Venezuelan · Starter
Tequeños
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, char used as punctuation.
Ingredients
- 300 g plain flour
- 60 g cold butter, diced
- 1 egg, plus 1 beaten egg for sealing
- 10 g sugar
- 6 g fine salt
- 110 ml cold water
- 400 g firm salty white cheese, queso llanero or queso blanco duro
- 1.5 litres neutral oil, for frying
Equipment
Sheet pan · Rolling pin
The skills inside
Knife cuts: dice, julienne, biasResting dough: the pause that does the workRubbing fat into flour
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
- Rub the butter into the flour, sugar and salt to a sandy crumb, work in the egg and just enough water for a firm dough that is not sticky, then rest it wrapped for 30 minutes so it rolls without springing back. 30 min
- Cut the cheese into batons 7 cm long and 1.5 cm square; it should squeak and stay square under the knife, since a wet cheese liquefies in the oil and blows the seam open.
- Roll the dough to 2 mm, cut ribbons 2 cm wide, and wind one around each baton in a spiral, overlapping every turn by a third and pinching both ends shut with beaten egg so no cheese shows.
- Freeze the wrapped tequeños on a tray for at least 30 minutes, which lets the pastry set before the cheese has time to run. 30 min
- Fry from frozen at 170C (340F), six at a time, turning until evenly deep gold and blistered, about 4 minutes, then drain standing on end. 4 min
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.
Rubbing fat into flour 47 recipes
- The fat is cold when it starts and still firm when the rubbing stops, and the bowl has not warmed under the hands.
- Stopped early, while it still looks like coarse crumbs with pieces of fat visible in it, not worked on to a smooth even sand, which means the pieces have gone.
- Nothing is greasy or glossy and nothing has smeared into a paste against the side of the bowl.
- Liquid added last and only enough to bring it together: pressed, it just holds, with no wet patch and nothing sticking to the hand.
- Rested cold before it is rolled or shaped, so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms again after being handled.
Where it goes wrong The fat was too warm, or it was rubbed until the mixture looked uniform. Once the fat has melted into the flour there are no solid pieces left to steam apart in the oven, so the bake is sandy or tough instead of flaky, and nothing done later puts those layers back.
Resting dough: the pause that does the work 71 recipes
- It actually rested, covered, for the time stated, not cut short because the rest of the schedule was tight.
- It rolls and shapes without fighting: it stays where it is put, and it does not spring back or shrink on the bench between passes.
- The surface is smooth and supple rather than dry, cracked, or skinned over.
- It is at the temperature the next step needs: cold where the fat must stay solid, cool and relaxed where it must be rolled thin.
- Baked, it holds the dimensions it was shaped to rather than shrinking back from the edges of the tin or the rim of the dish.
Where it goes wrong The rest was skipped or shortened, so the gluten was still tight: the dough fought the pin and sprang back thick and uneven, then shrank down the sides of the tin in the oven.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Alpine white (dry Riesling, Grüner)
- Also Right
- Champagne: bubbles scrub richness
- From the Taps
- Bière de garde
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling apple
Melted cheese coats; acid and carbonation scrub: high-cut whites and Champagne keep the fondue from winning.
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