How to make Easy Petulla Recipe (Soft Fried Dough)

Welcome to another Albanian Balkan recipe. Let me show you How to make Easy Petulla Recipe (Soft Fried Dough). On today’s recipe, we are making petulla which is pretty much fried dough and the closest you can get to an American recipe is donuts.

Now you might ask what’s the main difference? Well the difference is that donuts usually rely more on the sweet side whereas petulla rely more on the savory side. Now of course you can eat them with sweet stuff, such as jam. With Jams you can make a perfect combination of sweet and savory. It’s going to be an easy recipe so with that said let’s grab all the ingredients and start making petulla.

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To make petulla we are only going to need 4 ingredients:

• 3 cups of all-purpose flour.
• 1 to 1 and a half cup of water.
• half a teaspoon of yeast.
• 1 tablespoon of salt.

Preparing the dough for How to make Easy Petulla Recipe (Soft Fried Dough)

In a large bowl, let’s combine all the ingredients together adding the water little by little. As I have mentioned it before, we usually never know how much water a flour needs. Depending on the environment, depending on the humidity, sometimes it might need more and sometimes it might need less. What we usually do is that we add half of the water first. Then we continue to add little by little until we get the perfect texture.

What is the perfect texture?

Now you might ask what is the perfect texture. The texture that we’re looking for this time is for the dough to be soft and on the sticky side. Once the dough is ready, we are going to cover it with plastic wrap and then let it rest for about an hour.

While the dough is resting, don’t forget to check my Instagram page @xhuliocooks where I post other recipes and restaurant reviews.

Now that the dough has rested, you’re gonna notice that it becomes smoother but it is still sticky. We are going to work it with our hands for about five to ten minutes and then put it back in the bowl. Cover it up and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Now this part might be confusing. The traditional recipe usually calls for the dough to be cooked right away and not store it in the fridge overnight. So naturally you might be asking why are we storing the dough in the fridge overnight? 

Why do we rest the dough for Petulla?

The reason why we are doing so is because different from a traditional recipe which calls for 2 teaspoons of yeast, we are only using half a teaspoon of yeast. When we put the dough overnight in the fridge, what this is gonna do is that it’s going to ferment the dough. This is going to give a special taste and also help the yeast to become more active. I personally do not prefer the taste of yeast that’s why I like the fermentation recipe better.

Cooking the Petulla: How to make Easy Petulla Recipe (Soft Fried Dough)

After the dough has been resting overnight in the fridge, we are going to take it out. Let it rest for another 2 hours at room temperature and now the dough is perfectly ready to be cooked. Using a wet spoon, we are going to cut the dough and then fry it in a pan full of oil on medium heat. Petulla are perfectly cooked once they get that brownish golden color. Make sure to flip them every one or two minutes.

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Here is another recipe you would love, if you like petulla: How to make Baklava Recipe from Scratch