Airy savoury fritters from a soft, highly-hydrated leavened batter of flour, water and yeast, dropped by the spoonful into hot oil where they puff hollow and golden. Salted and eaten hot from the paper cuoppo, they are a friggitoria staple quite unlike the sweet zeppole di San Giuseppe.
In Naples the word zeppola covers two very different things: the sweet, custard-topped zeppole di San Giuseppe eaten on 19 March, and these savoury pastecresciute, a fixture of the city's friggitorie. Born of cucina povera, they use nothing but flour, water, yeast and salt, the cheapest of ingredients stretched into something festive. The batter is often studded with strips of seaweed, salted anchovies or tiny cicenielli whitebait, and the fritters are sold by weight in a rolled paper cuoppo to be eaten walking through the vicoli.
Craggy, blistered and deep gold outside, the inside pulls apart into hot steam and a fine open crumb. The crust is crisp and salty, the centre soft and faintly sour from the yeast, and any anchovy or seaweed inside turns briny against the plain fried dough.
The batter is deliberately wet, near-batter hydration, so that when the yeast ferments, the gas it produces is trapped in a slack, extensible gluten network rather than a stiff dough. Dropped into oil at about 175°C, the surface sets fast while the trapped carbon dioxide and the flash-steaming water inflate the interior, leaving it hollow and light. Salt is added after frying so it does not draw water from the batter or slow the yeast.
Variations
Sweet versions coat the same fried puffs in sugar. Savoury cooks fold in chopped seaweed, salted anchovies, cicenielli whitebait or slivers of zucchini flower; some Naples fritters add a little grated pecorino to the batter.
On the Palate
Where Zeppole di Pasta Cresciuta sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
8 steps · 10 min
- 12 min
In a bowl, dissolve 10g fresh yeast in 250ml lukewarm water.
- 25 min
Add 300g flour and 5g salt; beat with a spoon into a smooth, sticky, pourable batter.
- 360 min
Cover and leave in a warm spot until the batter is full of bubbles and doubled, about 1 hour.
Watch outLet the wet batter rise until it's full of bubbles and doubled — that trapped gas is what puffs the fritter hollow; a flat batter fries dense and heavy.
- 48 min
Heat oil to about 175°C in a deep pan.
- 54 min
Scoop up a spoonful of batter and slide it off your finger into the oil, working in small batches so the fritters have room to puff.
- 63 min
Fry, turning once, until deep golden and hollow-sounding, about 90 seconds.
Watch outFry until deep golden and hollow-sounding, about ninety seconds — the tap should sound empty; pull too pale and the center is still raw batter.
- 72 min
Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain on paper; salt while hot.
Watch outSalt only once they're out of the oil — salt earlier draws water from the batter and slows the yeast, killing the puff.
- 81 min
Pile into a paper cuoppo and eat immediately.
