photo courtesy cookingwithsugar.com
Each year at this time I go deep into my memory of my Grandmother’s kitchen. She and her sisters were all splendid cooks and their aptitude and execution were something born of what I considered to be, then and now, miracles. Ostensibly daily, they could return from the oven with the most delectable of treats, the kind that a young child would embed into her psyche forever.
I was lucky enough to be surrounded by several competent cooks and bakers in my childhood. Between my Mom, who took such great pleasure from making and offering heartwarming foods from her kitchen and my paternal Grandmother who was highly instinctive in her cooking and baking, I was able to sense early on that there was something here worth getting to know, and, well beyond the eating. This is definitely where I can attribute the sparks beginning to fire and attach.
Fried dough as a treat or sustenance, exists in history and today in many cultures around the world. And, as we all know that necessity is the mother of invention, little pieces of flour and water fried up have been elevated to some of the most iconic food treats ever. Take the doughnut, the beignet, the churro – just to begin. Frying bits of dough may be the single most simple, diverse and ubiquitous food item across the planet. And, as I have a fascination with these, sort of historical, anthropological, and cultural similarities, I continue my little personal self-educating survey with an assurance that we are indeed connected in so many most humble ways. The Italians in particular, born of both poverty and genius seem to have created a wide assortment of fried dough items – you can write a virtual encyclopedia of them and all their iterations as diverse and enveloping as their locales, stories and individual family lore. If I could go through all of my Italian cookbooks and pull out the range of recipes, I’d be here all day.
Well, when I look back to my Grandmother’s kitchen, I consider the gravest and most curious error of my youth to be the absence of my predilection in getting her recipes, written down and committed to memory. That it was normal to be preoccupied with other things during the later times in my life but before she was gone, was normal and yet I can’t even begin to estimate the degree of regret at not being more diligent and mindful of what the consequences would be. These grave derelictions of duty perhaps motivated me like no other to begin my search, as I did for only one other recipe, the Honey Loaf from B. Altman (50 years), in such earnest, that I am here to tell you these two voids motivate and haunt me to this day. But, one recipe was from a kitchen I had no access to. The others were from a kitchen I visited all the time. Ugh.
Well, such is the story that one may find themselves continuing to be dwelling in, to this very day.
My Grandmother was seemingly a relatively simple woman of her day, adept at not only cooking and baking but at sewing, crocheting, and lace making as well. She was perhaps typical of her generation and orientation, but like no other to me. She kept a neat and tidy house and her home was always a haven of sorts for me. That I had little or no understanding of what else beyond the obvious went on in her mind, heart or soul, was then of no notice, but has now left me wondering. On her tree at Christmastime were the old-fashioned lights with a bubbly fluid rising up a colored tube, a sight we did not ourselves have in our house and this just added to the wonderment that occurs in a young child’s imagination.
Perhaps the most curious of all memories that I have of her kitchen is that when these treats were presented, she was always finished cooking and cleaning up. There, on the table would be a plate – and no other single sign of the work or mess that may have entailed before. Other than large family dinners when a roast was coming out of the oven after her most-precious homemade ravioli, I can not ever remember a tangible bit of evidence of the process of cooking being even remotely visible. Remarkable. This is certainly not like my kitchen!
Well, of course the loss of her Sweet Taralli recipe is one of the greatest losses of my childhood. As I have written here many times before, I have tried recipes from Aunts and friends and no one comes close to her iteration. Second, her Struffoli was an ever present image on her formica-topped kitchen table and from both my Aunt Madeline and Aunt “Bumpy”, my Grandmother’s sisters. I never sensed any competition among them and yet there were subtle differences, I’m sure.
Third among the cookie trio were the Ribbons. These are known as many other names in the Italian repertoire and they were also made by my Aunts Gloria and Josephine in splendid manner. Some were topped with almonds, some with sprinkles but all were topped with glorious honey, perhaps the inevitable hook that drew me in.
Making delectable ribbons is something that must be done carefully and with the instinct and skill of someone who knows what they are doing. They must be light and ethereal, not having absorbed any of the oil in which they are fried. They must be like feathers which exist to be the delivery system of the honey coating – at least in my mind and, for sure, one could easily polish off a full plate in one sitting.
I’ve never been a fryer of much of anything, finding the lingering effects of a large pot of oil and the aroma to be an irritant, but that never stopped me from eating them.
