Meyer Lemon Pistachio Biscotti from Scratch

There are many great things about living in Central Asia, and Tajikistan specifically. High on that list are seasonal ingredients, and right now meyer lemons are doing their thing. To live in this part of the world is to appreciate the seasonality of fruits and vegetables and to take advantage of them when they are available. I'm having fun learning new ways of preserving produce to enjoy beyond the season. And ways of cooking with ingredients that are at the height of their ripeness.

Meyer lemons are a hybrid of a lemon and a mandarin, the latter also being plentiful this time of year. They have beautiful smooth skin and a sweetness to them unlike their sour counterpart. Having both meyer lemons and shelled pistachios on hand, I adapted this recipe from epicurious.com for Lemon Pistachio Biscotti.

The main players. Flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, lemons, vanilla, pistachios.

After mixing the dry ingredients, add the pistachios.

Mix to combine.

Now grab the lemons and finely grate the peel. If you don't have a microplane, you must buy one right now.

Don't grab an old soviet juicer and use it for the first time ever and not put it over a bowl to juice your first lemon half. Not that I would do that, of course.

Mix the wet ingredients along with the grated lemon peel.

Add that to the dry ingredients.

Now the fun part. Flour the work surface.

Divide the wet dough into two portions, equally sized.

The recipe said to roll these into logs and then pat them slightly to flatten. It was way too wet to do that. I sort of patted them into the shape I thought they should be in directly onto parchment covered cookie sheets.

I baked these quite a bit longer than required. Could be that my oven is off and my dough was wetter than normal. Or because it was Wednesday.

Look at the pistachios popping out. Aren't they gorgeous?

Biscotti are twice baked biscuits, or cookies. Once cooked and cooled completely, the "logs" are sliced thinly and baked again.

Half of them I drizzled (glopped) with some melted white chocolate.

Perfect for dipping in your morning coffee.

Warning! Make sure your shelled pistachios are actually shelled. I had a crunchy surprise this morning. No need to crack a tooth and make a trip to the local dentist.