Step by step: home made churros
During our recent stay in Burgos we made churros one morning. In case you haven’t heard of them before, churros are a traditional Spanish fried pastry, usually eaten for breakfast (specially Sundays) and almost by the rule, served with hot chocolate dip.
Now, since I’m always having stomach-related issues with fried food, I could never imagine myself having something *so* heavy for the start of a day… but the curiosity won me over for a moment and I can say now, I’ve tasted a churro!*
I’ve happily photo-documented the procedure of making churros by the dilligent hands of Juanpi’s mother – the churros we made are called porras, which are the thick ones, so-called Madrid-style. There are also thinner ones that normally come in an oval, spyral shape and similar.
And what’s with the name “churro”?
Well, this pastry got its name from its shape which, apparently, resembles the horns of the ancient Iberian breed of sheep by the name of “Churro”. So here you have it.
In Spain, churros are sold by street vendors, or they can be found in churrerías (specialized churro-making shops) and in many a street café. Our home-made churros came out much greasier than the ones you’d buy: the reason was the oil temperature, I was told, because your home stove can simply not produce such a high temperature like the industrialized deep friers tend to – where a churro only needs a moment to turn golden brown, without soaking too much oil.
* And it quite convinced me that I’m not going to eat it ever again soon again… Reminded me of the reason *why *I don’t eat fried food in my daily life. 
So, let’s see how it goes:
You need: 350ml water, a pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 300g all-purpose flour and vegetable oil for frying
Bring the water to boil. In the meantime, mix the flour with baking soda
When the water starts boiling, add salt and then all the flour in one go
Reduce the heat and start stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture becomes homogeneous and lump-less. Remove from heat and let sit for a while
When cooled, spoon the batter into churrera, a special pump for forming churros - there are plastic as well as metal ones available on the (Spanish) market
Heat sufficient amount of oil and when really hot, squeeze long strips of the batter into the oil: the lenght depends on how big the frying pan
Cut the strips using kitchen scissors (be careful) and fry them on both sides until golden brown
While the churros are frying, you might want to prepare the traditional churro dip: hot chocolate
Drain the fried churros on a paper towel... or better said, on lots of them...
... and then start eating by dipping them into hot chocolate
Churros are a must-try snack for everyone who visits Spain. There are thousands of churro recipes out there, some add eggs and butter to the batter (a sort of choux pastry), some add sugar or even roll the fried churros in the mixture of sugar and cinnamon… however, I believe the real churros are much simpler made, more or less like described above.
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