Home › The World's Kitchen › Beignets Carnaval
Beignets Carnaval
Prepare a pate-a-choux. When the paste is finished add the rind of half a medium, sound lemon cut into small pieces, mixing for two minutes with a wooden spoon. Then with a tablespoon drop the paste into hot fat--not quite up to a boiling point--pressing the paste down with a finger, giving nut forms. Repeat until all the paste is used and fry till they attain a nice golden colour, being careful to turn them once in a while with a skimmer. Lift them up, drain well on a cloth and liberally sprinkle with fine sugar. Dress on a hot dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A fried choux fritter, essentially the same batter as a cream puff dropped into fat instead of onto a baking sheet. The book assumes you already have its pâte à choux recipe to hand.
- The paste itselfA standard pâte à choux is 1 cup water, 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 teaspoon salt brought to a boil, 1 cup flour beaten in off the heat until it forms a ball, then 4 eggs worked in one at a time. Beat each egg in completely before adding the next; the finished paste should fall from the spoon in a thick ribbon.
- "Not quite up to a boiling point"Period shorthand for fat that is moderately hot rather than smoking; in practice something below the usual hard frying heat, perhaps in the region of 340-350F, though the book gives no temperature. This is the hinge of the recipe: hotter fat browns the outside before the interior sets and the fritters can collapse wet in the middle, while moderate fat gives them time to puff and hollow out.
- Lemon rindCut or grate only the coloured zest from half a lemon, no white pith, and mince it fine; large shreds sit on the surface of the fritter and scorch.
- ShapingDrop rounded tablespoons and nudge them off the spoon into the fat with a finger or a second spoon rather than pressing into hot fat directly. Walnut-sized is right; larger ones will not cook through before colouring.
- Frying and turningThey turn themselves as they puff, but help them along so both sides colour evenly. Allow 4 to 6 minutes total, and pull one apart before draining the batch to confirm the centre is dry and hollow rather than custardy.
- Fine sugar"Fine sugar" here is most likely caster or superfine sugar rather than confectioners'; either works, and sprinkle while the fritters are still hot so it adheres.
- Yield and servingThe quantity of paste above should give roughly two dozen small fritters, enough for six. The folded napkin on the platter absorbs residual fat and helps keep them warm; they soften as they cool, so fry as close to serving as possible.
Beignet is simply the French word for a fritter, covering everything from a yeasted square of dough to this choux-paste version, which French pastry work calls beignets soufflés — "puffed" because the same steam that hollows a cream puff in the oven inflates it in hot fat. The Carnaval name ties the dish to the pre-Lenten season, when fried, egg-rich and butter-rich foods were eaten up before the fast; fritters of one sort or another are the carnival food of much of Catholic Europe, from Italian frittelle to the German Fastnachtskrapfen. Filippini's International Cook Book gathered such dishes under the banner of a world kitchen for American households, and the closing instruction to dress the fritters on a folded napkin marks it as professional French service of the era, when a napkin took the place of the doily or paper liner a later cook would reach for.