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Food Notes - Portuguese Doughnuts

 Hello. C J here. There used to be this little Greek place next to where I went to school. I would walk over there sometimes on lunch hour and get some of their food. Two recipes stand out here although everything they ever served was good. The couple who ran it eventually retired back to Greece. Now I didn’t get food there every day. Mostly I brought something I made or leftovers from family dinner the night before. I have been able to cook since I was in public school.

The first highlight on the menu was their chicken Caesar pita. Note the wording here. It’s a pita, not a wrap. It’s wrapped in a handmade Greek pita, similar to a naan bread, not a tortilla wrap. The salad on the inside was lettuce but with chopped bacon, homemade Caesar salad dressing and homemade croutons. The chicken was fresh off a souvlaki skewer from the grill. I’m still working on replicating this perfect wrap. It was served with fries.

The second highlight was their Portuguese doughnut. This is the subject matter of our post here today. They were dark caramel coloured balls of fried dough covered in granulated sugar and served hot if you could get a fresh one. I’ve managed to track down a recipe for Portuguese sweet bread in our archives of recipes my family and I keep as well as one for maladdadas, the formal name for a Portuguese doughnut.

I’m trying to simplify the two very complex recipes while also finding a middle ground between them. The final Portuguese dessert will be something like sweet bread but fried in oil and served coated in sugar cinnamon. I want to be able to make them for breakfast with coffee. I’ll keep you all updated about my progress but this one may take a while. Food research goes slowly and thankfully this one only involves normal baking ingredients. I don’t have to go and do another research trip to see what grocery store carries some rare ingredient.

C J Mcpherson

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