As many people know, I spend my spare time cooking. I bake, and lately, I have been expanding out into full meal cooking. Moreover, as I do this, many people are asking for me the recipes for the various dishes I make. Rather than responding to each person individually, I decided to add a section to this blog, so anyone who wants to can make it themselves.

To start with, let’s dive into the appetizers from Saturday’s Italian dinner walk through. The menu was as follows:

Appetizer: Prosciutto and Cheese Fritters and a Virginia sparkling
Main: Fettuccine Carbonara and a Chianti (Nipozzano)
Dessert: Italian cookies and Sambuca

I will be posting other recipes as the week goes by, but let us start with the fritters.

Ingredients

1 cup water
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
5 large eggs
2 oz prosciutto crudo, diced
1/2 cup grated caciocavallo cheese
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
lard
salt

Directions

Heat the water, salt, and butter in a saucepan, preferably of copper, and when it boils, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. Return the pan to the heat and work the mixture continuously with the spoon; after a great deal of stirring the mixture will have formed a solid and homogeneous ball of dough. Let it cool, then incorporate the eggs one at a time, constantly kneading (using a mixer can save some of this effort).

When the dough forms bubbles, work in the prosciutto, caciocavallo, and parsley. When this is done, set the dough aside in a cool place.

Heat several inches of lard in a high-sided pan until hot (but not smoking), then drop in 1-inch balls of dough. (You can make the balls with a spoon or spread out the dough and cut it into cylinders to roll directly into the pan.) Let these fry slowly, reducing the heat if they start to brown too quickly

Remove them with a slotted spoon, put them on a serving plate covered with paper towels, and serve hot.

Enjoy!