Holiday Recipes - Struffoli and Bow Knots revealed
I’ve gotten some queries as to “just what are bow knots and struffoli?” I was preparing them yesterday so here’s some visual references to what these are and how you prepare them….
Here’s a look at the Bow Knots, or what I call “Nonni’s Bow Knots” in the recipes. Nonni is an Italian nickname for grandmother, Poppi is the nickname for grandfather. This recipe was from my Dad’s mom.
So here’s the setup, you can see I have a hand crank pasta machine partially out of frame on the left, my Waring Pro deep fryer in the middle, cutting board with pizza wheel upper left and the drying rack on the right. You have to roll the dough out pretty much paper thin and the pasta machine is the only way I’ve found to roll it that thin. And all of this is set up outside on our deck to keep the fry smell out of the house. It’s 45 degrees out there, but it’s no problem to with some hot coffee.
I cut out strips of the dough as you can see on the left. I guess around 5 inches by 2 or 3 inches. Doesn’t matter, just whatever size you want them to be. Nonni was able to actually create bows out of these things but I have no mastered that yet so I just do the flat strips and they are equally good. I just move the dough into the fryer, usually 3 to 5 pieces at a time. Fry for not even 30 seconds and remove to a drying rack. Once they’re dried and a little cool, just dust with confectioners sugar as you can see below. Very simple and VERY good.
Ok, now while I have everything set up and the oil is hot, I go ahead and prepare the Struffoli too. If you walk by an Italian bakery during the holidays you’ve probably seen the tower of dough balls with sprinkles on them on the window. Those are Struffoli.
You start out by rolling down out into thin ropes as shown below. Kind of like making cavatelli.
Cut the dough into small pieces. 1 inch or smaller.
Drop them by batches into the fryer….
1 minute later, turn onto the drying rack, Stuffoli! Well almost, the last step is to dunk all of these into warm honey per the instructions, but I do that the day before we serve.
So there you go, that’s a brief look at what Struffoli and the Bow Knots look like. Yes, Alton Brown would be disappointed because I’m using a “uni-tasker” with the deep fryer but honestly, it’s easier and cleaner than using a dutch oven on the stove. AND I can use it outside to keep the fry smell out of the house. So even though it’s a uni-tasker and we only use it once or twice per year, for me, it’s worth it!
Merry Christmas!!!!