Denise Mayoff says this one is an old family recipe that my grandmother brought from Hungary. This is a real hands on recipe! We pronounced it “tchurtaga”, but guess something was lost in translation. 🙂 My kids remember this as the “powdered sugar thing”, and still ask for it.
I got this recipe from my grandmother years ago by watching her and making her measure all the ingredients so I could write it down. I suppose this could be made in a food processor, but making it by hand brings back warm memories!
- Flour – 4 scant cups
- baking powder – 1 TBSP
- grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon
- juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon
- 6 egg yolks
- whiskey – 4 heaping TBSP
- Crisco
- powdered sugar
- Put the flour and baking powder in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the middle.
- Add egg yolks, fruit juices and rinds, and whiskey. Mix all this up.
- Knead the dough by lifting with fingers and punching down, till dough leaves the hands clean and comes off bowl.
- Melt Crisco in frying pan to depth of 1/2″.
- Working with small amounts of dough, roll out dough really thin on cutting board or counter sprinkled with flour. Try to use as little flour as possible.
- With a pastry wheel, cut into strips about 1 1/2 inches wide.
- Cut each strip into pieces about 3 – 4 inches long.
- Cut a small slit in the center of each piece and twist like a Mobius strip, pulling the dough thinner as you twist.
- Fry till golden brown, drain on paper towels.
- When cool, sift powdered sugar on top.