Picarones

Limeño squash and sweet potato rings raised with anise and drenched in fig-leaf chancaca syrup

Origin: Lima, Peru

From the journey of Anise.

Picarones are what happens when a Spanish recipe meets a South American larder and comes off better for it. The Spanish brought buñuelos, fritters of wheat dough fried and sugared. Colonial Lima had limited and expensive wheat and an abundance of squash and sweet potato, and the cooks of the city, in the main African and Andean women working in Spanish households, rebuilt the fritter around what was actually there. The result bears very little resemblance to its parent and is a great deal better. The batter is made from zapallo macre, the enormous ridged Peruvian squash sold in wedges from a whole fruit, and camote, sweet potato, both cooked until collapsing and mashed. Wheat flour appears, but as a binder rather than as the substance. What raises the batter is yeast, and what flavours it is anise: the squash and sweet potato are simmered with anise seed and cinnamon, and the strained cooking water is used to slacken the batter and to start the yeast. The anise is therefore in the dough at the raising stage rather than sprinkled on afterwards, and it is what gives a picarón stall its smell, which carries a very long way. The frying is a piece of showmanship. The picaronera takes a handful of the slack batter, works a hole through it with a wetted thumb, and flips the ring off her fingers into the hot fat in a single motion. Getting the hole right takes practice and getting the batter to the right slackness takes more. The syrup is chancaca, unrefined cane sugar sold in dark cones, melted with water and simmered with fig leaf, orange peel, cinnamon, and clove. The fig leaf is not decoration; it contributes a green, coconut-like note that is characteristic and hard to replace. They are street food, they are eaten hot and immediately, and they belong above all to October, when the Señor de los Milagros procession moves through central Lima and the stalls follow it. Ricardo Palma noticed them in the Tradiciones Peruanas, and they were being sold in the streets of the city long before that.

Ingredients

Batter

  • 500 g peeled and deseeded squash (zapallo macre, or crown prince, kabocha, or butternut), cut into chunks
  • 300 g orange-fleshed sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 1.5 tsp anise seed
  • 1 stick cinnamon
  • 1 litre water
  • 7 g fast-action dried yeast
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • 300 g plain flour, approximately, plus more as needed
  • 0.75 tsp fine sea salt

To Fry

  • 1.5 litres sunflower or other neutral oil, for deep frying

Chancaca Syrup

  • 250 g chancaca or panela, chopped, or dark muscovado sugar
  • 300 ml water
  • 2 whole fresh or dried fig leaves
  • 1 strip orange peel, pared with no pith
  • 1 stick cinnamon
  • 3 whole cloves

Method

  1. Put the squash and sweet potato into a large pan with the anise seed, the cinnamon stick, and the litre of water. Bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for 20 to 25 minutes until both are entirely soft.
  2. Strain, reserving all the cooking liquid. Discard the cinnamon stick. Pass the squash and sweet potato through a ricer or mash them very thoroughly, and leave to cool until barely warm.
  3. Take 120 ml of the reserved cooking liquid, check that it is no more than blood heat, and stir in the yeast and the tablespoon of caster sugar. Leave for ten minutes until frothy.
  4. Combine the mashed vegetables, the yeast mixture, and the salt in a large bowl. Work in the flour a little at a time until you have a very soft, sticky, elastic batter that just holds its shape on a spoon. Add more of the reserved cooking liquid or more flour as needed.
  5. Beat the batter hard with a wooden spoon or by hand for three or four minutes to develop it, then cover and leave in a warm place for one and a half to two hours until visibly risen and full of bubbles.
  6. Meanwhile make the syrup. Put the chancaca, water, fig leaves, orange peel, cinnamon, and cloves into a pan and simmer gently for 25 to 30 minutes until reduced to a pourable syrup that coats a spoon. Strain and keep warm.
  7. Heat the frying oil to 180°C in a deep pan. Set out a bowl of water beside it.
  8. Wet one hand thoroughly. Scoop up a small handful of batter, let it hang from the fingers, push a thumb through the middle to open a hole, and slide the ring off into the oil in one movement.
  9. Fry three or four at a time for two to three minutes, turning once, until deep golden and puffed. Lift out onto kitchen paper.
  10. Serve at once, three or four to a plate, with the warm chancaca syrup poured generously over them.

Notes

The batter can be made the night before and left in the refrigerator; bring it back to room temperature and give it half an hour in the warm before frying. It is often better for the long cold rise. If zapallo macre is unavailable, crown prince or kabocha gives the closest dense, dry, sweet flesh; butternut is wetter and will need more flour. Do not use a watery squash such as a large marrow. Chancaca is sold by Latin American grocers as cones or blocks; panela, piloncillo, and jaggery are all acceptable stand-ins, and dark muscovado at a pinch. Fig leaves freeze well, so a summer tree will supply the whole year. The rings are traditionally eaten with the fingers, and in Lima a portion is four or five with a great deal more syrup than seems reasonable.

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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