Poppy Seed Tarallini

Look! Another post so soon after the other? Is the world coming to an end? No, but I found an awesome recipe; it is a simple, delicious bread-ish recipe that I just had to try. Because it's bread, and... Well. If I have a favourite savoury food, its crusty bread slathered in butter. And of course, now that I've typed that and put the idea in my head, there is nothing I want more than that, right now.

I should stop babbling about my food obsessions and get on with the information, I know. So here I go.

As evidenced in the title of this post, I made Tarallini, after spotting the recipe on my daily food-blog-athon. Man I'm glad I did. They are shockingly easy to make, and so deliciously satisfying, plus open to lots of flavour playing. I love anything that I can play around with, because I love a versitile recipe I can adapt to multiple situations. Tarallini are the smaller version of the Italian snack food, Taralli, which seems to be a rather intriguing cross between a cracker and a soft pretzel, while being bagel-esque at the same time. However, they are not boiled with soda or anything, just mildly salted water, nor do they contain yeast as a bagel requires. And even more thankfully, you do not have to bathe them in a solution of water and lye as you would a pretzel. Lye, people. That does not inspire me to make traditional pretzels any time soon. I naturally baulk at recipes that require I put on protective gloves and goggles, in order to prepare it. I think I'll just stick to tarallini, which are just as satisfying and much less dangerous. Which is a good thing when you're as prone to accidents as I am.

Tarallini

Ingredients:

250 g plain flour
1/4 c olive oil
100 mls white wine
1/2 tsp salt
Poppy seeds

Method:

1. Place the flour, salt and olive oil in a bowl and mix until well combined.



2. With your mixer on medium, slowly add in your wine until it forms a cohesive ball of dough.



3. Kneed for at least five minutes until the dough becomes elastic.



4.Set a pot of water to boil, and then divide your dough up into sixteen pieces. I found that it was easiest to cut it in half, then cut each half in half... and then continue that process until you have sixteen pieces.



5. Shape your dough. I decided to go with simple and just make rings, which means I rolled them into a ball, then poked my finger through the middle, and then just stretched the dough a little.

6. Drop eight of the tarallini into the boiling water. When they float to the top, they are done and need to be removed from the water and put onto a teatowel so they may dry. Don't put them on paper towels, as they will stick to the tarallini.





7. When everything is done, decorate them with the poppy seeds. I poured some into a little bowl, then dunked each tarallini into the poppy seeds so the got an even coating.



8. Pop into 180 degree oven, until golden brown.

I ate mine with a generous slathering of cream cheese, and it was delicious.