Churros

A dough of flour, water and salt pressed through a star-shaped nozzle into hot oil, fried until the ridges are crisp and the inside is tender, cut into lengths and eaten with a mug of hot chocolate thick enough to dunk them in: churros are Spain's breakfast and late-night food, sold from churrerías that open before dawn and from carts at every fair. The origin is argued over; the usual candidates are Spanish shepherds frying dough over fires, a Portuguese adaptation of a Chinese fried dough stick, or the Arab world's ridged fritters, and none is documented. What is certain is that by the nineteenth century Madrid's churrerías were an institution, and that the Spanish churro is thin and ridged while the thicker, smooth or lightly ridged loop is a porra. In Mexico and much of Latin America churros are rolled in cinnamon sugar and often filled with dulce de leche or chocolate; in Spain they are plain, or sugared at most.