Recipe: Canistrelli

Name: Canistrelli
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: Pour un saladier de Canistrelli500 g de farine de blé ordinaire100 g d'huile d'olive100 g de sucre cristal (pas semoule)1 pincée de sel fin1 bon verre de vin blanc sec corse si possible mais un vin aromatique du midi fera parfaitement l'affaire3 ou 4 cuillers à soupe de graines d'anis vert (si vous n'en trouvez pas, 1 petit verre à liqueur de pastis, mais c'est moins bien)1 sachet de levure chimique

By Dubarry ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.3/5 (6 reviews) Desserts

Prep 10 min

Cook 40 min

Total 50 min

It is the most emblematic of Corsican dry cakes. You will find it very easily during your vacation in Corsica, sometimes in more or less quirky "tourist" versions (vanilla, chestnut, even chocolate!), quite often of rather mediocre quality with unidentified ingredients (unspecified vegetable fat) but with a bit of luck or research, you will be able to find good ones, even excellent ones, mainly from artisan baker-pastry chefs

Recette Canistrelli - Chef Patrick Asfaux — Photo: Stephane Dubarry@aftouch

Ingredients

For a bowl of Canistrelli
500 g of ordinary wheat flour
100 g of olive oil
100 g of crystal sugar (not semolina)
1 pinch of fine salt
1 good glass of dry white wine Corsican if possible but an aromatic wine from the south will work perfectly
3 or 4 tablespoons of green anise seeds (if you can't find any, 1 small liqueur glass of pastis, but it's not as good)
1 packet of baking powder

Step-by-step directions

1- Mix flour, sugar, salt, anise (if in seeds) and baking powder in a bowl and make a well (fountain)

2- Pour oil and wine into this fountain (and pastis if you are not using anise seeds).

3- Mix with your fingertips, quickly and especially without kneading.

4- Spread the dough by hand with your palm to a thickness of about 2 cm (the rolling pin is not essential but preferable), sprinkle finely with crystal sugar and fix the grains on the dough with the palm of your hand.

5- Cut with a knife into pieces of about 6 cm long (make some irregular cuts to stay true to tradition: see the photo (in the old days, canistrelli were often cut in a V shape) and place them slightly spaced apart on a baking sheet with the usual precautions.
6/bake for about 40 minutes in a preheated moderate oven (thermostat 5/150°c): they should be golden brown.
You will then get closer to the island as the smell of cooking spreads throughout the kitchen...
To be enjoyed dipped in a glass of well-chilled muscat wine (Corsican) or with coffee, in the afternoon.
These canistrelli keep very well in a metal tin in a dry place.

Chef Patrick's Comment

A good regional recipe, if you find green anise it will be a plus. In some old recipes, the sugar in the dough was replaced by mountain honey and the canistrelli were moistened with milk before baking.

Specialite culinaire de corse Choucroute au vin blanc Au café