Angel Wings

Pastry rolled until you can see through it, knotted and fried for seconds.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter).

Ingredients

• 300 g plain flour
• 2 eggs
• 40 g caster sugar
• 30 g butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons grappa
• a pinch of salt
• 1 litre sunflower oil, for deep frying, which is poured off
• icing sugar, to finish

Method

1. Work the flour, eggs, sugar, butter, grappa and salt into a firm dough and knead it 10 minutes until smooth. Rest it, covered, for an hour.
2. THE GRAPPA IS NOT FOR FLAVOUR. Alcohol boils off faster than water, so the dough throws off steam the moment it hits the oil and blisters instead of soaking. Leave it out and these come out heavy.
3. Roll the dough as thin as you physically can — thin enough to read print through. A pasta machine at its second-finest setting does it in a minute; by hand it takes patience and is the difference between brittle and chewy.
4. Cut into strips about 4 cm by 12, slit each one down the middle and pull one end through to make a loose knot.
5. Heat the oil to 175C. Fry three or four at a time for 30 to 40 SECONDS, turning once. They puff and blister almost immediately and go from pale to burnt in the time it takes to look away.
6. Lift them onto a rack, pour the oil off once it has cooled, and dust heavily with icing sugar just before serving.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes