A middle eastern twist on our Scottish favourite. Original recipe:”Persiana” by Sabrina Ghayour

Ingredients:

100g Pistachios, shelled, unsalted
50g Rice
250g Plain Flour
rind of 2 lemons
2tsp Vanilla paste
120g sugar
1/2tsp salt
200g unsalter butter, soft
olive oil
caster sugar and salt flakes for dusting (optional)

Directions:

1. Let’s make the ground rice: in your TM bowl put your rice and the lemon rind. Mill for 10 seconds speed 10.
2. Add the pistachios, and chop for 2 seconds at speed 5 a few times until you get a sandy consistency and some larger chunks. You want to be able to taste the crunch.
3. Now add all the other ingredients except the butter and olive oil. Mix everything by setting your TM for 1 minute at speed 3. Whilst the blades are moving drop cubes of butter until you form a dough.
4. The dough ball needs to be quite firm so you may need to add some olive oil a tablespoon at a time. Mix it in at speed 3 for 10 seconds at a time.
5. You can shape the ball into a log about 4-5 cm wide and wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. I prefer lining a baking tray with baking paper and spreading the dough roughly in a 1cm rectangle and then I put it in the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour.
6. When ready to bake, turn the oven on at 150. Line a large baking tray with nonstick baking paper. Once the oven is hot, take out your dough roll or dough tray from the fridge. If you have a roll, cut 1cm disks and put onto the prepared baking tray, spaced 2cm apart. If you had, as I prefer, spread the dough onto a baking tray, place a piece of baking paper over your dough and with a rolling pin roll the dough to a 1cm thickness. Use cookie cutters about 4cm in diameter to cut out your biscuits. Put them onto a prepared baking tray, spaced 2cm apart.
7. Sprinkle some caster sugar and some salt (if using) liberally over the tops, then bake for 20 minutes until the edges become slightly golden but the biscuits are generally the same colour as before they went into the oven. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
8. Leave to cook out of the tin on a rack. It will keep for a week if you wrap it in cling film.