Italia__-_November_2016

November 2016 ITALIA! 81

INGREDIENTS

200ml whole milk

50g pure lard, roughly chopped

40g fresh yeast or 1 sachet fast-action

dried yeast

400g Italian ‘00’ flour

50g pancetta, finely diced

1 tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed

vegetable or olive oil, for deep-frying

sea salt

Put the milk and lard in a saucepan and heat

gently until the lard has melted. Don’t let the

milk get too hot. Crumble in the fresh yeast

(if using) and whisk until dissolved.

Sift the fl our and a good pinch of salt into

a bowl and make a well in the centre. If you

are using fast-action dried yeast, stir it into

the fl our now.

Pour in the warm milk mixture, and add the

pancetta and fennel seeds. Mix to a soft

dough, adding more fl our, if necessary. Form

into a ball, cover with clingfi lm or a damp

kitchen cloth and leave to rise for 2 hours or

until doubled in size.

Heat the oil in the deep-fat fryer to 180°C.

A piece of stale bread dropped in should

sizzle and turn golden in a few seconds.

Uncover the dough, punch out the air and

knead for 1 minute. Using damp hands, pull

off small walnut-sized pieces of dough and

roll into rough balls. Fry in batches for about

2-3 minutes until pale brown and puffy. Drain

well and serve.

Coccoli (Pancetta and fennel puffs)

Coccoli

➤ MAKES 30-40 ➤ PREPARATION 2 hours ➤ COOKING 30 minutes

These recipes

are taken from

101 Meatballs,

published by

Ryland Peters

& Small, RRP

£12.99. Italia!

readers can buy

the book for just

£9.99 including

P&P by phoning

Macmillan Direct

on 01256 302

699 and quoting

the reference

HT1.

Recipe by Maxine Clark, photography by Richard Jung

IT144.Recipes-Meatballs.sg4.indd 81 28/09/2016 16:24pm