Arabian Style Fried Dough Snack

One day as I was sitting on my dining table chair and admiring all those pretty photos from Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros. I found an interestingly easy recipe for dessert or snack. The recipe called Loukoumades ( Deep-fried Honey and Cinnamon Syrup Puffs ). I showed the picture of this dish to Nur, my maid who used to work in Saudi Arabia for 10 years. I told her that I am in the mood for something very unhealhty like fried dough just like the one in the book. I wasn't asking her to make it for me since she can't read English but then she said that when she was working in Saudi Arabia, one of her ex-employer used to sell food and she taught Nur how to make something similar, a deep-fried dough that later they usually eat them drizzled with honey or dusted in sugar. I was intrigue by her description on how easy it is to make this snack so I asked her if she can make it for me. She did that day and my family loves to gobble them up! Since the next day we will have our weekly company meeting, R asked Nur if she can make it again in larger amount to serve to the employees. Our employees loves them as well! Since they are pretty easy to make, Nur make 2 big piles of these fluffy fried dough on 2 large cookie pan. I kept them on my oven with the lowest heat possible to keep their ouside stay crisp.

This dough has a crispy outer layer and if you do it right, the inside should have large holes or even completely hollow on the inside. The key at making them light like this is to whipped/fold the batter every 15 minutes until they raise up in about 1 hour or more.

Since Nur did not gave me the exact recipe for this dish I use my camera to show you how she measure all of the ingredients using just a normal tall glass.

From what I can summaries from her teaching I will try to give you more exact recipe for this dish.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of water
1 whole egg
3/4 tsp salt
2 Tbs oil
3 Tbs milk powder
1 tsp yeast
2 1/4 Cup of all-purpose flour

Oil for deep-frying the dough

Method:

Mixed all of the ingredients until they are well mixed and smooth. Cover the thick batter with plastic or damp towel in a warm area. Stir or fold the batter several times every 15 minutes until at least 1 hour.


Put a lot of oil in a pan or a wok and heat it up with medium-low heat. When they are hot enough, then you can start drooping the batter a spoonful at a time into the hot oil. Turn them around non stop so that they will be golden brown all around. Drain them well on a paper towel.

Before serving, you can either dust them in sugar with maybe cinnamon powder or just plain sugar. Or you can drizzle your favorite honey on them like I do.
It is best to serve them while they are still hot. If you need to make a lot, place the already fried dough on a cookie pan and place them in the oven on 200F or the lowest heat setting your oven have.

NOTE: Someone send me a message saying that this dish name is called Lugemat, but I also find it with slightly different spelling, Lgaimat that means Death Dumpling. Don't ask me why ...