What’s the best way to greet guests during the holiday season in Split? Offer them fritule. There is almost no Dalmatian home without this pastry these days, especially on Christmas Eve. You can also find it on street vending stands, in different versions, even with chocolate. However, old recipes are very strict about it; icing sugar is the only decoration allowed.
Fritule (pronounced freetooleh) are aromatic bite-sized dough balls, flavoured with lemon and orange zest, grape brandy (loza in Croatian) and/or dark rum, and sprinkled with icing sugar. Like almost any home will have its bowl, there is probably no housewife, especially among older women, that doesn’t have her own recipe, the best in the world, inherited over generations. This is one of them.
It takes five to ten minutes to prepare mix, plus the time dough will take to rise.
You will need:
– 50 g of raisins. Rinse it in warm water to make them softer. er
– 1 kg of all purpose flour
– 3 eggs
– 3 tbsp sugar
– 2 sachets of vanilla sugar
– 1 1/2 cube of fresh yeast (40 g), or 3 sachets of dried yeast
– 1 dl vegetable oil for the dough and more for frying
– zest of 1–2 lemons and 1–2 oranges
– 2 tbsp of loza, grape brandy, or grappa
– warm water
Mix eggs, sugar, vanilla and vegetable oil in a bowl, and beat together with a wooden spoon for a little. Add lemon and orange zest, and raisins. If using dried yeast, mix it in one part of the flour, and then add to the eggs. With fresh yeast, melt it in 2 dl of warm water, add it to the egg mixture, and then the flour, and grappa.
Mix with the wooden spoon until the dough stops sticking to the spoon. Leave the dough to stand until it almost doubles in size. The mixture should be warm, but not too warm. If your bowl is cold, put it in the bigger one filled with warm water.
Pour oil in a pan, there should be enough oil so fritule don’t touch the bottom when you add them. Heat the oil.
There is a special technique to fry fritule. Dip a spoon in the oil to prevent the dough from sticking. Take a bit of dough in your hand, squeeze it in your fist, and scoop off what comes out between the thumb and the index by using the spoon. Each ball put into very hot oil, and repeat it until you spend all the dough. Fry them until golden brown, and try not to fry too many fritule in the same time, because you won’t have enough time to take them out from oil. Put it in a bowl covered with some tissue paper, to soak oil. Don’t forget to keep them covered so they will stay warm. Before serving, sprinkle with icing sugar. They can last for a few days, but don’t worry, no matter how much you fry, they will be eaten.
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