Tiny Food: Venezuelan Tequeños!
Our Venezuelan tequeños are a serious business (and I’m so proud about it)
If you are a respectable Venezuelan (un tipo serio), you serve them at breakfast, snack, supper, a casual party, or a fancy one and yes, even your wedding. Don’t you dare, plan a wedding without a good, just fried, servicio de tequeños! ever.
They aren’t a regular mozzarella stick (please, don’t ever tell a Venezuelan they are, because, don’t get me started on this), they are GLORIOUS tiny fried cheese sticks wrapped in dough, fresh, homemade dough!
My only wish?
Find a perfect cheese to make them in Montreal as close as the queso palmita (like my mom did, while I was growing up in Maracaibo).
oh hey, the Venezuelan tequeños top secrets
the cheese: I invested a crazy amount of time testing so many cheeses since I moved to Montreal and I finally found the one. The closest one is a fresh white cheddar, made in Quebec. OUI, the popular poutine cheese, the squeaky one! Get them in a block, fresh and never ever refrigerate (ever). Maybe I forgot what a real tequeños taste like, but this cheese is the only one who helps me calm my cravings.
The dough: so, you mastered the cheese so far. Now, let’s talk about the perfect dough. The key secret is that it must be elastic, as you are going to become an amazing magician, wrapping the dough around a cheese stick without breaking it. I also learned when kneading the dough, to achieve the perfect and crispy tequeños, just fold the dough (a lot). You can fold the dough from 6 to 8 times to give it a puff pastry, flaky effect.
You guessed this right: they are deep fried!
Don’t worry about the wrapping part, the dough is so elastic, it won’t be easy to break!
Venezuelan Tequeños
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 5 spoons salted butter or margarine, melted
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 6 spoons water
- 1 block white cheddar cheese, fresh
- avocado oil (for frying)
Instructions
D O U G H
- Place the flour in a medium bowl, add the salt and whisk together.
- Melt the butter and add them to the flour.
- Add the egg.
- Use your fingers to mix the egg and butter into the flour until the mixture is sandy and crumbly, add the water until you have a soft dough.
- Cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes
K N E A D I N G - W R A P P I N G
- Start kneading the dough and fold up to 6-8 times.
- Flatten the dough and cut strings (about 3 cm width).
- Start wrapping with one tip of the cheese. Then, gently wrap the rest of the cheese overlapping the string of dough while you cover the entire cheese. Make sure to cover well (to avoid a mess when you fry them).
S E R V I N G
- When the oil is hot, fry them until all sides are golden brown
- Welcome to tequeño heaven!