Okinawa · Dessert
Sātā Andāgī
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- 240g plain flour
- 8g baking powder
- 110g kokuto (Okinawan black sugar), finely crushed
- 2 eggs, about 110g
- 20ml neutral oil, for the batter
- 20ml coconut milk or whole milk
- 2g salt
- 1.5 litres neutral oil, for frying
The skills inside
Kneading doughDraining fried food: a rack, never paper
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Beat the eggs with the kokuto until the sugar has dissolved and the mix ribbons off the whisk, then beat in the oil and milk.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt over the top and fold with a spatula, stopping the moment no dry flour is left. The dough should be stiff, sticky and a little shaggy, never smooth and elastic.
- Rest it 20 minutes covered while the oil comes to 160C (320F). Hold it there; that number is the recipe. 20 min
- Oil your hands, squeeze the dough up between thumb and forefinger into 4cm balls and slide them in, four or five at a time. They sink, then rise.
- Fry 7 to 8 minutes, turning, until each has split across the crown into three or four seams and the dough exposed in the cracks has browned. Still smooth at 5 minutes means the oil is too hot: pull the pan off the heat and let it fall. 8 min
- Drain on a rack rather than paper, and eat warm.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Kneading dough 57 recipes
- The work changed it: what began shaggy and rough is one smooth, cohesive mass, with nothing raggy hanging off it.
- The surface has gone satin and barely tacky, releasing cleanly from hands and board instead of leaving a trail.
- Worked to the point this dough asks for and no further: springy and elastic where structure is wanted, just brought together where tenderness is.
- Torn or cut open, the inside is uniform: no dry streaks, no unmixed pockets, no core of flour that never met the water.
- After its rest it rolls and shapes without snapping back. A dough that fights the pin needed more rest, not more force.
Where it goes wrong Sticking was fought with flour instead of technique or patience, stroke after stroke, until the dough had taken in far more than the formula asked; it turns tight and dry under the hands, and bakes dense however well everything else goes.
Draining fried food: a rack, never paper 77 recipes
- The rack was in place before the first thing went into the oil, not fetched afterwards while food waited in a spider over the pot.
- It lands on a rack with air moving underneath it. Anything set down on paper or a flat plate traps its own steam against its base.
- Salted within seconds of landing, while it is still hot enough to take seasoning.
- A minute later the underside is still as crisp as the top: no soft flat patch where it has been sitting.
- Nothing is stacked or piled while hot, however tempting it is to keep it together. A pile steams itself soft from the inside out.
Where it goes wrong It was drained on paper, or piled up to keep warm. Steam leaving the food has nowhere to go but back into the crust, so the underside softens within a minute: the crispness the frying just bought is gone before the plate reaches the table.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Demi-sec Champagne
- Also Right
- Off-dry Chenin (Vouvray)
- From the Taps
- Fruited sour
- Zero-Proof
- Coconut water with lime
Tropical sweetness wants bubbles or Chenin’s honeyed acid: richness met with lift, not more weight.
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