Sourdough Fritters

44.

I made a fast recreation because I wanted to make fried bread and had the ingredients, they were underwhelming. But not every recreation is successful.

From Libro B from “Due Libri di Cucina” we get a few fritter recipe, but the simplest one is this:

LVII
Chi voI e fare frictelle levetate, tolli lu leveto del pane overo formento, se non petisci avere suco de bono herbolato, et frigile in olio tanto che non vaga tucto socto.

He who wants to make leavened fritters, take the leaven of the bread or else corn, if you cannot have juice of good herbs, and fry them in oil so much that they do not go all beneath.

And a basic recipe recreation with a lot of assumptions:

• 200 g very active sourdough starter
  

  End result

• 200 g water
• 300 g flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• oil for frying

1. dissolve sourdough in water
2. mix in 100 g flour till fully incorporated
3. let rest 20 minutes
4. mix in salt and oil
5. Gently mix in enough flour till it’s thick enough to pick up pieces of the batter with a two spoons and drop them in the oil.
6. let rise 1-5 hours covered with a wet towel in a warm area
7. remove a spoonful of dough
8. drop into hot oil, if it floats it’s risen enough
9. continue dropping in spoonfuls till the oil is full
10. rotate balls as needed till they’re golden brown (they will puff up a lot)
11. remove and drain on papertowel
12. eat

Ok so this wasn’t an unmitigated disaster but it’s kinda meh. The look is there, actually I think they look great, but I don’t generally judge food only on looks. Yes it’s fried bread but it’s more like a deep fried bun than the light and airy fried bread that we generally eat today. There were nice crispy bits and the center was nice and soft but the flavour just wasn’t there.

Some thoughts for what might make it better:

• add the juiced herbs as given as an option in the original recipe
• add more salt
• use the 1″ of olive oil in a pan fry method instead of the deep fry method
• add sugar to the dough then dust with sugar after
• skip adding more flour to the batter (step 5) and use it as a liquid batter