Think On It

la buona cucina americana: Doughnuts

I come from a place where the doughnut is king. I even have my own joke about it that goes: the reason why New Englanders don’t make good fried chicken is because when we see that much hot fat we make doughnuts.

When my sisters and brothers and I came home from school in the cold afternoons, we were as likely to be greeted with fresh, hot doughnuts as other kids were greeted by peanut butter and jam sandwiches. It is supposed that policemen especially like doughnuts, and I always thought that were I to have a jewelry shop I would put it next to a doughnut shop to be sure I was protected well by the policemen.

To a great degree that day is over. Factory made doughnuts, not one of which is worth one crumb from a freshly homemade or even shop made doughnut, have all but withered away the once common practice of creative doughnutry. What does it matter that you can buy a maple glazed doughnut rolled in chopped nuts if the doughnut itself is heavy, dense, cold and tasteless? Although it should not be saved in my personal kitchen, doughnut making should be revived and saved. Perhaps the Italians who have managed to maintain a recipe for making noodles out of breadcrumbs for 550 years will taste these and decide to save doughnuts as well?

The truth is, these are really easy to make. They are too easy to make. I feel like Pandora opening this box for you. You can whip these up in minutes. They can disappear in seconds. They are delicious just as they come out of the pan or rolled in sugar and you really only need to learn about glazes and various things they can be rolled in if you open a shop near the Piazza di Spagna, where I will be your occasional client for one plain and one sugared.

It probably leaps to your mind that we do not have doughnut cutters in Italy, and that is true. That’s why mine are doughnut sticks. If you have a sharp biscuit cutter, you could use that and then something tiny to remove the center, or you can order a doughnut cutter and let the dogana figure it out, but ALWAYS claim that it is a cultural object. It’s true; doughnuts are definitely a cultural object. Do not try to wrestle these into a circle like a bagel; this dough is way too delicate. Or go ahead and try anything, and if it works please tell me.

This recipe, which is half a recipe, works. It is from a 1960 edition of Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and is a recipe from New England. To make a lot of them, double it—if you run a B&B or have six children or are married to a policeman?

Doughnuts

2 egg yolks
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon seed oil
3/8 cup milk
1 ¾ cup sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Oil for frying

Beat the egg yolks well, and then beat in the sugar and oil. Stir in the milk. Sift together the dry ingredients and then beat them into the liquids until smooth. Turn the dough out onto a generously floured board, turning it to lightly cover all of it in flour. It is quite sticky, so use plenty of flour. Gently roll it out to 1/3” thick. (I actually patted it out with a floury palm.)

Heat the cooking oil or fat 3 to 4” deep in a heavy kettle or a fryer. Heat it to 370-380° F (a cube of bread will brown in 60 seconds).

Cut dough with a floured cutter, which should be sharp. The dough is delicate and must not be over handled. Take the cutting board near the oil when you are ready to fry the doughnuts. Using a metal spatula, lift the shapes off the board and slide them into the oil. Don’t crowd them. Fry as many at a time as can easily be turned. Turn the doughnuts as they rise to the surface and show a little color. This allows the center to break the crust as it swells, making the outsides much crispier. Fry a few at a time for just 2 to 3 minutes, until just browned on both sides. Lift the finished doughnuts from the fat with a long fork, but do not prick them. Drain them on paper towels in a warm spot. You can then roll them in sugar, cinnamon and sugar or glaze them. Makes 12 doughnuts.

You can re-use frying fat several times by merely frying potatoes in it, then cooling, straining and storing it in a clean bottle. Whether you eat the potatoes is up to you. The flavors of what you’ve been cooking go into them, and therefore leave the fat ready to use for a different recipe.

In italiano

Questo dolce della vera cucina americana è comune a prima colazione, ma anche è fatto della mamma per la merenda dopo scuola. Ho tanti ricordi dei doughnuts tra la mia gioventù. Sono cresciuta in uno stato dove faceva un freddo polare tra l’inverno, e il doughnut è perfetto quando una bambina entra la casa, con il profumo un po’ speziato, un po’ zuccherato e c’è anche che dove sono i doughnuts, diciamo che c’è anch il poliziotto. I poliziotti vanno pazzi per i doughnuts. Come mai non fate almeno una volta un dolce che porta felicità e anche securità? Come si pronuncia questa parola? DO-naht.

