Taralli Pugliesi / a Perfect Italian Snack

Taralli pugliesi are a easy to make Italian snack that knocks your socks off

I got a bag of these as a present.

They pair very well with a glass of wine or beer or cheese or a real italian salami or just plain...

You can experiment with herbs and spices.

When you enlarge the pictures, you can see comments on most of them.

Ingredients

• 500g white wheat flour
• 200g dry white wine
• 120g good quality olive oil
• 17g salt

Spices and herbs to your liking. These are examples i made. The tarallis i got for a present were salted only.

I split up the dough by four after kneading and added smaller amounts accordingly to test, what i like the best.

The examples below are for the whole amount of dough.

• 12g caraway seeds (i ground them up with a mortar and pestle)
• or
• 12g fennel seeds (today i combined 6g caraway and 6g fennel seeds)
• or
• 40g crispy fried onions (i cut them with a cutter/blender, otherwise they aren't distributed nicely)

You can try other spices/herbs like black pepper, rosemary, sesame seeds

Add all the ingredients in a bowl for mixing. Mix it, until everyting is combined.

Then take it out of the bowl and knead it for 12-15 minutes until you get a smooth dough.

In the pictures, i made the dough in my breadmaker. (only half the amount with caraway seeds)

The kneading action of the breadmaker isn't really good with this dough, so i used my Kenwood with the kneading hook in consecutive batches.

With the Kenwood, i kneaded the dough for 10 minutes on speed 2, after everything was combined.

After the dough is kneaded, cover it with cling wrap or put it in a bowl with a cover.

Let the dough rest for 60 minutes.

Take the dough an form it to a roll. This way, it's easier to divide it in even pieces of around 12g.

Then form the pieces into strands of around 8-10mm/0.3-0.4 inches thickness and 80mm/3.2 inches length.

I form two with both hands and let the strands relax in between, until the desired length and thickness is achieved.

(The pictures are from the first and second batch, where the pieces weighed 15-16g and were too thick. I also formed the rings around one finger only.)

Form rings around two fingers and firmly press the ends together. (It's a bit tricky to merge the ends because of all the olive oil in the dough.)

I put the formed tarallis on a cookie sheet lined with a baking paper.

The tarallis are blanched in simmering water, before they get backed.

This gelatinizes the starch on the surface and gives them a shiny look

Put around 2 liters or 2 quarts of water into a pot, add 20g (1 tbsp of salt) and bring it to a simmering boil.

You also need to heat up your oven to 190° Celsius / 375° Fahrenheit, or 170° Celsius / 340° Fahrenheit in a convection oven.

Add 8 or so tarallis into the pan and move them around a little with a skimmer. (I need to fire up the stove to full power, in order to get the water simmering again. The moving is especially important in the beginning, otherwise they tend to stick to the pan.)

After around 2-3 minutes, the tarallis rise to the surface. (This only happens when the water is just around boiling temperature.)

When the tarallis have risen to the surface, remove them from the water with a skimmer and place them on a kitchen towel.

After around one minute on the towel, put them back on the cookie sheet.

After blanching all the tarallis, put them into the oven for 30-40 minutes. Vent the oven every 5 minutes, or put a wooden ladle in the door to keep it from closing completely.

The tarallis are not supposed to really brown, or only to a hint of brown. If you see them browning before the time is up, reduce the temperature by 10-20° Celsius / 60° Fahrenheit.

Let them cool on a rack and place the in a box with a lid.

After baking, the tarallis should be dry. This way they keep pretty well. (They only keep well, when you lock them away...)