It’s About the Food: The perfect chocolate chip cookie

I know a few pastry chefs that occasionally come over to the dark side and mingle with the tribe in the main kitchen, but they often retreat back to their orderly sanctuary of neatly arranged éclairs and dehumidified pastiage. I do not know many savory chefs that feel at home in the pastry kitchen. Their warm fingers melt the butter before it can be incorporated into a fine pate brisee, and chefs impulsively complicate simple bread recipes. Desserts made by chefs often look more like food and less like sculpture or landscaping on the plate.

Even though chefs rely on pastry chefs to provide the dénouement of the meal, a wise chef knows that occasionally he must rely on himself to execute dessert. No doubt pastry chefs could muddle their way through a few soups, sauces and entrees, albeit all wrapped in some sort of pastry.

Of all the sweets I make, my chocolate chip cookie recipe takes the cake. A few years ago I sought out the perfect chocolate chip recipe. I discovered that chocolate chip recipes are about as personal and subjective as chili recipes and good barbecue. I had to sample about a dozen various ‘‘perfect chocolate chip cookie” recipes until I distilled my own ultimate rendition. They get rave reviews and I’m happy to share.

One batch of this recipe may seem large, but the amount of each ingredient is conveniently similar to the way they are packaged in the store. A moderately powerful home mixer fitted with a paddle as opposed to a whisk is the best tool for making cookie dough.

* 1 pound unsalted butter

* 2 cups sugar

* 2 cups brown sugar

* 4 eggs

* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

* 1 teaspoon salt

* 2 teaspoon baking soda

* 6 cups all purpose flour

* 4 cups bittersweet chocolate morsels, or hand-chopped chocolate

Butter: all cooks, both pastry and savory cooks use unsalted butter. You are the cook, you add the salt. Salted butter is for toasted English muffins and bagels. While there are more and more gourmet butters on the market, the key is fresh butter, or young butter, so check the born on date. Butter is a primary ingredient in most cookies. If you choose to substitute margarine or transfats for the butter in this recipe, you are reading the wrong column. Eat butter in moderation, but please use real butter. If you want to get fancy with the butters, play with recipes called butter cookies or short bread (shortening = butter or fat). Set the butter out on the counter for an hour before mixing the cookie dough so it is soft and easier to incorporate.

Sugar: Hey, I may just be a cook, but refined crystallize sugar is what it is. If you want to get fancy with exotic sugars, play with other recipes called sugar cookies. Brown sugar is refined crystallized sugar that is coated in molasses. Butter comes in a pound. Brown sugar comes in a box that is two cups. If you are out of brown sugar, you can use regular sugar and add molasses.

Just about anytime you see butter, sugar and eggs in a recipe, the butter and sugar are beaten or ‘‘creamed” together first. Do not add the eggs until the butter and sugar are thoroughly combined, the sugar has begun to dissolve, and butter is practically whipped.

Eggs: Again, no substitutes. If you use only egg whites, your cookies will be deflated meringues. If you use egg substitute, well you might as well buy cookies made by elves. Let the eggs sit out for an hour to take the chill off so they will incorporate themselves into the dough better. And in order to prevent bits of shell from getting into the batter, always crack eggs on a flat surface rather than the edge of a bowl, and break the eggs into a small bowl or measuring cup and then pour them into the mixing bowl. The vanilla can join in with the eggs.

While beating the butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs together in the mixer, in a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Remember, this is a pastry recipe rendered by a savory chef, so in this case the flour is measured in cups. I do not know what the equivalent would be by weight. Why salt? Because even sweets need salt to engage the whole tongue and make all the flavors come alive.

Set the paddle on the lowest speed and drape a clean kitchen towel over the machine and the bowl. This will help prevent the kitchen and the cook from being dusted with a light coating of flour, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture a little at a time and beat until it is thoroughly incorporated. The machine will strain to keep all this going, so have all the chocolate ready to go.

As the name of this cookie implies, chocolate is the pre-eminent or feature ingredient, so make it good chocolate. I avoid the regular chips as they are generally loaded with stabilizers and who knows what else. Real chocolate wants to melt around room temperature, so if chocolate stays in small hard miniature kisses in a warm kitchen, you need to wonder. While decent chocolate chips do come in bags, which measure about two cups a bag, may I recommend buying high quality chocolate in bars and chop it yourself with a chef’s knife.

The type of chocolate — semi-sweet, bitter-sweet, white, milk — is a subjective and personal choice. In my opinion, this cookie has enough going on that the chocolate should be simple, good quality, and not too sweetened or distracted by other flavors or dairy. One measure of good chocolate is that most of the cacao butter is retained from the original cacao bean. Seek out 60 – 63 percent cacao chocolate. This is the modern definition of very good semi sweet chocolate.

Add the chocolate until the pieces are uniformly distributed throughout the dough. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight. The glutens in the flour need to rest, and the butter needs to chill. This recipe also freezes very well.

A convection oven is preferable for baking cookies since the heat blows around and cooks the surfaces more evenly. Most cookie recipes call for 350 degrees. Maybe it’s my oven, or maybe its just me, but I like to bake these cookies at 360 degrees.

While slick sheet trays and parchment paper are good materials on which to bake cookies, I like to use re-usable silicone baking sheets. A very small ice cream scooper is great for consistent portion control and uniform shape.

While many people like their cookie dough raw, I like my cookies at least medium rare. Arrange the dough balls well apart from each other as the cookies will spread out as they cook. Bake for 12-15 minutes or at least until the edges are brown. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet just until they are firm enough to handle, but still warm enough so they can be served, well, hot out of the oven.