Strufoli
Coarse, heavy, completely without nuance and totally beguiling, strufoli are the one food that can seriously soften my spine.
A Neapolitan Christmas sweet, strufoli are little balls of lightly sweetened dough, fried and drizzled with-depending on your family and village-honey, honey and cinnamon syrup, or honey and wine syrup. A shake of gaudy sprinkles seems to be universal.
Go to most American Little Italy communities in mid-December and you're likely to find a bakery with cases of cellophane wrapped plates mounded with "honey balls." But be wary. They will never taste like the ones Nana made and you will be sadly disillusioned-more proof that things used to be better and soon you'll be dead.
Every year my grandmother would make them for her grandchildren, each family got a big dish, delivered in person or mailed. My brother and I would attack her like two little animals when she brought them in the door and in a matter of minutes we would be seriously sticky, vying for the biggest morsel, the drippiest one, the one stuck with the most sprinkles.
One year, as a thoughtless teenager, I spent a Saturday with her rolling the dough into ropes, cutting the little pieces, frying them, and drizzling. I don't remember the recipe, I don't remember her technique, and I don't even remember eating them that day. I do remember her big stainless steel slotted spoon-more like a perforated plate on the end of a stick-and that the small kitchen was filled with her pleasure at my presence. I hope I was gracious enough to warrant it.
She got old, unable to take on the annual task, the grandchildren scattered, and strufoli were lost. A few years later, when my son was about three, I came across a recipe from a translated Italian cookbook and with all the energy and sentiment of a new mother, decided to resurrect a tradition. It was awful and embarrassing. They fried up nicely, if you ate them the instant they came out of the oil. One half hour later, they were, shall we say, al dente and the day after that, inedible marbles. But I hadn't realized how tough they would get before I had boxed them up as gifts for my son's preschool teachers. That's where the embarrassing part comes in.
Every few years I would stumble on strufoli-a musty dish in a New Jersey grocery, a good plate in a local deli, made by the sandwich maker's mother who was going back to Italy the next day, sigh. They were always just out of reach.
But then this recipe from Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen by the Gina DePalma, a pastry chef at Mario Batali's restaurants. I figured it was at least worth trying, particularly since she mentions in her headnote that tossing them in warm honey seems to keep them frm getting stale. This recipe has been worked out for flavor and consistency by a restaurant chef who needs recipes that work, not a shaky translation, but a super-vetted recipe.
When I sent this recipe to my cousins and aunt the reactions were mixed. One had forgotten all about strufoli, and speculated that maybe he had blocked them out. But others had warm memories of the box arriving in the mail, and marking the start of Christmas. My aunt recalled that when she was a girl, my grandmother spent hours in the kitchen with her mother, Anita, making so much strufoli that is would last until February. They were "jawbreakers" by then, she remembers "but we ate them anyway."
Clearly my grandmother was passing along much more than fried dough. I'll bet her head was full of memories of her mother as she made sweet things for her grandchildren.
I hope you'll try this recipe, it worked very well for me and my family. I'm so glad to have this tradition back. DePalma's rich dough, lightened with baking powder, along with her technique of tossing them in warm honey kept the strufoli from getting stale. I took liberties, and added a bit of vin santo to the warm honey, which made my brother accuse me of being a "gourmet." I've been called worse.
A Neapolitan Christmas sweet, strufoli are little balls of lightly sweetened dough, fried and drizzled with-depending on your family and village-honey, honey and cinnamon syrup, or honey and wine syrup. A shake of gaudy sprinkles seems to be universal.
Go to most American Little Italy communities in mid-December and you're likely to find a bakery with cases of cellophane wrapped plates mounded with "honey balls." But be wary. They will never taste like the ones Nana made and you will be sadly disillusioned-more proof that things used to be better and soon you'll be dead.
Every year my grandmother would make them for her grandchildren, each family got a big dish, delivered in person or mailed. My brother and I would attack her like two little animals when she brought them in the door and in a matter of minutes we would be seriously sticky, vying for the biggest morsel, the drippiest one, the one stuck with the most sprinkles.
One year, as a thoughtless teenager, I spent a Saturday with her rolling the dough into ropes, cutting the little pieces, frying them, and drizzling. I don't remember the recipe, I don't remember her technique, and I don't even remember eating them that day. I do remember her big stainless steel slotted spoon-more like a perforated plate on the end of a stick-and that the small kitchen was filled with her pleasure at my presence. I hope I was gracious enough to warrant it.
She got old, unable to take on the annual task, the grandchildren scattered, and strufoli were lost. A few years later, when my son was about three, I came across a recipe from a translated Italian cookbook and with all the energy and sentiment of a new mother, decided to resurrect a tradition. It was awful and embarrassing. They fried up nicely, if you ate them the instant they came out of the oil. One half hour later, they were, shall we say, al dente and the day after that, inedible marbles. But I hadn't realized how tough they would get before I had boxed them up as gifts for my son's preschool teachers. That's where the embarrassing part comes in.
Every few years I would stumble on strufoli-a musty dish in a New Jersey grocery, a good plate in a local deli, made by the sandwich maker's mother who was going back to Italy the next day, sigh. They were always just out of reach.
But then this recipe from Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen by the Gina DePalma, a pastry chef at Mario Batali's restaurants. I figured it was at least worth trying, particularly since she mentions in her headnote that tossing them in warm honey seems to keep them frm getting stale. This recipe has been worked out for flavor and consistency by a restaurant chef who needs recipes that work, not a shaky translation, but a super-vetted recipe.
When I sent this recipe to my cousins and aunt the reactions were mixed. One had forgotten all about strufoli, and speculated that maybe he had blocked them out. But others had warm memories of the box arriving in the mail, and marking the start of Christmas. My aunt recalled that when she was a girl, my grandmother spent hours in the kitchen with her mother, Anita, making so much strufoli that is would last until February. They were "jawbreakers" by then, she remembers "but we ate them anyway."
Clearly my grandmother was passing along much more than fried dough. I'll bet her head was full of memories of her mother as she made sweet things for her grandchildren.
I hope you'll try this recipe, it worked very well for me and my family. I'm so glad to have this tradition back. DePalma's rich dough, lightened with baking powder, along with her technique of tossing them in warm honey kept the strufoli from getting stale. I took liberties, and added a bit of vin santo to the warm honey, which made my brother accuse me of being a "gourmet." I've been called worse.
