The Southern Cone · Volume 25, The Río de la Plata Table
Torta frita
Uruguay
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
The custom of eating tortas fritas with mate specifically on rainy days, día de lluvia, día de torta frita, is widely and consistently attested and linked to gaucho tradition; one popular elaboration, that gauchos specifically collected rainwater for the dough, is a charming addition with no primary source behind it, and belongs among this chapter's unasserted claims rather than its facts. There is a real, dated civic festival, the Fiesta de la Torta Frita, held in Canelones on 7 and 8 October, running since 2002.
As tradition built it
Makes 20. About 1 hour prep and resting, 30 minutes cooking.
Ingredients
- 1kg plain flour
- 1.5 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 4 tbsp melted butter or lard
- 150ml warm water, approximately 36°C
- as needed fat or oil, for frying
- 100g icing sugar, to finish
Method
- Proof the yeast with the sugar in 150ml warm water, 20 minutes.
- Mix into the flour with the melted fat. Add the salt after 1 minute of mixing.
- Prove 1 hour, until doubled.
- Divide into 10 pieces, roll each to a disc roughly 0.8mm thick and 15cm across, and cut a central hole or two knife slits to help it fry evenly.
- Fry in generous hot fat, turning once, until golden on both sides.
- Drain and dust generously with icing sugar. Serve immediately, with mate.
What a modern chef changes
The frying fat's temperature held deliberately, and the dough's hydration controlled for a lighter, less greasy result
Rung 2
Method
- Hold the frying fat at a steady 180°C using a probe thermometer, rather than judging by eye, since torta frita's thin, wide surface area is unusually sensitive to fat that is too cool, which produces a greasy, heavy result, or too hot, which browns the outside before the centre cooks through.
- Rest the rolled discs briefly, uncovered, for 10 minutes before frying, letting a very light skin form on the surface, which fries to a slightly crisper finish than dough that goes straight from the roller into the fat.
- Drain on a rack rather than paper, so steam escapes from underneath as well as above, keeping the underside from softening while the icing sugar goes on.