Churros with Hot Chocolate

Happy Cinco de Mayo!
To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I am going to post a few Mexican and Mexican inspired foods in the next couple of weeks.

The first Mexican recipe is churros. Churro is a Mexican (actually, Spanish or Portuguese) doughnut or beignet - sweetened deep fried dough. Who doesn't like deep fry? And, also who doesn't like sweets? I think churros are perfect dessert to please anyone.

The following recipe is adopted from Chef Rick Billings's recipe. Crusty outside, and very moist inside thanks to queso fresco. Also, unlike any other churros recipe, it uses cinnamon infused water to enhance the flavor.

Churros with Hot Chocolate
(Yield: about 20-23 churros / Cooking time: one hour)

Ingredients:
+ 1.5 cups water
+ 1 cinnamon stick
+ 1/8 tsp salt
+ 4 Tbsp unsalted butter (a half stick)
+ 1 cup all-purpose flour
+ 2 ounce queso fresco
+ 1 egg
+ cinnamon sugar (= 1/4 cup sugar + 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder)
+ vegetable oil for frying


* If you don't find queso fresco, you can use equal parts of cottage cheese and fetta, or use paneer from Indian market.

Procedures:
1-1. Crumble queso fresco with a fork, and...
1-2. ... in a separate plate, mix sugar and cinnamon powder to make cinnamon sugar.


2. Simmer 1.5 cup water with one stick of cinnamon over medium heat without lid until the water is reduced to 1 cup. Strain the water to remove cinnamon stick or any sediments.


3. Pour the cinnamon water back to the pot and add salt and butter and boil just until the butter melts.


4-1. Add flour and queso fresco to the boiling butter cinnamon water at once.
4-2. Turn off the heat and mix vigorously with a spatula until the dough comes together. Work the dough with a spatula for about a minute more.
4-3. Then, add a cracked egg.
4-4. And, mix again until the egg is absorbed completely, and the dough is smooth.


5. Insert a 9/16" closed star pastry tip to a pastry bag. (I used Ateco 847 pastry tip.)


6. Transfer the dough to the prepared pastry bag.


7. Heat frying oil in a deep pan to 350°F (177°). If you don't have thermometer for frying oil, you can add a bit of dough to the oil and see if the dough floats but does not burn immediately.


8. Hold the pastry bag over the hot oil, and squeeze the churros dough until about 4-5 inches long, then snip the end with scissors.


9. When one side of churros is fried to golden brown, flip the churros to cook both sides evenly.


10. Let the fried churros cool down a bit over paper towel, and toss it in cinnamon sugar to coat them evenly with cinnamon sugar.


11. Serve churros with hot chocolate sauce.

Enjoy~