Iris Fritto

The iris is a Palermo creation, documented to 1901 and attributed to the pastry chef Antonino Lo Verso. It is named for Pietro Mascagni's opera Iris (libretto by Luigi Illica), which had received its world premiere on 22 November 1898 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome and was staged at Palermo's Teatro Massimo in 1901; Lo Verso created the sweet as a tribute during that run, and he is said to have attended all of its Palermo performances. The dessert was so successful with the aristocracy and bourgeoisie who frequented his café on Via Roma that he renamed the café «Iris» after it. Lo Verso's method — taking a crustless sweet roll, moistening and filling it, then breading and frying it — is the documented original; the precise wording of the various legends around it cannot be confirmed beyond the 1901 date and his authorship.

The first bite is the crackle of a thin, crisp, deep-fried breadcrumb shell, golden and barely greasy if fried right. Inside, the brioche is soft and pillowy, and then comes the filling: sweet, smooth ricotta cream warmed almost to molten by the frying, with little chocolate chips that soften and run. Eaten hot, the play of crunchy crust, fluffy bread and warm ricotta is the whole pleasure. A good one is light and dry-crusted with a clean ricotta sweetness; a bad one is oil-logged and heavy from frying too cool, or the filling leaks because the dough was sealed badly or the oil was too hot.

Two things make it work: the dough and the fry. The shell is an enriched brioche dough, soft and slightly sweet, that puffs in the oil; in the oldest method a crustless bread roll was emptied of its crumb and moistened with milk before filling, so the casing stays thin and tender. Before frying, the filled ball is brushed with beaten egg and rolled in breadcrumbs — the egg glues the crumb on and, with it, seals the surface, which sets fast in the oil into a crisp barrier that keeps the soft ricotta from bursting out. Frying around 170 to 175°C is the balance point: hot enough that the crust seals and browns by Maillard reactions before oil soaks in, gentle enough that the dough cooks through and the filling warms without scorching the crumb coat. Sealing the dough seam well and not crowding the oil are what keep the filling in and the crust crisp rather than soggy.