Churros

I'll never have to rely on a roadside cart or amusement park again.

All you need is:

• two parts flour
• one part water
• one third part oil
• salt

Thanks go out to "butterfly" on Chowhound for this recipe. I'll try one that uses egg next time to compare, but this recipe is already fantastic and uses nonperishables that almost everyone has in the kitchen. I might also experiment with different types of flour next time.

This time, I used a cup of flour, half a cup of water, a third cup of oil, half a teaspoon of salt, and a generous sprinkling of sugar and salt for good measure. That made enough churros for three people, so I gotta cut back next time. I used canola and olive oil because I didn't have enough canola. Olive oil is fine, but a neutral oil is better. Heat the oil to 375 degrees (medium/medium high) while you prepare everything else.

Sift the dry ingredients together. Bring the oil and water to a boil over medium heat, and immediately add the flour mixture. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon until the whole mixture comes together. Keep stirring until a cohesive ball of dough is formed, all the flour is incorporated, and a thin film develops on the bottom of the pot.

Let the dough cool a bit so you can handle it. Meanwhile, mix together some cinnamon and sugar. You can decide how much you need. Start with half a cup of sugar and a few tablespoons of cinnamon. I like to use a little at a time. That way if the oily churros make the mixture wet and clumpy, I can dump it and start over without wasting too much. You can use the color here as a rough guide. Also look at the pastry bag. It doesn't look like a lot of dough, but I used half of it and had enough for two people to eat for dessert. I plan to eat some for breakfast (hopefully the toaster oven will be good for reheating). The rest of the dough was refrigerated.

Pour the dough into a pastry bag with a large star tip. Mine was a bit thin even though I used a half inch star. It's fine for making little three inch dessert churros, but a huge impressive churro needs a bigger star. Pipe churros into as straight a line as you can. Chances are they'll curve, so maybe you want to get creative and pipe circles. Cut the dough with a knife or spoon, and fry until golden brown. You can see the difference between raw and ready churros in this pot.

Drain on a paper towel. I thought I could get away with putting the churros directly into the sugar. Nope. you need to drain it so the sugar doesn't clump into a wet mess onto the churro. You only need a light layer of sugar (way less than I thought).

I just had coffee with mine today, but I bet a nice thick espresso or decadent hot chocolate would be excellent as well. Or maybe ice cream on a hot afternoon. Serve these quickly; the difference in quality of piping hot ones and warm ones is immediately apparent.

And because comparing is fun, here's a photo of the famed Ame churro+hot chocolate. I think I did allright.