Today it’s been a week since I started my new breakfast challenge. Today we made fritos: a typical pastry for mAte in Argentina also known as tartas fritas. The recipe is very simple and fast. Read more below.
Preparation of fritos
To prepare fritos I used a recipe published by Cadena 3 Argentina and amended it a tiny bit.
Ingredients
– 1 cup of flour;
– 1 cup of flour with baking powder (in Argentina it is called “harina leudante”, it goes already mixed with baking powder);
– 1 cup of warm water;
– a bit of salt by your taste;
– cow’s fat (to fry in);
– pork’s fat (to add a bit in the dough);
– sugar powder.
The dough for fritos
Take a bowl to mix all ingredients. First mix flour and salt.
Then take a couple of melted pork’s fat and it little by little into the flour and salt. Mix it well. We took approximately 2-3 table spoons of pork’s fat, but look at the consistency of the dough: it should be light and soft.
After fat is added and mixed, add warm water little by little, mixing all well. In fact we added less than one cup, because the dough was of a good consistency already. It should not stick to your hands or any other tool you use to mix the dough.
Put some flour on the surface where you are going to work the dough. Knead it well, adding flour until it takes a suitable consistency to be rolled.
We separated the dough in two parts so it is easier to work with. If you have enough space, you may skip this part.
Roll the dough until it is around 5 mm thick. Cut it in the shapes that fit in the pot you are going to use to fry it. Poke the dough through with a fork so it does not get inflated while frying.
Frying fritos
Put cow’s fat into a deep pot suitable for frying. Around 2-3 cm layer of fat in the pot should be enough to use. Heat it up well, so the dough starts getting fried immediately when you put it inside. Otherwise it will soak the fat and become even heavier for your stomach.
Put pieces of dough in fat and fry them until they get a nice light brown color. Take the fritos out of fat and put them on a plate with paper towel to absorb extra fat.
Voila. Your fritos are ready.
How they eat fritos in Argentina
In Argentina people eat fritos while drinking mAte. It can be at any time of the day, since they are easy to cook.
Fritos have a lot of calories and are good for Winter times, when the weather gets cold. They were also good when people used to work in the fields and needed a lot of energy during the day.
Measure well
Fritos are quite heavy for stomach. They are also tasty and you might lose a track of pieces eaten. So be sure to measure your potion well and not exceed it.
Enjoy your meal!