Portuguese Traditional Christmas Pastry...

There are some Portuguese Christmas tradition that have stayed on in my family although we have been abroad for so long. Some tradition are nicer than others, and this is the case of a delicious pastry done on Christmas and New Year. They are called "Filhóses" or "Velhóses" according to the region in Portugal where they are made, but the recipe is always the same...most of the time!

This is the tradition I will now make you discover...for me there is no real Christmas without at least one of my mother's "filhós"

Ingredients

· 1500g pumpkin (this weight is after the pumpkin was cooked and dried of its residual water) · 600g of flour
· 4 eggs (optional)
· 20g of live yeast
· 5g salt
· a (very) small glass of Port wine
· sugar and cinnamon


1. Peal a medium pumpkin, cut it in cubes and cook it in water without salt. Once cooked, let it dry and squeeze it well to get rid of any residual water.

2. In a big bowl, mix the live yeast in a bit of warm water (careful not hot water, you would “kill” the yeast), add it to the pumpkin with the salt, the Port, the flour and the eggs (if you add eggs you final dough will be a bit “harder” so balance with the quantity of flour used – in my family it is a tradition not to add the eggs, and the result is always so soft and nice).

3. Cover the bowl with a folded blanket and let it leaven as long as necessary. For a minimum of at least 3 hours!

4. After the dough has leavened, put vegetable oil in a pan and once hot form a ball of dough with a spoon and drop it in the oil, let it fry (careful that the oil is not too hot otherwise your dough would burn outside and be raw inside.

5. Once fried, roll them in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

6. Serve them warm with a glass of Port!