Seadas, or Sebadas, are traditional cheese filled fritters particular to the island of Sardinia.
They are the region's most famous dessert, but originally seadas were enjoyed as a main course, especially by shepherds.
The recipe for these remarkably original cheese fritter calls for a final drizzle of bittersweet corbezzolo honey. Corbezzolo is Italian for strawberry tree, an evergreen Mediterranean shrub whose flower nectar lends the signature bittersweet flavor to this specific honey.
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| Corbezzolo ~ Strawberry Tree |
Here's the recipe for sensational seadas:
200 g (1 cup) semolina flour
500 g (1.1 lb) all purpose flour
500 g (1.1 lbs) Fiore Sardo or fresh Pecorino (not too aged)
Zest from 2 large organic lemons
250 ml (1 cup) water, warmed
3 tbsp white wine
50 g (1/4 cup) butter, softened (ideally rendered lard)
2 tsp salt
1 egg white
Vegetable oil for frying
Organic corbezzolo honey
Dissolve the salt in the warm water, and in a large bowl, add it to semolina, flour, wine, butter (or lard, if you're using it) and knead well. Final result should be a soft and springy ball of satiny dough. Let it rest covered with a kitchen towel while you prepare the filling.
Blend the grated cheese with the lemon zest. This ingredient is what gives this traditional dish its siganture aroma.
Roll the dough flat with a rolling pin, or with a pasta machine, about 1/8-inch thin. Using a saucer or a cookie cutter, obtain 3-inch discs. Depending on how thin you manage to roll the dough, I'd say you'll come up with about 10-15 discs.
Divvy up 3 tablespoons of the cheese and lemon mixture onto half of your discs.
Wet the outer rim of each prepared disc with some egg white and lay the remaining discs to cover. Crimp down the edges with the tines of a fork or with a crinkled pastry wheel.
Fill a large cast iron skillet with vegetable oil for frying, and heat. Fry 2 seadas at a time until slightly golden. To make the floating pastry pocket puff up, carefully ladle some of the boiling oil on it.
When the first bubbles appear on the surface of the fried dough, remove with a slotted spoon and rest on paper towel to blot.
Warm the corbezzolo honey (I take the metal cap off and nuke the jar in the microwave for 30 seconds), drizzle on the seadas, and serve at once.
Buon appetito.
