meyer lemon, or regular lemon squeezed
1-2 tsp cardamom, to taste

For the filling:
2 cups kumquats
1 cup walnut halves
1/4 cup honey
3/4 cup hot water
1/2 tsp allspice berries

Prepare the dough:

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg, lemon juice, zest and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
2. In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture in three stages, mixing until just combined, then adding additional dry ingredients.
3. Cover the dough and chill overnight.
    

Prepare the filling:

1. Cut the kumquats in half, widthwise. Remove the seeds and set them aside for later use.
2. In a food processor, chop the kumquats and place them in a heavy-bottomed small or medium pot.
3. Place the pot on a medium flame and add the walnut halves to the kumquats.
4. In a 1 cup measure, pour 1/4 cup of honey. Over this, pour hot water to measure a total of 1 cup.
5. Pour off some of the water into the pot of kumquats. Then mix the honey with the remaining hot water in the measuring cup until the honey dissolves. Pour the honey water mixture into the pot.
6. Place the kumquat seeds and allspice berries in a cheesecloth or tea infuser. Place the cheesecloth or infuser in the pot.
7. Simmer the mixture until it boils, stiring frequently. When done, the fruit liquid should coat a cold spoon and drip fairly slowly. You want the fruit to just set, without being too runny or too hard. If the jam starts turning brown, it's begun to caramelize. You want to avoid caramelization. Cooking times may vary, but about 30 minutes should be plenty.
8. Remove the kumquat seeds and allspice and pour the jam into a jar or bowl to cool. 

Assemble and bake the cookies:

1. Generously flour a clean, flat surface. Remove half the cookie dough from the refrigerator, leaving the remainder to chill. Flatten the dough into a disc and sprinkle it generously with flour.
2. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick. Roll once, then pick up the flattened dough and turn it 90 degrees. Sprinkle with more flour if necessary and roll it out again. Repeat until dough is of sufficient thickness. (This procedure helps keep the dough from sticking.)
3. Use a glass or cup with a 2-3 inch diameter to cut out circles of dough. (I used a wooden sake cup.)
4. Place about a heaping teaspoonful of filling in the middle of each circle of dough, taking care to include a walnut in each hamantasch.
5. Gather up the edges of the circle in thirds, pinching one corner, then another, then the third. The edges of dough will form walls around the filling. Pinching the walls together forms the angles of the triangle and prevents the jam from leaking.
6. Line a cookie sheet with baking parchment and place the assembled cookies on the cookie sheet. Chill the cookies for about half an hour. For a crisper cookie, chill in the freezer. For a softer cookie, chill in the refrigerator. 
7. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, or until slightly golden around the bottom edges. Cool on a cookie rack and enjoy.