Pestiños, an Andalusian Lent and Easter treat
With the end of the season of Lent and the beginning of that of Easter, I bring you a Spanish treat typical of this season, pestiños. Don’t ask me to translate it, because I would have a hard time doing it. You’ll have to call it by its original name, and I will help you pronounce it: pehs-teen-yohs.
Holy Week processions in Sevilla. Holy Wednesday, Hermandad del Baratillo – Brotherhood of Baratillo
The season calls for Lent and Easter meals, with meatless, savory ones enjoyed on Fridays and sweet ones (many of them) enjoyed on Easter, when traditionally lenten promises and penances were lifted and sugary treats were introduced back in the diet. You can find many dishes on Mama Ía blog to prepare on those special days, like cod and cauliflower soup with rice, cod in salsa verde, or soupy seafood rice, amongst many others.
And you can also find some of the very typical sweet ones, like nazarenos and mona de Pascua. Pestiños is another sweet that is made and enjoyed almost exclusively during this season, and also at Christmas time in some regions.
Encuentro de la Virgen del Patrocinio y el Cristo de la Expiración, Onteniente (Valencia)
Cristo de la Palma, Onteniente (Valencia)
La Dolorosa, Holy Week processions, Onteniente (Valencia)
La Dolorosa, Holy Week processions, Onteniente (Valencia)
La Virgen de la Soledad, Holy Week processions, Onteniente (Valencia)
La Soledad, Onteniente (Valencia)
About the origin of pestiños
Pestiños, although now made everywhere in the country, have an origin in Andalusia, and rightly so. The flavored dough, deep fried in olive oil, is traditional of the Arab cuisine, and given that we can trace the origin of pestiños to at least the 16th century, chances are it was consumed way before that, during the eight centuries of moor occupation of the peninsula. In fact, the pestiño could be related to the Moroccan shebbakiyya, usually eaten in the month of Ramadan.
In pestiños, the dough gets its characteristic flavor from the orange, lemon and aniseed flavored olive oil incorporated in it (no butter, as it is the case with many Spanish desserts), with the addition of orange juice, white wine and toasted sesame seeds during kneeding. This is not just any dough!
There are different variations of the recipe depending on the region and even the town where they’re made, with the final step in its elaboration being drenching the pestiños in a honey syrup or, my favorite method, in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. These are the ones I remember eating at home, growing up in Spain, made by my mom, an Andalusian lady from Seville.
For the second year in a row, Spain will not celebrate Holy Week and Easter. They will happen, of course, but they will not be celebrated in the way Spaniards are used to, with processions and reenactments on the streets and in the churches, with thousands of people filling up the streets to participate in the events that commemorate the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. I wrote a section dedicated to the celebrations of Lent and Easter in Spain that you can check here. That will help you understand what Spaniards are giving up, again this year, after the strict confinement that started right before the celebrations were about to get underway, in 2020.
Wherever you are, whichever the restrictions are in your town, region or country, I wish you a happy Easter, and a safe one!
(*) Credit for Holy Week photos from Onteniente: Enrique Moscardó
PESTIÑOS
Ingredients
Instructions
- Place the olive oil in a small saucepan at low heat. Add the lemon and orange peel and the cinnamon stick and simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Add the grains of anise and continue simmering for a few more minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool down.
- In a skillet, toast the sesame seeds, being careful not to burn them.
- Sieve the flour over a large mixing bowl. Add the salt and mix. Add the white wine and the flavored oil (use a colander to hold the solids) and mix. You can do this by hand or using a stand up mixer.
- Add the orange juice and the toasted sesame seeds and continue mixing until it becomes harder to continue mixing. Bring the dough to a floured surface and continue working it with your hands until it becomes elastic and not sticky. Cover with plastic or a cloth and let rest for about 30 minutes.
- Using a rolling pin, roll the dough on the floured surface to a thickness of about 1/4 inch.
- Cut the dough into 2x2-in squares
- Shape each square into the pestiño shape by holding two facing corners together.
- Working in batches, fry the pestiños in abundant olive oil until golden. Remove from the oil and place them on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the excess oil.
- While the pestiños cooling down, in a shallow plate mix the ground cinnamon and granulated sugar. Roll the pestiños into the sugar-cinnamon mix until completely coated.
Notes
- Only use the outer layer of the citrics, avoiding the white part
- First peel the orange, to get its peel, then squeeze its pulp, to get its juice —both used in the dough
