Sfenj

Wet unsweetened dough shaped with a wet hand and pulled open with a finger, fried and eaten within the hour.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains honey.

Ingredients

• 600 g plain flour
• 10 g fast-action yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• about 450 ml warm water
• 1.5 litres flavourless oil, for frying
• caster sugar or honey, to finish

Method

1. THERE IS NO SUGAR IN THE DOUGH AND NO EGG AND NO BUTTER. Flour, water, yeast and salt, and nothing else. The sugar goes on afterwards. Sweetened dough browns far too fast in the oil and the middle stays raw, which is why these are not doughnuts however much they look like them.
2. THE DOUGH IS DELIBERATELY TOO WET TO HANDLE and is worked with a wet hand throughout -- a bowl of water beside the pan, dipped into before touching the dough every single time. Floured hands make it tighten and the texture goes from open and chewy to bready.
3. A HOLE IS PULLED THROUGH WITH A FINGER AND STRETCHED WIDE, much wider than seems sensible, because it closes in the oil. A small neat hole disappears entirely and the middle is undercooked.
4. Yeast into the warm water, 10 minutes until frothy.
5. Flour and salt in a large bowl, the yeast water added, and beaten with a wet hand 5 minutes -- lifting and slapping rather than kneading. It will be a sticky batter-like dough.
6. Covered and risen 2 hours, until doubled, bubbly and slack.
7. Oil to 170C in a deep pan.
8. With a WET hand, a fistful of dough squeezed so a ball rises between thumb and forefinger, pinched off, and a hole pushed through the centre with a wet finger.
9. Stretched to a ring with a hole the size of a two-pound coin and dropped carefully into the oil.
10. Three or four at a time only. More and the oil cools and they soak.
11. Fried 2 minutes, turned, 2 minutes more, until deep gold and hollow when tapped. Turned again if one side is pale.
12. Drained on a rack and tossed in caster sugar while hot, or dipped in honey.
13. Eaten within the hour. They are leathery by evening and there is no reviving them.

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 Morocco · All recipes