Traditional Carnival season recipes: Frittelle di San Giuseppe

After binge eating over Christmas it is already time to fill our stomachs again with new delicacies. It's the Carnival season! This means it is time for Schiacciata alla Fiorentina, Cenci and Frittelle di San Giuseppe (Saint Joseph’s fritters)!

Tuscan sweet rice fritters (frittelle di riso) are one of the most delicious treats of the carnival season, and Florentine pastry shops are always well stocked with them from January to March.

They are little roundish rice fritters sprinkled with caster sugar, you can find them plain, with raisins or even filled with pastry cream for those who do not count their calories.

Frittelle used to be prepared for Saint Joseph’s day on March 19th, and eaten until one’s stomach was full, as an offer to the saint. However, soon people started to enjoy consuming them throughout the whole carnival period.
The original recipe is described in a book by Maestro Martino de’ Rossi, “Libro de arte coquinaria” written in the second half of the 15th century:

“Fa’ cocere il riso molto bene ne lo lacte, et cavandolo fora per farne frittelle observerai l’ordine et modo scripto di sopra (in precedenza aveva parlato di “fare le frittelle tonde con mano overo in quale altra forma ti piace, mettendole a frigere in bono strutto o botiro, overo in bono olio”), excepto che non gli hai a mettere né caso (ovvero formaggio) né altro lacte”.

The text can be translated roughly as:

“Thoroughly boil rice in milk, and taking it out to make fritters you will see the order and manner written above (previously he had written to “use your hands to make fritters round or of any other shape you like, fry them in good strut or butter, o in buon olio”), but don’t add cheese or milk”.

As it often happens, everyone has their own opinion on recipes, which led to the creation of different versions of Frittelle di San Giuseppe.
Some think you should add flour to the dough, others boil the rice in water and not in milk, some add raisins while others like their fritters plain, some fill them with pastry cream.

Whatever your preference is, you can be sure you won’t be disappointed with any of these recipes. Sweet rice fritters are just delicious no matter how you make them!

The recipe we are sharing with you today is the one for plain Saint Joseph’s fritters, so you can decide to add other ingredients if you like.

FRITTELLE DI SAN GIUSEPPE

Ingredients (for 6 people):

200 gr of originario rice 

½ lt milk

2 tbsp of sugar

30 gr of butter

2 tbsp of flour

 2 eggs

grated lemon zest

1 shot glass of liquor ( Rum or Brandy)

½ baking powder confection (about 16 gr)

frying oil

caster sugar for decoration

Preparation:

Boil milk with 2 glasses of water, sugar, butter and a pinch of salt.

Add rice and let it cook for a long time, so that all the liquid is absorbed, then take off the heat and let it cool completely.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites, and put the latter aside.

Mix egg yolks with flour, a tsp of grated lemon zest, liquor and baking powder.

Let the dough rest for about an hour and when it is time to fry the fritters, whip the egg whites and add them gently to the mix.

Fry the fritters in a pan with abundant oil, making little balls or using a spoon to make them into quenelles.

Once golden put them on a paper sheet to drain the oil excess and roll them one by one in caster sugar.

They taste best when they have cooled down a bit.

Enjoy!