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Crete TOURnet: Home Cretan Diet Classic Cretan recipes: Xerotigana

Classic Cretan recipes: Xerotigana

Xerotigana (a)Xerotigana

Ingredients

1 kg flour for all uses   
1 egg       
1/3 water glass milk
1/8 water glass tsikoudia  
1 glass of water
oil (for frying)
cinnamon

The syrup:

2 tbsp. honey
1 water glass sugar
1 glass of water

Preparation

Put the flour in a big bowl, add some water, the egg, milk and tsikoudia and knead until the dough becomes hard. Let it rise for 1-2 hours. Then roll out a very thin pastry sheet, cut it in stripes (2-4 cm), fold it in various shapes and fry the xerotigana in sizzling oil *. See that their colour turns golden and not brown. When they are ready, take them out of the pan and strain them. Then prepare the syrup (for 10-15 xerotigana) as follows:
Mix the water and sugar in a saucepan stirring continuously, and let it boil for 10-15 minutes until the syrup becomes thick. Remove from the fire, add the honey and continue stirring in order for the syrup not to stick. Then dip the xerotigana in it one by one, soak them for 1-2 minutes, take them out, put them in a large flat dish and sprinkle with some sugar, cinnamon and some burnt sesame, if you want.
Use plenty of oil during frying because the xerotigana must be floating in it.
 

Xerotigana (b)

Ingredients

3 eggs
the juice of ½ lemon
oil
salt
flour (for all uses), as much as it takes
water

Preparation

There is another version for the preparation of the dough:
Beat the eggs, lemon juice, oil and salt together and when they have become a smooth mixture, add the flour and water and continue kneading.
The rest of the procedure is the same as in “Xerotigana (a’).