Brushwood - inexpensive cookies, classic Soviet cuisine. Nowadays it is not popular, which is completely unjustified. It is possible to prepare brushwood using a minimum set of products. Therefore, when planning an economical menu or if you are just too lazy to go to the store, the brushwood recipes will come in handy.
Origin of brushwood
Greece is considered to be the birthplace of brushwood since thinly sliced pieces of dough have been fried in boiling oil since the 15th century AD. Such a crispy, tasty and not very fatty delicacy gradually spread throughout the world, it was brought to court in Russia in the 18th century.
Due to the availability of ingredients and ease of preparation, the recipe quickly became popular among the peasant class, it was often prepared in monasteries.
At first they used fresh dough, and after a while the brushwood became a sweet delicacy.
The name "brushwood" biscuits received because of the appearance, the finished product is similar to dry sprigs of trees (in some regions of Russia it was also called "dry"). In Ukraine, brushwood is known as "Verguns", but to the English it resembles angel wings - "Angel Wings".
At the moment, the dish is common in almost all European countries and some Asian countries.
What happens brushwood
The dough for this dish is prepared in two ways - steep or liquid. Steep dough is easier to work with and much easier to fry cookies. But with liquid it is necessary to tinker - each piece will have to be poured separately into boiling oil.
Also, brushwood differs by the added ingredients:
- Not sweet
- Lactic.
- With cottage cheese.
- With kefir.
There are many options for making cookies. Some housewives add starch (corn or potato) to the dough, use corn, rye and almond flour, inject cottage cheese or cheese.
Crisp and delicious brushwood is obtained from any ingredients!
Cooking subtleties
Making brushwood, like many traditional dishes, has some tricks. Observing simple rules, you can make excellent pastries:
- The recipe may include water, yogurt, milk, kefir, sour cream.
- To increase the "crispiness" of cookies, some alcohol is added to the composition.
- If you do not put sugar in the dough, baking will be more magnificent.
- You can bake brushwood in the oven. This method will significantly reduce calories and simplify the cooking process.
- Oil for frying is used any: sunflower, olive, creamy. It is advisable not to fry in unrefined oil, as it releases carcinogens with prolonged heating.
- The "crispness" of brushwood depends on the thickness of the dough, you need to roll out as thin as possible.
- Remove dough residues from boiling oil so that it does not burn and does not give the baking a bitter taste.
- Cookies can be put on napkins so that it absorbs excess oil.
- The brushwood can be an excellent snack for beer, in which case it should be made savory, and after cooking, sprinkle with a mixture of peppers, sesame and finely chopped bacon.
- Decorate cookies and add flavor to it using sugar powder, cocoa powder, chopped nuts, and grated chocolate. Or you can just pour it with condensed milk, jam, honey.
TOP 3 recipes for milk
Classic option
Cooking time: 50 minutes.
Calories: 476 kcal per 100 grams.
The taste of crispy cookies made with milk has been familiar to many since childhood. Mothers and grandmothers consistently included this simple and inexpensive recipe in the everyday menu. Remember the childhood and the same taste can now, having prepared the brushwood with milk.
Ingredients:
- flour - 500 gr .;
- sugar - 2 tbsp. l .;
- milk - 125 ml;
- eggs - 4 pcs .;
- Vodka - 1 tbsp. l .;
- vegetable oil - 250 ml;
- salt - 0.5 tsp.
Milk, vodka, sugar, salt and eggs combine in a bowl, lightly beat with a fork or whisk. Sift the flour, pour it into another dish, make a well, pour the egg-milk mixture into it. Knead the dough and leave it for 20 minutes to rise. Roll out the dough as thin as possible so that the cookie is crispy. Cut into rectangles, make a cut in the middle and turn the edges of the rectangles into it. Fry in oil and spread on a paper towel to remove excess fat.
If desired, the milk in the recipe can be replaced with a cream with a fat content of not more than 20%.
Tatar twig
Cooking time: 140 minutes.
Calories: 342 kcal per 100 grams.
Another well-known name for such a delicacy is Urama or Kosh Tele. When making powdered sugar, replace with watering from sugar.
We need these ingredients for the test:
- 6 eggs;
- 2 tbsp. Sahara;
- 200 g of flour;
- 4 tbsp. milk;
- 0.5 tsp soda;
- 300-400 ml of vegetable oil.
For sugar syrup:
- 1 kg of sugar;
- 0.7 liters of water.
The preparation method is as follows:
- Mix all the ingredients for the dough, knead the dough itself (in this recipe, soda does not have to be quenched in vinegar).
- After that, set aside the dough for half an hour, covering it with a towel.
- Divide the mass into 6 pieces, each roll into cakes, cut into strips. Roll the strips using roll sticks.
- Take a deep bowl, add vegetable oil there, heat up and put the resulting "flowers" in deep-frying.
- After roasting, make a syrup, for this you need to mix water with sugar, bring the mass to a boil and cook for half an hour on low heat.
- Each uram is dipped in syrup, and so that the liquid does not run off, shake the ready brushwood in a colander.
If you do not want to use sugar syrup, you can replace it with liquid honey, which you need to pour hot baking.
With milk and sour cream
Cooking time: 60 minutes.
Calories: 465 kcal per 100 grams.
Ingredients are as follows:
- 120 ml of milk;
- 1 tbsp. sour cream;
- 1 tsp. salt and sugar;
- pinch of baking powder;
- vegetable oil;
- 100 g of powdered sugar;
- some vanilla;
- 150 g of flour;
- 3 egg yolks.
The cooking is quite simple:
- First make the dough on the yolks: put them in a bowl, add salt, sugar, and grind. Pour sour cream into the container, grind to homogeneity and add milk (all products should be at room temperature).
- Mix flour with baking powder, knead the dough, which should be a little rough. We shift the mass in the package and leave for 20-30 minutes.
- While the dough comes, pour the oil into a large saucepan, warm it. It remains to roll out the mass into thin cakes, sculpt the brushwood and fry it.
- Finished products are dried on baking paper - it will absorb excess fat. It remains to lay them on a plate and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Brushwood - baking is not only tasty, but also healthy. The finished product contains several important vitamins and fiber. However, you should not get involved in such a delicacy; after all, it is rather high in calories. If you adhere to proper nutrition, you should not consume more than 100 grams of cookies per day.
