Chiacchiere
We’re at the very end of Carnival, or rather the season that kicks off on January 6th and continues until Fat Tuesday (tomorrow, 1 March!) As you probably know, Carnival — called Carnevale here in Italy — is a period of festivities and celebrations preceding Ash Wednesday and the austere 40 days of Lent to follow. So therefore: Carnival is also defined by lots and lots of good food.
The UK celebrates Shrove Tuesday with pancakes, a tradition born as a way to use up the household’s milk, eggs, and butter before the Lenten period. In Denmark, the Carnival period is marked with the appearance of fastelavnsboller or frosted, cream-filled sweet buns, a decadent treat before weeks of fasting. In the U.S, the city of New Orleans celebrates with King Cake, a braided, fried cake, glazed and frosted with bright colors and baked with a tiny baby figurine on the inside (whoever finds the toy in their slice must host the next big party).
And in Italy? Bakeries this time of year are brimming with dolci carnevaleschi, or fried Carnival sweets, gloriously golden and begging to be eaten with your morning coffee or for dessert (these are all-day-kind-of-dolci). The reasoning here is straightforward and sensible: if you'll theoretically be following Catholic protocol and fasting for forty days until Easter, you might as well go all out beforehand and eat your sweets fried and dusted in an abundance of sugar, no? Italy's typical Carnevale treats include cream-filled doughnuts called bomboloni, cloud-like fritters known as castagnole, fried, jam-filled pastries that go by the name crostoli, and perhaps the most popular of them all: chiacchiere.
(February may be low-season in Italy, but I would highly recommend traveling here this time of the year if not just for the dolci fritti tourism).
But back to that last one! The name chiacchiere (roughly pronounced ki-ah-ki-ere) translates roughly to chatter in Italian, coming from the verb chiacchierare, or to chat. The name supposedly goes all the way back to the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoia; legend has it that Margherita asked the court’s chef to prepare a sweet that could be enjoyed during le chiacchierate pomeridiane, or afternoon chats with her guests. The chef — named Raffaele Esposito, according to a little googling — was a pure genius, because chiacchiere have stood the test of time and spread all throughout Italy, where they go by slightly different names depending on where you are in the country (frappe, bugie, sfrappole, etc).
But I digress! Chiacchiere consist of a barely sweet, slightly buttery, lemon-scented pastry that is rolled out until paper-thin, cut into strips, then fried in happily bubbling oil until crisp and blistered. Once they’ve cooled slightly, they are showered generously with powdered sugar, making them as pretty as they are tasty. These beauties are more-ish, addictive, and so thin, light, and crispy that you can totally justify eating lots of them. If you’re me, you’ll pile them high on a plate for a real wow factor — a golden mountain of fried goodness — where they will be devoured by your lucky friends at alarming speed. On the off-chance you have leftovers, however, know that chiacchiere (unlike most other fried treats) keep well in a container for a few days, meaning you can keep your Carnevale going for breakfast, snack, dessert, or all of the above.
A couple of notes: Feel free to use orange zest in place of the lemon zest here if you would like. You can also coat these with granulated sugar if you prefer. Note that these should be cut with a fluted pastry cutter; I only had a ravioli cutter which isn’t quite fluted enough (in fact the edges aren’t as curly as they should be). Be sure to roll out the dough here as thin as you can for best results — a dough that is too thick will puff up in the middle and make for tough chiacchiere. If you have a pasta machine, use that and roll the dough out to 8 or so. Finally, this recipe comes from the talented and lovely Letitia Clarke (also behind this almond panna cotta and these maritozzi) and her wonderful book, La Vita è Dolce. A Letitia recipe is a guaranteed excellent recipe.
Looking for more fried sweets? Click here.
CHIACCHIERE
Recipe barely adapted from La Vita è Dolce by Letitia Clarke. Makes about 30, or enough for a party.
Ingredients:
2 cups (250 grams) flour
2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter, cold
2 tablespoons (25 grams) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 medium egg
2 tablespoons (30mL) milk
2 tablespoons (30mL) white wine
Zest of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Directions:
1. Put the flour in a large mixing bowl, and add the butter. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture has a fine, sandy texture. Add the salt, lemon zest, and sugar to the flour mix and stir. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, wine, and vanilla. Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour in the wet ingredients.
2. Use your hands to bring the mixture together to form a dough (if it looks dry at this point, add a touch more milk — I did). Transfer the dough to a work surface and knead well for around 5 minutes until smooth. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and leave to rest of at least 20 minutes.
3. When the dough has rested, roll out the dough until around 1mm thick — you can do this with a rolling pin or a pasta machine, if you have one (it should be thin enough to see through, almost). Flour the work surface as needed. Once the dough has been rolled out, use a fluted pastry cutter, cut uneven strips of dough. Add a little flour if if the dough feels sticky.
4. Heat some frying oil in a large, heavy-based pot (don’t fill it more than two-thirds way full) until it reaches 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit — if you don’t have a thermometer, test the oil by throwing in a tiny piece of bread. If it browns in 30 seconds, its ready. Begin to fry the chiacchiere a few at a time (video here!). Once evenly brown all over, remove them from the oil using a slotted spoon and drain on a tray lined with paper towels. Dust the chiaiccchiere with icing sugar while still warm and then serve.
