A nice Carnevale, Mardi-gras, Fasching to everyone. I'm not that big on celebrating this holiday, but I loved it as a kid. The costumes, silly jokes and most of all the typical sweets. And an Italian Carnevale would not be complete without chiacchiere. And since tomorrow is Saami's going to his first Carnevale party I decided to make some for him. These simple fried sweets go under a loads of different names according to where you come from in Italy:cenci, lattughe, stracci, frappe are just some of the used names. Apart from these differences the recipe doesn't change significantly. Chiacchiere are fundamentally sweetened fresh pasta dough, fried and dusted with sugar. They have a simple taste children love and are addictive. If you try them the first time you might think they don't taste of much but soon you'll find yourself munching on a new one.
The recipe I used is a slight modification of that given by Pellegrino Artusi, the author of the first real "Italian", and not regional-Italian, cookbook: La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene, i.e. science in cooking and the art of good eating. For the dough I used 240 g (8.5 oz) flour, 2 eggs, 20 g (0.7 oz) melted butter, 30 g (1 oz) confectioner's sugar and a nice Tbs of grappa (schnaps, kirsch, vodka, etc will do too, needed to allow these sweets to puff up). I mixed the ingredients together and kneaded the resulting dry satiny dough for about 10 minutes. After this I left it to rest 1 hour. Once rested one could roll out the dough with a rolling pin but the easiest option is to use a pasta rolling machine, starting at the widest opening and progressively decreasing. How thin you want to roll the dough is a matter of preference. I rolled mine till opening 4, of 7, on my pasta roller. That's because I like my chiacchiere crunchy outside but still a bit moist inside. If you'd like them crunchier just roll thinner. So I divided the dough in three pieces and rolled them out. I got three stripes, each of which got first cut in the middle length-wise with one of those pasta cutting "wheels". Then I cut diagonally to get lozenge shaped pieces, each of which got two short parallel length-wise cuts in the middle, to help them achieve their shape during frying. Once all were cut I fried them, a few at a time, till golden (it should take 3-5 min per piece, otherwise rise or reduce heat) and drained them. When you dip these in oil you should try to make them fold/curl a bit on themselves so they get interesting shapes. Once all were finished I dusted them with sugar. They're best eaten when still warm, as anything deep fried, but they keep fine for 1 day.
these chiacchiere have a good look,even i prefer do that more crunchy.
Saturday mum made the dought and i rolled very thin and fried that.
:-)))At your face i have eated that with a wonderfoul "sanguinaccio" made by Roberta.....a very senses experience!!!!!!i think that Saami cuold be appetizing of "sanguinaccio"!!!!!
Posted by: claudio | February 25, 2004 at 01:09 AM
All the informations about venice carnival at http://www.carnevale.venezia.it
Posted by: faber | February 07, 2005 at 04:00 PM