The favorites Kythira rusks, can easily be made homemade. These oil nuts, crispy and fluffy, they are the best thing you can make in a nut. They are pleasant eaten plain, but also with gruyere and honey or as a base for any salad.
The cheerios nuts, you can eat them in the morning as a healthy breakfast, as a snack or as an accompaniment to food. There are many oil nuts on the market, of the Kythera type or the authentic ones, straight from the island.
However, it is worth making the nuts at home, they are very easy to prepare and you also eliminate the “risk” of buying nuts that are “rancid”. This is relatively easy to do because they contain a lot of oil and are relatively exposed to the plastic packaging that they are preserved in.
Also when preparing at home, you can also check the quality of the olive oil, which is the main ingredient and determines the quality of the nut.
An interesting “tweak” to this recipe is add a little sesame oil along with the olive oil. That is, if you reduce the amount of olive oil by 50 ml and add sesame oil, the taste is amazing!
Summer is approaching... and salads with chirigotiki oil nuts are a must!
MATERIALS
- 1 kg all-purpose flour or 800 g all-purpose flour + 200 g wholemeal flour (I used Manna all-purpose flour and Lemnos Stamateris wholemeal flour)
- 470-500 ml lukewarm water (depending on the flour to be used)
- 200 ml light olive oil
- 10 g yeast (1 sachet and a little more)
- 10 g salt
EXECUTION
In the bowl of a mixer or in any large bowl, pour the flour, add the salt, mix lightly, add the yeast and the olive oil and start kneading with the hook of the mixer or with your hands, adding the water.
If you do the kneading by hand be prepared that it takes a lot of strength and patience, 7-8 strong kneading is demanding work. If that's how you knead, roll up your sleeves and... boom!
The resulting dough is quite heavy due to the oil and firm. Give it a ball shape.
Cover the dough and let it double, this will take about 1.5-2 hours, depending on room temperature.
When you see that it has risen, lightly grease the workbench and knead the dough for a while, as if you were deflated.
Divide the dough in half and shape it into loafs. Try to make the two loaves similar in shape and amount of dough.
The two loaves will give you large nuts. If you prefer smaller ones, divide the dough into thirds or fourths.
Arrange the loaves in a shallow baking pan covered with baking paper.
Score the loaves with a knife, but do not cut the dough all the way down. Plunge the knife about halfway into the dough, without cutting it completely. Let the thickness of the nuts be about a finger, it is a satisfactory thickness.
Cover the nuts for about 40-45 minutes or until you see that they have risen well. You will know this when you see that they have curved at the top.
Bake the nuts at 200 degrees for 40-45 minutes on the resistance for 40-45 minutes.
Remove the loaves and let them cool. With a sharp knife, preferably a serrated knife, cut the nuts in the places you cut them before baking.
Line two shallow baking pans with baking paper and arrange the nuts on their sides, with the flat side facing up.
Put them back in the oven, at 150 degrees with air, to toast them. This will take about 40 minutes.
The chirigotiki nuts are ready! Let them cool completely and keep them tightly closed in a box or put them in a cloth bag and again in a plastic bag. Don't leave the nuts too long without eating them because they “go rancid” due to the oil.
