Taralli

For some people it's chocolate, for some it's peanut butter. These savory Italian biscuits are one of my many weaknesses.  I eat one, I eat two and the next thing I know it's all gone.  They're delicious.

 There's this Italian deli back where I went to school and they would sometimes have a bowl of taralli out as samples.  And I'd always pop in, pretend to be interested in the overpriced goods, and then take two taralli and leave.  Shameless, I know.  It's not that I was cheap and I didn't want to buy a whole bag of it, it's that I knew if I bought a whole bag I'd eat the whole bag before I get back home.
And that's also why I never made them until today.  I don't know, I felt like making them, I already halved the recipe and yet that still made quite a few and I ate them all. All.  Well, my mom had two, my dad had one and my sister had one.

These are just plain, but you often find them with fennel seeds and you can go crazy with chili, sesame, black pepper, oregano etc etc.  If you've never had them, they're kind of like those snacking bread sticks.  It's a simple dough made with just flour, salt, olive oil and wine. You knead and knead, then you leave it to rest, shape them, boil them for a bit like pretzels and then bake them.

Makes about 100

Recipe from Giallo Zafferano

Ingredients
500g strong flour
200ml dry white wine
125g olive oil
10g salt

Method
Mix all the ingredients together to form a dough and knead for about 20 minutes or until elastic.  Place the dough in a bowl and leave it to rest for 30 - 60 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 200C.  Break off a piece of dough, the size of a walnut, and roll it into a thin log.  Then shape them into rings and press the ends together.  Repeat until all the dough is used up.

Place about a handful of them in boiling water and let them boil for about 2 minutes.  Remove them with a slotted spoon and repeat. 

Place them on a greased baking sheet and bake for about 20-30 minutes or until golden.