stilton and pecan shortbreads

 “Maybe I should make a coulibiac of salmon with a whole salmon.”

This is a line from The Oakdale Dinner Club,  Toronto-based novelist and food blogger Kim Moritsugu’s latest book. It’s about a woman who launches a dinner club in order to have an affair. The book is so full of food references that it made me dream about food. The last book to do that was Lorna Doone when I woke up after dreaming of pints of ale and platters of meat.

The stilton shortbreads crop up in the book as an after-school snack (only in Toronto!) and the recipe is included. They are the perfect tiny bite to accompany pre-dinner cocktails. You can find Kim’s blog, The Hungry Novelist here.

But back to that quote about the coulibiac of salmon. I have to admit, I had to look it up. Here’s the definition straight from Wikipedia.

A coulibiac (from Russian: кулебя́ка kulebyáka) is a Russian dish consisting of a filled pie usually made with salmon or sturgeon, rice or buckwheat, hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, onions, and dill. The pie is baked in a pastry shell, usually of brioche or puff pastry.

And this is what a coulibiac looks like (image from BBC Good Food:

And now I really want to make a salmon coulibiac. Perhaps I’ll start my own dinner club and we can start with chilled Russian vodka and Stilton Shortbread.

Stilton and Pecan shortbread

• Servings: ~30 biscuits
• Print

Slightly adapted from The Oakdale Dinner Club

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup Stilton, or other blue cheese, crumbled
• 1  1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

Cream together the softened butter, sugar, and salt.

Mix the flour until the mixture is a bit like breadcrumbs. Mix in the crumbled  Stilton or blue cheese.

Shape the mixture into two, 1-inch diameter logs. Roll in the finely chopped pecans (I pulsed mine in the food processor). Chill for an hour.

Preheat oven to 325 deg F. Slice the biscuits into rounds – about 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick. Place on parchment on a baking tray. Bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Let cool. These taste even better the next day.

 

 

 

 

Advertisement