Ingredients
For pastry dough
3 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1/4 cup melted butter (at room temperature)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon Grappa or rum or Vino Santo (optional)
For flavoring:
1 teaspoon vanilla
OR
2 teaspoons anisette extract or liqueur
OR
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
For deep frying
Vegetable oil
For dusting
about 1/2 cup icing sugar
Directions
1. Melt the butter. Cool.
2. Beat the eggs.
3. In a bowl mix the eggs and butter together.
4. Add the desired flavoring the egg and butter mixture.
5. In separate bowl mix the flour, salt and sugar together.
6. Slowly add the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture and mix well.
7. Work the ingredients into a soft malleable dough. If the dough is too soft, add more flour. If it's too hard, add a touch more butter.
8. Divide the dough into two portions.
9. Shape the portions into two balls of dough (Technically, one could make one ball of dough, but as it is easier to work with fresh dough, it's best to divide the dough, so that while one works with one ball of the dough, the other can continue to rest, thus avoiding drying out the dough).
9. Wrap the balls of dough in plastic wrap.
10. Let the dough rest at room temperature for about an hour.
11. Take one of the balls of dough and roll it on a lightly floured board to 1/8 inch thick, or use a pasta machine (A pasta machine will facilitate the process!).
12. Using a serrated pastry cutter and a ruler for guidance (or a home-made cookie cutter) cut the dough into rectangles of 4 inches x 2 inches. Make two small slits in the middle of each rectangle (See photo).
13. Continue making the fritters, re-shaping whatever scraps of dough have been left over, and re-passing it through the pasta machine.
14. Repeat the steps with the second ball of dough.
15. Heat up oil.
16. Fry a few at a time, turning them over, making sure they are an even golden color (Do not brown, as they will taste burnt).
17. Remove with a slotted spoon.
18. Place on a dish with paper towels to drain excess oil.
19. Cool.
20. Before serving, dust with icing sugar.
Notes
There are hundreds of dough variations for this style of fritter. Most doughs from Northern Italy use butter, but nowadays some cooks are using olive oil, a few use lard. Basically one has to have a dough that can be passed through a pasta machine. If you get that -- the rest is quite easy. As for the flavoring, it all depends on personal taste. Photo: Mary Melfi. |