Anyway, yesterday I came upon this recipe, with a complete pictorial no less, and I was instantly transported back into Grandma’s kitchen, and with a lump at the back of my throat to boot.
Thank you to cookingwithsugar.com for this great post. There are indeed hundreds of recipes out there so, if not this one, try any one you prefer. See if you can master this. Trying to match your memory is quite a challenge!
You should go there directly to observe all of the photos. /http://www.cookingwithsugar.com/grandmas-italian-ribbon-christmas-cookies-recipe/
Notes about fried dough: aside from developing a tender dough, the most critical element of success in making these is to maintain the proper temperature of the oil. You will note that here, an electric fry pan is used, most of which had their own built in temperature controls. You can of course, use a candy thermometer. Do not over fill the pot when you are frying or allow the temperature of the oil to get too hot or too cool. If this happens, stop and readjust the temperature. If the oil becomes too hot, throw it out and start over.
Mom’s Italian Ribbon Cookies – recipe courtesy cookingwithsugar.com
2 pounds flour (buy in 2 pound bag) or 6 and 2/3 cups
½ cup sugar
½ cup canola oil
canola oil for frying (check this)
8 large eggs
3 and ½ tablespoons baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Ingredients to Drizzle After Cooking
2-3 cups honey
Powdered sugar shaker
Step 1: Mix Dry Ingredients: Add flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to your mixing bowl.
Step 2: Mix Wet Ingredients: In a separate bowl, cream together the eggs and ½ cup of the canola oil.
Step 3: Start the mixer and begin to combine just the dry ingredients with a dough hook on slow speed. After mixing for minute or two, stop the mixer momentarily, lift the dough hook and create a well in the middle of the flour mixture so you can add the egg/oil mixture.
Gradually add the egg/oil mixture with the mixer on slower to medium speed. You’ll continue to mix with the dough hook and carefully fold the mixture into itself with the aid of a spatula over a period of about 15 minutes to create a dough. Your dough is ready when all of the dough has pulled off of the sides of the mixer and you’ve got a ball of dough.
When you take the dough ball out of the mixer, turn on your electric frying pan, set it to 350 degrees and add several cups of canola oil until you have a few inches of oil to fry your cookies in.
Christmas-Cookies-Recipes-Italian-Ribbon-Cookies-dough9
This can be done with a regular frying pan but maintaining a consistent temperature with a regular pan can be a challenge.
While your oil is heating, place your dough on a clean counter surface and knead the dough by hand for a few minutes while still in a ball shape. Then, knead the ball into a cylinder shape about a foot long and a few inches in diameter.
Swaddle the dough in a clean dish towel, to keep the dough moist while your oil heats up and so you can prepare your mixer with the dough / pasta roller attachment.
When the mixer roller attachment is in place, slice off about a ½ inch of the dough to feed into the roller attachment.
Set the roller attachment to the largest opening and feed the dough into the roller, passing it through from top to bottom. As it comes out of the bottom, it will be thinner as you knead it. Now fold the dough over itself and pass it through the roller again 2 or three times, folding it again before you feed it each time.
Then, to get the dough thin enough to cut into ribbons that will become the cookies, adjust the setting of the roller to a thinner setting and pass it through again without folding it.
Do this one or two more times, adjusting the thickness two more times to get to the desired thickness (about 1/8 inch or less).
(Tip: On my Kitchen Aid, I start with the thickest setting, which is the lowest number. As you raise the number on the attachment, the thinner the compression of the dough.)
Lay the strip of dough onto a cutting board and using a pastry wheel, slice the dough into ribbons about ½ inch in width.
Twist gently into ribbons (like the shape of breast cancer awareness) or cut into triangles or any shape you like.
Lay about a dozen or so into the oil gently one at a time without overlapping and allow to begin frying.
After a couple of minutes, use a slotted metal spoon to lift and see if the bottoms are brown. Once golden brown, gently turn over to fry the other side.
Cookies are done when golden brown on both sides. Remove with slotted spoon by draining the oil at the edge of the pan and then place onto a cookie sheet lined with paper towels.
To finish cookies, lay on plates or platters of desired size. I recommend giving away most of these because the recipe yields over 100 cookies! Drizzle with honey and add sprinkles and powdered sugar to your heart’s content!
There now – there is one example. I hope you will try at least one fried dough treat of your choice and origin this holiday season! Ciao!