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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  3410 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Grubski #8 'Three is a Magic Number' voting thread: Polls Close at 11PM EST tonight

Certainly.

Ingredients:

Pate a choux:

6 T Butter

1 C. Water

1 C. Flour (sifted--very important to maintain consistency)

4 eggs

1 tsp salt

Heat water and butter in a saucepan until the water comes to boil. Turn off heat and add all of the flour at once. Stir with a wooden spoon or stiff spatula to incorporate. The mixture will have a doughy consistency. Turn the heat back on to low and cook, continually stirring, until the dough is a bit shiny, about 3-5 minutes. THe dough will start to form a film on the saucepan when it's ready. Transfer the dough to a mixing bowl, add salt, and mix in the eggs one at a time on the lowest mixer setting (all the chefs I watched on You Tube were using Kitchen Aid mixers, but I don't have one. A hand mixer worked fine). With each egg, the dough will get thinner. It is ready when is has the consistency of a thick batter--flowing, but stiff enough to hold its shape a bit; use fewer or more eggs to achieve this consistency). At this point you have a completed pate a choux that you can use in any number of delicious pastries--cream puffs, eclairs, etc.

Meanwhile, boil 2 lbs of good mashing potatoes. I used baby golds, but I suspect you'd have an easier time with full size yukon golds, as they're easier to peel. When the potatoes are cooked through, drain them, peel them, and pass them through a food mill or potato ricer. (I suppose you could mash them with a masher, too, but the food mill or ricer will introduce air that makes the consistency easier to work with.

So now, we have two cooked bowls of ingredients, the pastry dough and the potatoes. Combine them with a mixer on low until you get a smooth consistency. I added a bit of pepper at this point, as well. The low setting is important, even though it takes a lot longer than high would. High settings will make the flour get really sticky, and you want to avoid that. Heat enough cooking oil (I used canola, but whatever floats your boat) to fill a pot about 3-4" to 350ยบ, which you can monitor with a candy thermometer. Drop spoonfuls of dough into the hot oil. When the oil is the correct temp, the dough should sink to the bottom, then rise within a few seconds. If it takes longer to float, turn the heat up. I didn't have a candy thermometer, so I used trial and error. I only had four people eating, so I had plenty of dough to experiment.

The dough balls will have to be flipped once or twice since they float. The high water content in the dough will make them puff up and even kind of crack open a bit. If they don't do that your oil probably isn't quite hot enough. They are ready when the outside is golden brown. Set them on paper towel to dry and salt liberally, as you would with fries. Eat while still warm. The outside will be crispy while the inside has roughly the consistency of mashed potatoes and is slightly hollow.





kleinbl00  ·  3407 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thoughts:

1) These things are fucking delicious. Although my wife considers them too fidly for the level of reward.

2) Holy shit are they messy. Hot oil aside (which involved some mondo cleanup) I managed to dirty three pans, a bowl and a potato ricer that I didn't even know we owned when I started (my wife insists it's a tincture press, even if it was purchased as a potato ricer).

3) Powdered sugar is a poor substitute for leftover pork, parmesan cheese and fresh rosemary. This makes them real close to my local pizza place's interpretation of panzarottos, which I also love.

Apparently you can bake them, too? May have to try that. My wife asked me what they were called because my daughter wanted to know. They became "potato donuts." By the end of the day she was asking for "donut thing." They do reheat rather well.