Picarones

Ingredients

• 500g squash such as crown prince or butternut, peeled and cubed
• 300g orange sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 star anise
• 1 tbsp aniseed
• 450g strong white bread flour
• 7g fast-action dried yeast
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 1.5 litres sunflower oil, for deep frying
• For the chancaca syrup: 250g chancaca or dark muscovado sugar
• 300ml water
• 1 orange
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 cloves
• 2 fig leaves, if you can get them

Before you cook

• Tie the aniseed into a small square of muslin, or use a tea infuser
• Peel a long strip of zest from the orange and juice the rest of it
• Have a bowl of water and a slotted spoon ready beside the fryer for shaping

Steps

1. Put the squash and sweet potato in a large pan with the cinnamon stick, star anise and the aniseed bundle.
2. Cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes, until everything is completely soft.
3. Scoop out the vegetables with a slotted spoon and keep 250ml of the spiced cooking water.
4. Fish out and discard the whole spices and the aniseed bundle.
5. Mash the squash and sweet potato to a smooth puree and leave it to cool to lukewarm.
6. Weigh out 600g of the puree, which is what the dough needs, and eat any excess as a cook's perk.
7. Stir the yeast and sugar into 100ml of the reserved warm cooking water and leave it for 10 minutes, until frothy.
8. Combine the puree, flour, salt and yeast mixture in a large bowl.
9. Beat the batter hard with your hand for 8 minutes, lifting and slapping it, until it is elastic, sticky and full of air.
10. Cover the bowl and leave the batter somewhere warm for 90 minutes, until it has doubled and looks bubbly.
11. Put the chancaca, 300ml water, orange zest, orange juice, cinnamon stick, cloves and fig leaves in a small pan.
12. Simmer the syrup gently for 25 minutes, until it coats a spoon and falls in a thick ribbon, then strain it and keep it warm.
13. Heat the sunflower oil in a deep wide pan to 180C.
14. Wet one hand in the bowl of water, scoop up a golf ball of batter and let it hang between your thumb and fingers.
15. Poke your thumb through the middle to open a hole, then lower the ring into the oil and let it slide off your hand.
16. Fry four picarones at a time for 90 seconds, until the underside is deep gold.
17. Flip each one with a slotted spoon and fry for another 90 seconds.
18. Lift them onto kitchen paper and immediately start the next batch, re-wetting your hand each time.
19. Pile the picarones onto plates and pour the warm chancaca syrup generously over them.
20. Eat them at once, while the outside still crackles.