DEBLAH PASTRIES IN SYRUP

Makes 30-35 medium pastries Dough:

3 eggs

¼ tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. vanilla extract 3 cups flour, sifted

For work surface:

½-¾ cup corn flour

For frying:

1½ liters of oil for deep frying

For syrup:

3 cups water

2 cups sugar

Juice from half a lemon

Crack the eggs into a deep bowl and beat them with a hand blender. While mixing, add the baking soda and the vanilla. While continuing to mix, gradually add the flour. Mix until smooth. Knead the dough on a work surface until it’s soft. Separate into 3 or 4 equal pieces.

Sprinkle corn flour on your work surface and roll out one of the pieces of dough until it’s very thin. Make sure it’s floured on both sides with corn flour and continue rolling it out until it’s ½ cm. thick. Cut into strips that are 2 cm. wide.

Heat the oil in a deep pot over medium flame. Take a strip of dough with a fork and dip the dough into the hot oil and then push it toward the side of the pot. Hold it there for a few seconds. Then use the spoon to twirl up the dough to form a spiral shape. When the pastry has turned golden, remove it from the oil.

Fry the rest of the strips in the same fashion. Keep the flame on medium-low so that the pastries remain light colored.

To prepare the syrup, add all the ingredients to a pot and cook over a medium flame for 30 minutes, until syrup becomes rubbery. Dunk the deblah pastries in the syrup for a second and then place them in a colander so the excess syrup can drip off.