Doughnuts

2 tuorli
115 g zucchero
1 cucchiaio olio di semi
100 ml latte
240 g farina 00
2 cucchiaini di té di lievita in polvere (quella chimica)
1 g sale
pizzico noce moscato
pizzico canella

Olio per friggere

In una ciottola, battete bene i tuorli, e poi aggiungete lo zucchero e battete bene, bene per sciolgiere lo zucchero. Aggiungete il latte e l’olio e mescolatela.

Mescolate gli ingredienti asciutti e aggiungetegli alla pasta, battendola bene. Disperdete generosamente qualche farina sul un piano di lavoro. Fate girare per infarinarla bene la pasta che sarà morbidissima a delicata. Distendete la pasta a un centimetro. Usando un coltello ben farinato, tagliate la pasta in bastoncini circa 2 cm larghi per 7 cm lunghi.

Riscaldate l’olio per friggere fino a 187 – 193°C. Un dado di pane sarebbe arosolato in un minuto.

Quando l’olio è caldo, alzate le strisce di pasta con una spatula al’olio bollente. Si può cucinare 3 o 4 alla volta, ma dovete lasciare lo spazio a girarle. Vanno subito al fondo, e poi vengono alla superficie, leggermente arosolate di sotto. Girare le strisce fino a tutte sono gonfiate e arosolate e dorate. Togietele a qualche carta da cucina. Continuate fino a tutti sono cotti. Si può spargere lo zucchero come mostrato, o anche un misto di zucchero e canella.

Sono buonissimi tiepidi, ma anche a temperatura ambiente. Possono essere congelati senza lo zucchero, poi riscaldati a quel punto anche zuccherati se volete.

Fa un piatto di circa 24 stecche, o colazione per 8-10 persone normali o 3 poliziotti.

14 comments May 16th, 2008

My Aunt Laurette

I’ve learned this morning that my Aunt Laurette has died at age 94. That’s a long life, to be sure, especially if the last of it was fraught with the terror of Alzheimer’s disease, which begins to seem the curse of that generation of my family. You can’t help but feel that this last step was a relief for her, although it leaves a saddened family.

And it leaves me sad, too, because I have rarely met a woman like her. We lived nearby for much of my early childhood and she was one of the markers of my early life. I learned a good bit about bearing up and going on from her, but she did it with the kindest of smiles for everyone.

Aunt Laurette was married to my Uncle Richard, who physically resembled my father, his younger brother. They had twelve children. They sat down fourteen at table when they were alone, but often there were others invited and the enormous kitchen rang with noisy people and a busyness that resembled an anthill. Each older child seemed to have the care of a younger one. Food came off the cooker and onto the table in quantities that were unimaginable to me at the time. Everyone had a chore and did it. If it hadn’t been that way, life could have been a shambles in a moment.

And there was love. I can remember watching the older girls make hairdos for the tiny twins– not at the table, of course. I remember thinking that I could see and feel the love they had for the twins in what they did for them. It shone also in what they did for others. Tina, the daughter one year older than me, was assigned to take me to school my first day. It took all the scary out of it for me. I did not do as good a job when it was my turn to take my little sister, who was miserable and wet her pants on the front step because she didn’t know where the toilets were. I also never braided her hair.

Uncle Richard died very young from a heart attack, leaving Aunt Laurette with a baby in her arms. She and her kids kept their farm going while she returned to work, although I can never remember a time she didn’t work as hard as anyone I ever saw. They had a dairy farm and her hands and wrists were often cracked and scarred by the washing compounds used for the glass bottles milk came in in those days. Did she ever rest? I’m not sure. I never saw her just sit until she was a very old lady and surrounded by kids and grandkids, decades later.

If any of this sounds grim, it really wasn’t. I think Aunt Laurette took all this on as her particular place in the world. Hard work happened. She did it. Tragedies came along and she survived them. Her kids grew up and took over, one thought happily, the burden of running things, extending the arms of care and eventually they built her a modern home exactly where the shambling and enormous old one had been. She was so proud of that, as she was right to be, because they’d all learned their lessons well. They turned into interesting people who did various things and didn’t resemble each other much, except for the caring attitude I always felt from them. They are a most attractive group of people and I am proud to be connected to them, although they are all far away and in different worlds from me. Of the eleven surviving children, they seem as individual as if they came from different families, other than this common trait of being lively and connected to those they meet. And that, I believe, is her memorial, that in the necessarily chaotic life of fourteen people under one roof and a family business to run, she reared individuals. To me, that makes her a hero.

It is usual to say rest in peace, and I know there will be peace, but I have a hard time imagining Aunt Laurette resting. There will surely be many things that need to be organized in heaven and she’ll take care of them, too.

Read about this wonderful woman in her local paper.

7 comments November 5th, 2007