Fried Pizza Dough

The other night we were watching Chopped on the Food Network and one of the contestants made pizza dough fritters, though he only got one plated, but the judges’ comments were pretty good about the little bit they tasted.  I was very interested in the idea and sort of filed it away in my head.  Yesterday, my husband and I were grocery shopping and he picked up some fish that he was going to cook for dinner and I said, “hey, for a side dish, why don’t I make something like those pizza dough fritters?”  When we got home, I did a quick internet search and did not find a specific recipe, but it occurred to me that a local restaurant also has a fried dough appetizer on their menu and so instead I would try to make a version of that, since it was something I had tasted before.

I started out with my trusty pizza dough recipe, made in a bread machine, shaped the dough into balls, then simply fried the dough balls, drizzled on some garlic butter, and served with a side of leftover marinara sauce from a few nights ago, buzzed quickly with the immersion (stick) blender to smooth it out a little.  Yum, these were EXTREMELY good and a close competitor to what we have at our local restaurant.  The recipe made way more than my family could eat – about 21 dough balls.

My husband tried microwaving some leftovers today, but said they weren’t very good.  I reheated the rest in our Advantium oven, but you could probably get similar results but putting them in a regular oven to crisp them up again.  Here’s a link to the marinara sauce recipe if you need it and the Fried Pizza Dough recipe is presented below.

http://lynnkz.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/easy-gnocchi-sauce-and-french-bread-from-your-pantry-staples/

Lynn’s Fried Pizza Dough

1 C. Warm Water

1 T. granulated sugar

1 t. salt

¼ C. olive oil

3 ¼ C. bread or all purpose flour (more may be needed for good dough consistency)

1 ½ t. dry yeast (I like SAF)

2-3 T. butter

1-2 T. olive oil

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

Oil for frying, enough to get several inches in a good sized sauce pan

Parmesan cheese, grated

Homemade or store-bought marinara sauce for dipping

In bread machine, combine first 6 ingredients (through yeast) in bread machine pan in the order required for your machine.  Set machine to dough cycle.  If you have a quick dough cycle on your machine, that works fine for pizza dough, but the regular dough cycle works fine as well.  Be sure to check the dough throughout the kneading cycle to make sure it pulls together in a smooth ball.  If necessary, add more flour or water.  I often have to add more flour to this recipe.

Sometime before the dough cycle is done, put the butter, the 1-2 T. olive oil, and the minced garlic in a microwave safe bowl (or heat on stove top in a pan) and heat long enough to melt the butter.  Stir and let set.  This lets the garlic infuse the butter oil mix a bit.  I like this mix to brush on bread for garlic bread as well – the purpose of the olive oil is to cut the saturated fat of the butter a bit and does not affect the taste as far as I am concerned.

When dough cycle is done (or just before), heat about 3 inches of oil in a good size sauce pan (I used a 3 quart pan).  Oil should reach about 365 F for good frying, so test if you have a candy/oil thermometer.  If not, just toss some dough in and see how it goes.  You want these balls to cook for 2-3 minutes and brown nicely without burning.

While oil heats, spread some wax paper on the counter and dust with a bit of flour.  Pinch off golf ball sized pieces of dough and roll into balls and put on wax paper.  I got about 21 balls out of this batch of dough.  They puff up slightly, so keep that in mind.  When oil is hot, begin frying balls in batches.  I got about 5-6 balls in the pan at a time and cooked them 2-3 minutes, flipping as necessary for even browning.  I used a slotted spoon to transfer them to a platter with paper towels on it and cooked the rest of the batches.

When all dough is fried, I reheated the garlic butter for about 30 seconds in the microwave to make sure it was liquid, and then spooned over the fried dough.  I sprinkled the balls with parmesan cheese and served with marinara sauce (heated in the microwave).

YUM!

Note that this is also my standard pizza dough recipe.  You can roll this dough out to make a pizza crust after it comes out of the bread machine.  I prebake the crust only for about 4 minutes in a 450-500 F oven in which I have preheated a pizza stone for at least ½ an hour.  Then I pull the crust out and top it with sauce, cheese, and other desired toppings and bake until cheese browns, usually about another 6-10 minutes.

Enjoy!!  Let me know if you try it or come up with any variations.  The guy on Chopped kneaded some Serrano ham and I think some chopped arugula into his.  May try something like that next.

Best regards,

Lynn