Loukoumathes / Λουκουμάδες
On Monday 30th November, we celebrated St. Andrew’s day, the Patron Saint of the city of Patras. According to a centuries-old tradition, he is known as the Saint who brings the cold weather. Traditionally on this day, housewives prepare Loukoumathes or Xerodigana, (fried dough balls), donuts or Pishies to honour his name day. These crispy deep-fried dough ball fritters dipped in honey syrup, were also served to the winners of the Olympic Games and “Lokmas” in Turkish means mouthfuls. Today they are served all over Greece and Cyprus!
Ingredients (makes 55/60)
For the dough:
500g (1 lb) bread-strong flour
2 sachets x 7g easy-blend dried yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
570ml (1 pint) lukewarm water
1 tbsp vinegar
4 tbsp cornflour or 1 potato, boiled and mashed (optional)
1 tsp ground mastic gum (optional)
For deep frying:
Corn, sunflower or peanut oil
Ground cinnamon for dusting
Honey syrup
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
125ml clear honey, warm
Juice of ½ lemon
2 tbsp rosewater
Make the syrup first by placing the sugar and water in a saucepan, bring to the boil until sugar dissolves, then add the honey and lemon juice and simmer for five minutes. Then remove from the heat, add rosewater and cool.
Put the warm water in a large bowl with the yeast, sugar, salt, vinegar, flour, cornflour or potato and mastic gum and whisk (you can use an electric hand whisk) until smooth and elastic; it should be stretchy when lifted. Cover with a damp towel and let it rest for 1-2 hours until doubled in size or until bubbles appear.
Fill a saucepan or a wok one-third full of oil and heat to 100 degrees Celsius – test with a thermometer or until hot but not smoking.
Have a cup of cold water ready into which you can wet a teaspoon and your fingers between batches of frying to keep the dough from sticking. Now here’s the tricky part…Put some dough in the palm of your hand, making a fist, squeeze out the dough from your hand, your thumb and index finger, and drop the balls in the fryer! Or if you prefer, when oil is hot, dip the teaspoon in the cold water, take a full teaspoon of dough and carefully push the dough with wet fingers into the hot oil, or use 2 teaspoons to do this. Put approximately 10 balls at a time, on a medium heat – each one will puff up and rise to the surface, flip them over as they cook until crisp and golden all over. Remove with a slotted spoon.
Place them into the cold syrup for a minute or two (do not leave them in the syrup for too long as they become soggy and lose the crispiness), remove with a slotted spoon and place on a plate, sprinkle with ground cinnamon and serve immediately, 5-6 for each person on small plates with a glass of iced water.
