Dainty fried flowers spiked with spices

Aylin Öney Tan - aylinoneytan@yahoo.com

We almost clap our hands like little children when the dough starts to float in the hot oil like a gracious lotus flower. We are taking the Spice Spoons Thai cooking class in Phuket Anantara Layan Resort and what makes us jump with joy is a brilliant cooking technique we learn to master. Our appetizer course is Krathong thong, golden flower-like cups, deep fried to a paper-thin crispiness and filled with a spicy savory filling. Frying the dainty cuplets is the fun part of our cooking class, and particularly interesting for me, filling another gap in my quest of searching frying molds across the world. 

Our chef Noon gives the instructions precisely as we prepare the batter for the fried flower-like tartelettes, giving the crucial hints like using the pink limewater instead of ordinary water to achieve extra crispiness. I get excited as some of these little secrets once used to exist in traditional Ottoman cooking; such as using ash water in fried dough sweets making the dough alkali and extra crisp and light, or using limewater in sweet fruit preserves making them extra crunchy. Such details are hidden in all world cuisines, and apparently Thai cookery has lots of such exciting secrets to explore. Another revelation is the technique we use in frying our dainty cups of delight. Four tiny brass tartelette molds are attached to a single handle on top; the molds are lowered into hot oil heated in a wok until very hot and then taken out of the oil leaving at least two thirds of oil still inside the molds, and carefully dipped into the batter up to the rim of the molds until an even coating of batter films around them, and then when returned to the sizzling oil the miracle happens. Count to 10, leave the mold standing in the wok for a few more seconds, shake slightly the handle, and voila! Four little flowers start swimming in the wok as if swaying in a lotus pond. That is when we cannot help yelling with triumph. 

The technique is quite familiar as we also have a dessert called Demir Tatlısı, which translates exactly as Iron Sweet in Turkey, and funnily it is usually associated with one Eastern town in Turkey, Erzurum, which claims ownership to the sweet. However, such fritters made by dipping a decorative metal mold consecutively in hot oil, then in batter, then back in hot oil is a technique used worldwide. Either applied for savory snacks, or sweets dusted with powdered sugar or dipped in syrup, these fried flower like fritters are a feast to the eye and a joy to munch on. The earliest recipe of such a fritelle published in the western world appeared in an Italian cookery book in 1570 by Bartolomeo Scappi. Many European countries, especially Nordic countries have such fritters, often made for special days. The ones in Germany are called Eisenkuchen, meaning iron cakes. 

Years ago, when I was working on a piece on Turkish sweets, I realized that the technique travelled almost globally, most countries having their own versions, I started to trace mold fritters in the countries I visited. One particular moment in the back alleys of Damascus, trying to scribble down the recipe while the mold maker was passionately explaining to me how to use it, but in a mixed language of Arabic and French, and me trying to get a few words sensible out of it was particularly memorable. Each country has poetic names given to the fried fritters, the one in Iran is particularly descriptive. Nan-i Panjara, is easy to understand with some imagination by Turks; it means Window Bread, as the word Nan (bread) was used in Ottoman Turkish, and Panjara is Pencere in Turkish, which is the word for window. The intricately shaped Iranian fritters do look like stained glass rosette windows. Apparently the fritter technique is widespread in all Asian countries, and travelled toward the west as a brilliant idea. There are so many brilliant ideas and tastes to discover in Thai cuisine; luckily our Spicy Spoons cooking class proves to be a discovery journey, one full of flavors and surprises. And that was only the appetizer course!