¡Hola~
I recently discovered the joys of frying dough. My friend Kevin told me I'm too obsessed with making scones. For a time, I have to agree with him. I have already achieved my goal of making scones that actually poof up and rise. Also, I was able to gain new ideas to jazz up the British tea classic--but not without help.
Kicking off my fried dough obsession with the bang is El Masa Frita Clásico~
Okay. So my churros are not stick-straight. I prefer loopy churros because my baby brother is my biggest customer. I got oblong-ish ones, some are letter C's or Q's, some are circular, or mini circles. Upon request, I could even make heart shapes or other letters. A lot of purists would most likely hate on me; but I eat and make them at home so it's no big deal. To each his own, right? Besides, the one I got in the photo is the miniature and a browner and thriftier version of Dulcinea's famous churros.
I haven't eaten or bought the restaurant version and I don't plan on doing so in the near future. Primary reason would be because it's expensive and second is my personal principle:
Why buy something that you have the time to make at home?
I don't want to spend more than $2 on some fried dough. Really, I've become cheap to the core (Justine See, my ultra-frugal Chinese friend, strongly approves).
These are churros we're talking about! We don't need to get fancy with it (as with all the stuff I got in my blog)! Since the day it was brought to Europe, it's always contained the simplest ingredients and I don't see why I really need/want to buy something so simple to make.
Churros con Chocolate
Scouring the net, I found different approaches to making churros. I would post the Momeki Way in here, but let's go through the basic steps first from howtobaker.com. From his recipe, you could see that the basic churro dough contains flour, water, salt and sugar (to taste), and vegetable oil. I've seen another blogger use butter instead of vegetable oil. I'll leave it up to you to choose the lesser evil between butter and vegetable oil.
FOR A GLUTEN-FREE APPROACH, substitute regular flour with a gluten-free variety or mix together 1/2 cup white rice flour, 1/4 cup sweet rice flour, and 1/4 cup tapioca flour (bonus points for the gluten-free brownie recipe).
It's all a matter of personal taste.
The basic process of making the churro dough is similar to that of making profiteroles except the latter has eggs and lots of butter:
1) Combine water, oil, sugar, and salt in a deep pan. Bring to a boil.
2) Remove from heat and start mixing in the flour until a soft dough forms.
I suppose you already know what comes next, so we won't elaborate on that.
But if you don't like the idea of having around 1/4 cup of greasy goodness in your churro dough, maybe you could try the Momeki Way.
Let me just beat you to the criticism/s--I know using instant hotcake mix is a total cheap-ass trick; but let's face reality here. Not all of us have the time (and patience) to make it from scratch and in that same thought, not all of us live with people who share our views with making food from scratch.
Before I forget, this recipe originally came from here. I tweaked the measurements a little and added some ingredients here and there. Originally, the Maya Kitchen recipe didn't contain a recipe for the dipping sauce. So, I'll include that in here :D
Ingredients
(The Momeki Way)
Dough and Cinnamon-Sugar:
200 g. instant hotcake mix
1/4 cup cornstarch
8-10 tbsp water
cooking oil for frying (you could use any sort of oil you like; just not used oil)
4-5 tbsp sugar
3 tsp ground cinnamon
Dark Chocolate Sauce:
1/4 cup of chopped dark chocolate (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)
5 tbsp hot water or heated milk
2 tsp unsalted butter
1/4 tsp brown sugar
1/2 to 1 tsp instant coffee powder
Directions
To Make the Dough and Cinnamon-Sugar
1. In a mixing bowl, combine the hotcake mix, corntarch, and 5 tbsp of water. Mix well.
2. Gradually add tablespoons of water until you get a mushy, moist, sticky dough.
3. Scoop up the dough into a large and heavy duty piping bag with a star-shaped tip.
4. Prepare the cinnamon-sugar by combining sugar and cinnamon until it becomes a brown sugary mixture. Have it ready for the freshly-fried churros.
5. Heat the oil in either a deep-set frying pan or a small pot. When sufficiently hot, pipe the churro dough to fry.
Be quick and attentive to your churros! It cooks quickly and tends to get tough to chew when left to cook longer in the frying pan.
6. When it gets golden brown, scoop the churro out of the hot oil and roll in cinnamon-sugar.
To Make the Dark Chocolate Sauce:
There are different approaches to making chocolate sauce. You could choose to make a huge batch using the double boiler method; or go the quick way (by nuking the whole thing). If you don't have the metal mixing bowl for double boiling or not fancy The Nuke method, you could--
1. Except the water/milk, combine everything else in a small mixing bowl (and by small just the size of an individual-serve soup bowl).
2. In a small pan, bring the milk/water to a boil then remove from heat.
3. Pour the heated liquid over everything in the bowl; then whisk with an egg beater or a fork until smooth.
* It's best to prepare the sauce ahead of time then just reheat it when the churros are cooked.
** If you don't like how the churros gets tough and uncrunchy when it gets cold, you could sneak in about 1/8 tsp of baking powder into your dough to make a softer result. Adding more, maybe 1/4-1/2 tsp would yield a doughnut. An instant-just-add-water sort of doughnut.
*** If you're the dulce de leche or caramel sauce sort of churros-eater, you could cook a small can of sweetened condensed milk over medium-low heat with frequent stirring until it turns a caramel color. In UK English, dulce de leche is also toffee.
**** Want to be a wee-bit adventurous? Try using Andes Creme de Menthe Thins instead of the usual dark chocolate and infuse the churro dough stuff the dough with mini mallows. How about adding a little bit of nutmeg to your cinnamon sugar and melting Whittaker's Dark Orange Chocolate for the dip? Or have an Earl Grey-tea infused dark chocolate sauce to go with lemon-flavored churros~ Once you master the basics, you could run away with your imagination on this one :D
I had this inspiration to have this exploration of the fried dough when my friend and I went to Chinatown and saw a street hawker fry a bunch of steamed meat buns. Also because my oven (toaster) needed serious cleaning; so I couldn't cook in it.
Before going on this calorific endeavor to learn about different cultural variations on the fried dough, I was only familiar with doughnuts and fried pork dumplings. I just found this recipe of the Indian fried dough favorite Gulab Jamon, which I will make when I got the time. For something savoury, Empanadas~ (Fried veggie/meat pies), which also came from Spain/Portugal. (And to think I'm supposed to be swamped with thesis work this school term >_<)
So much food, so little time! For now, have some churros and don't forget to drink lots and lots of water. I'm gonna sleep now,
¡buenas noches♥
No comments:
Post a Comment