In nineteenth-century America, kichlers or Haman's Ears for Purim Night were small cookies (kichel is cookie in Yiddish), sometimes made from a pound-cake batter, deep-fried in butter, and bathed in sugar syrup flavored with cinnamon and rose water. Notice that butter was used in this age before vegetable shortening.
Haman's Ears is also the American name for a kichel, kichelkies, or hazenblosen (blown-up little pants), thin strips of fried dough sprinkled with confectioners' sugar, similar to the Italian bugie served at Carnivale in February. "When I would ask my grandmother how much red wine to use in her kichelkies, she would reply, 'Half and egg shell,'" said Flora Atkin, who enjoys making traditional family recipes for holidays. "She used to say, 'I know my recipe won't die because my granddaughter will carry on the tradition.'" She was right. Before Rosh Hashanah, each year, Mrs. Atkin makes kichelkies on an assembly line with three frying pans going at once.
Recipe information
Yield
Yield: about 20 (P)
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
1. Beat the egg well. Then add salt, wine, and gradually the flour until you have a sticky elastic dough, almost like the consistency of molasses.
Step 2
2. Flour your hands and break off pieces not much bigger than a marble. Roll out paper-thin on a floured surface. Cut in segments approximately 2 by 4 inches (dough the size of a large marble will make about 3), or cut on the diagonal very thin strips or whatever shape you wish.
Step 3
3. Pour about 2 inches of oil into a heavy frying pan and heat to 375 degrees. Slide the strips carefully into the hot oil. Let cook a few seconds on each side. Soon they will bubble and puff up like hazenblosen. Remove with a spatula and drain on paper towels. When cool sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. Eat immediately or let sit, covered well, for one day with plastic wrap.
