A food from
Modena; it is also found around
Emilia, with names
like
crescenta or even
pizza fritta.
Gnocco fritto is obtained by deep frying thin squares of leavened
dough. The dough puffs and becomes crisp. It is then served warm and
eaten with an assortment of cured pork meats such as
prosciutto,
salame,
mortadella and
ciccioli. In more frugal times,
hardened leftover of gnocco fritto from the previous night were eaten
at breakfast with
caffellatte (and it is surprisingly good)
While the original recipe used almost surely leftover bread dough and
frying was done with strutto (melted and reconstructed pork
fat), nowadays frying is often done with vegetable oil, while there
are literally dozen of recipes for the dough - I have had reasonable
success using regular pizza dough but I am not really proud of my
accomplisehment.
Gnocco fritto is found in restaurant around the Modena area, always
coupled with tigelle.
I was quite surprised at being served something closely resembling gnocco fritto in a restaurant close to the Monument Valley National Park, as a typical Navajo dessert (to be eaten with honey...)