Fattigman Recipes

FATTIGMANN

Steps:

• In a large bowl, beat egg and yolks together. Stir in the cream, sugar, melted butter and cardamom. Mix in enough of the flour to make a soft but manageable dough. Handle the dough as little as possible or cookies will be tough.
• Heat oil in deep skillet to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). On a floured cloth, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into 2x2 inch diamond shapes.
• Fry in hot lard until lightly browned. Drain on paper and dust with confectioners' sugar when cool. The cookies should be uniform in size and thickness and shouldn't be fried too dark or too light.

FATTIGMAN COOKIES

Steps:

• Gather the ingredients.
• Cream together eggs, sugar, and brandy, if using.
• Stir in melted butter.
• Gently fold whipped cream into batter.
• Sift together flour, cardamom, baking powder, and salt.
• With a light hand, mix dry ingredients into batter to form a soft dough. You want to avoid handling dough too much. Otherwise, cookies will end up tough.
• Chill dough, covered, for at least 30 minutes or overnight.
• Roll chilled dough out on a floured board to a thickness of 1/8 inch.
• Using a fattigman cutter or a pastry cutter, cut dough into diamond shapes about 1 1/4-inch wide by 3 1/2 inches long. If you're using a pastry cutter, cut dough first into 1 1/4-inch strips and then cut across these diagonally to form diamonds.
• Use a knife to cut a 1/2-inch slash in the middle of each diamond.
• Twist one corner of each diamond up through center slash to make a knot.
• Heat 2 inches of oil in the bottom of a heavy pot to 375 F.
• Drop in pastry knots and fry until golden brown, turning occasionally.
• Remove and drain on paper towels.
• Sprinkle cookies with vanilla sugar or confectioners' sugar and serve immediately.

FATTIGMAN

Steps:

• Beat eggs till light and fluffy. Add sugar and cream together with brandy (optional). Stir in the melted butter. Gently fold the whipped cream into the batter. Sift together the remaining dry ingredients and mix into the batter to form a soft dough. Wrap dough and chill for 1 hour or overnight. Roll the chilled dough (cut in half if space is limited) out on a floured surface to an 1/8" thickness. Cut the dough into elongated diamond shapes abour 1" wide by 3" long. Cut a 1/2" slit in the middle of each diamond (parallell to long side). Twist one corner of each diamond up through the opening make a knot. In bottom of heavy pot heat two-three inches of vegetable oil in the bottom of a heavy pot to 375º. Drop knots (making sure they are not crowed in pot) and fry until golden, turning when needed. Remove and drain on paper towels. Check oil temp before dropping in new knots to raise temp back up to 375º. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

NANA'S FATTIGMAN

Steps:

• Beat egg yolks and sugar until light. Beat in enough flour to make dough. Wrap and chill. Roll out to thin. Cut in diamond shaped 6x1 inch strips with fattigman cutter. Cut a 1.5 inch slit in center. Turn one end inside out(thread tip through slit). Put enough oil in pan so that cookie won't touch bottom. (maybe a 1/2 inch deep) Deep fry at 385 degrees Turn once (should be lightly browned on each side). Drain on brown paper. Can freeze at this point, well wrapped, for a long time WHen ready to serve, sprinkle with 10x sugar.

FATTIGMAN

Steps:

• Beat together egg yolks and sugar.
• Whisk in cream.
• Stir in cognac and spices.
• Beat egg white until it's stiff and carefully stir into other ingredients.
• Mix in a little more than half of the flour.
• Let dough stand, covered and in a cool place, overnight.
• Use the remaining flour (as little as possible) for rolling out the dough; the less flour you use, the more tender the fattigman will be.
• Roll the dough out a little at a time and as thinly as possible.
• Use a fattigmann cutter to cut out diamond shapes.
• Make a small diagonal cut in the center of each diamond, and "thread" one point of the diamond through the cut.
• Heat lard to 350º F.
• Fry fattigman until golden brown.
• You must flip the fattigman to brown both sides.
• A chop sticks works great for this.
• Drain on paper towels.
• Best when 2 people work on these, one cutting/flipping and the other flipping in the hot oil.

FATTIGMAN BAKELSE (POOR MAN'S PASTRY)

Steps:

• Beat yolks and whites, salt and sugar together for 1/2 hour (I know -- but that's what the recipe calls for).
• Add cream and cardamom and stir together well; add butter, lemon extract and brandy.
• Add enough flour to make a dough stiff enough to roll out thinly.
• Place in refrigerator and chill overnight.
• Roll out thinly in small quantities; cut into diamond shapes.
• Cut a slit in the center of each diamond and pull one corner through.
• Preheat oil to 365°F and fry pastry to a delicate brown.
• Cool on paper towels and dust lightly with confectioner's sugar.

FATTIGMAND

Steps:

• Combine all ingredients in a large bowl until mixed well. Roll out half the dough at a time on a lightly floured work surface into a large near-rectangle shape. Dough should be rolled to less than 1/8" thickness. Cut dough into diamond shapes, approximately 3" long. Do this by first cutting long rows into the dough, then slice across the rows diagonally to form the diamonds. Discard the unused end pieces and mix back into remaining dough. In the center of each diamond, cut a small slit lengthwise (about 1/4" long). Take one end of the diamond, and put through the slit, and gently pull through, creating a knotted shape. Put shaped cookies into a plate or cookie sheet. Heat enough canola oil in a large, deep skillet to be about 2" deep. Heat over moderately high heat until hot. Drop a single cookie into the oil to test temperature -- cookie should have bubbles form around it immediately, float to the surface, and begin to brown on the bottom side in about 20 seconds. Flip over, and brown other side. Remove to opened and spread out brown paper bags to drain and cool. Do the next cookies in batches of 10 or so, but do not overcrowd the pan. When cookies are completely cool, they should be crisp. Roll in powdered sugar, and place in air tight cookie tin.