Carnival fried pastry - Chiacchiere

Recipe for Italian Carnival deep fried sweets - chiacchiere

Preparation

• - Prepare chiacchiere dough.
  Put flour, sugar and salt in a bowl or on a work surface.
  Stir to blend. Make a well in the center and add eggs, olive oil and wine.
  With a fork or your fingertips, gradually, incorporate flour until a soft dough.
  Sometimes you'll have to add some flour if your dough is very sticky.
  Knead your dough on a floured work surface until smooth and elastic, 8-10 minutes.
  Cover with a napkin and allow to rest, at least 1h.
• - Give shape to chiacchiere.
  Roll out your dough on a lightly floured surface, beginning from the center, to a thickness of 0.3cm (1/8in).
  You have to use a long pasta rolling pin for this.
  Using a chef's knife or a pasta wheel, cut your dough into long strips, 3 to 4cm (1.5in) wide and then cut every strip into 10cm (4in) rectangles.
  Make some cuts in every rectangle.
  At any rate, feel free to give the shape you prefer as you can see in the photo.

Cooking

• - Fry chiacchiere.
  Heat abundant peanut oil or extra virgin olive oil in a deep pan.
  Add your dough rectangles few at a time.
  Scoop them out when they are nice and crisp and drain off the oil in excess putting them on kitchen paper.
• - Dust with icing sugar.

Just before serving

• - Serve chiacchiere warm or cold.

Note

Tips

• - You can replace white wine with other liqueurs (strong brandy) or color with some drops of alchermes.
  If you prepare chiacchiere for your children, replace wine with orange juice.
• - You could use 30g (1 ounce) unsalted butter in the dough instead of olive oil.

Menu planning

• - In Italy we have the habit to serve chiacchiere in Carnival parties and at the end of a lunch or a dinner.
  In the first case long tables are prepared with a lot of fried pastries, cakes and savory dishes, where guests are free to move and serve themselves.

Useful links for this recipe

• - You'll be able to find other versions of chiacchiere in our page dedicated to Carnival.

Healthy eating

• - It's very difficult to have the real amount of frying oil and icing sugar in this recipe for chiacchiere.
  So nutrition facts don't include these ingredients. If you want to include these ingredients, you have to add 100 to 150 calories per 100g (3 1/2 ounces) fried chiacchiere.
• - Deep frying should not be demonized but not frequently used as cooking method. Keep this in mind for a healthy eating.

Loretta

What's the right wine ?

My husband and I pair Malvasia di Castelnuovo Don Bosco (wine from Piedmont - Italy) to these deep fried sweets. In any case the best pairing is a dessert wine.