Now let’s cook
Chak-chak. Fried fast, set slowly.
Ingredients
- 500 g plain wheat flourwhite wheat flour, called all-purpose in the US
- 5 eggslarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell
- ½ tsp fine saltordinary table salt
- 500 g honeyliquid honey, melted with the sugar into a syrup
- 100 g sugarwhite granulated sugar
- 350 ml sunflower oila neutral-tasting oil
Method
Break the eggs into a bowl and stir. Add the salt and the flour and knead a firm dough. Do not taste the raw dough: it has raw eggs in it.
Roll the dough into a ball, wrap it in cling film and leave it for 30 minutes at room temperature: it becomes elastic and rolls out easily.
Halve the dough and roll each half into a thin sheet. Cut the sheets into strips, and the strips into thin noodles. Dust them lightly with flour so the pieces do not stick together.
Pour the oil into a deep pan and heat it. Stay by the stove and keep a lid within reach: if the oil starts to smoke, turn off the heat. Shake the extra flour off the pieces through a sieve, lower them into the oil a few at a time, fry until golden and lift them out onto paper towels with a slotted spoon.
Put the honey in a saucepan, add the sugar on top and melt them over a low heat, stirring. When the sugar has dissolved, take the syrup off the heat and pour it over the fried pieces.
Stir gently without crushing the pieces. Tip them onto a dish, wet your hands and shape the mass into a mound. Chill it in the fridge for 2 hours, and divide it into small portions before serving.
Where this dish comes from
Tatar cuisine of Kazakhstan
Chak-chak is a Tatar sweet of fried pieces of dough in honey syrup. Other peoples of the region make it too.
