Destination
Arequipa
The story
Picarones are Lima's most-loved fair-food and one of Peru's oldest continuous desserts: ring-shaped doughnuts made from a batter of cooked butternut squash, boiled sweet potato, flour and yeast, deep-fried until crisp golden, and drizzled with a warm dark syrup called chancaca — a spiced boiled-down mixture of panela (unrefined cane sugar), fig leaves, orange peel and cloves. Sold at every Lima fair, park cart and street stall, especially at the Peruvian Fair on the anniversary of the Battle of Miraflores (October 8) and the Señor de los Milagros procession in October, picarones are the Peruvian answer to Spanish churros. Eaten from paper cones, still hot.
Method
Boil the cubed squash and sweet potato with the cinnamon stick in salted water 15 minutes until fork-tender. Drain, discard cinnamon, and mash smooth with a potato masher. Cool briefly.
In a large bowl, combine the mashed squash-sweet potato, flour, yeast, salt, sugar and aniseed. Mix with a spoon. Add warm water gradually until you have a very wet, sticky, spoonable batter — softer than pancake batter, wetter than bread dough.
Cover the bowl with a damp towel. Leave in a warm spot 60 to 90 minutes until visibly bubbled and doubled in volume.
Meanwhile, in a saucepan, combine panela, water, fig leaves, orange quarters, cloves and cinnamon. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook 20 to 25 minutes until thickened to a heavy syrup (should coat the back of a spoon). Strain into a jug; discard the solids. Stir in lemon juice. Keep warm.
Warm the oil in a deep heavy pot to 170C.
Prepare a small bowl of cold water next to the batter. Wet your hands — the wet batter will not stick to wet hands.
With wet hands, take a small handful of batter (about the size of a plum). Stretch it between your palms; push your thumb through the middle to make a ring about 10cm across. Slide gently into the hot oil. Repeat with 3 more rings. Fry 2 minutes on the first side (they'll puff up); flip and fry 90 seconds on the other side, until deep golden and crisp.
Lift onto a wire rack. Drizzle each picarón immediately with a heavy pour of warm chancaca syrup so it seeps into the surface. Dust lightly with cinnamon. Serve immediately in paper cones or on plates. Eat with fingers.
Tips
- Very wet batter. Do not add more flour to firm it up. The wetness is the whole point — it's what gives picarones their airy, custard-inside texture.
- Wet hands, not floured. Wet hands stop the sticky batter from clinging while you shape. Keep dipping your hands into water between each ring.
- 170C oil. A thermometer is worth using. Cooler oil gives you greasy, pale picarones; hotter oil burns the outside before the inside cooks.
- Chancaca is the flavour marker. Do not substitute maple syrup or plain sugar syrup — the specific spiced-molasses flavour of chancaca is what makes picarones classically Peruvian.
- Serve immediately. Picarones are a fresh food. Fifteen minutes after frying and they lose their crackle. Fry in batches to order.
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