By: Yoon Sung

One of my fondest memories from working in the kitchen is the Family Meal I had with the other cooks and staff each day around 3:30pm, before the dinner service madness began. As a farm-to-table restaurant, we regarded freshness of local ingredients as one of our highest priorities. Therefore, whenever we had produce or ingredients that were no longer of guest-worthy quality, we would use them to come up with dishes to feed our staff. For one of our events, the other members of the pastry team and I made churros, rolled in cinnamon sugar, served with a warm chocolate sauce. Since we had some dough left over, I decided to fry it off for Family Meal the next day. Generally, churros are long and straight, around 4” in length, but I had some fun experimenting, making shapes and seeing how long I could make them. When Family Meal came around, the dining room was bustling with excitement, and everyone loved these light, crunchy treats, fresh out of the fryer. I had a lot of batter to go through, so I ended up skipping my meal and staying at the fryer, but it was so worth it, seeing how excited everyone was. Ever since then, churros have become one of my favorite desserts.

Churros are made from choux pastry, the same light dough that is used to make éclairs, beignets, and cream puffs. Choux traditionally consists of only butter, water, flour, and eggs. Instead of a raising agent, the dough utilizes its high moisture content to create steam and puff up the pastry while cooking. When done correctly, churros should be golden and crispy on the outside but light and moist on the inside.

Recently, I was lying in bed and thinking of what flavors and dishes would go well with matcha (green tea powder), one of my favorite ingredients. I’ve had matcha cakes, cookies, lattes, donuts, ice cream, but realized that I’ve never had or heard of a matcha churro. I figured the matcha would lend a beautiful deep green color, and that its bright but earthy flavor would balance nicely with powdered sugar and a warm chocolate sauce. The next day, I did some experimenting, and was very happy with the result.

I had four of these while standing over the fryer. I hope you’ll enjoy them too!

Ingredients:

Churros

-6T unsalted butter

-2 ¼ cups water

-1t vanilla extract

-1t salt

-2T matcha powder

-2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

-1 egg

-Oil, for frying

Chocolate sauce

-3 ½ oz dark chocolate chips

-1/2 cup heavy cream

-Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Place flour in a bowl. Sift the matcha powder into the bowl and stir.

2. Place butter, water, vanilla, and salt in a saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

3. Remove from heat, and add flour mixture to the pot. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until a smooth dough forms, about 1-2 minutes (It’s quite an arm workout, but keep stirring!).

4. Transfer dough to a bowl, and add an egg. Stir vigorously again until the egg is well incorporated, and the dough is smooth, about 2 more minutes.

5. Transfer dough to a piping bag with a star tip (3/8”).

6. Heat oil in a deep skillet over medium-high heat until 400°.

7. Pipe dough into the oil in batches, and fry until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Turn frequently, and keep the oil between 375-400°.

8. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels, and dust with powdered sugar.

9. Make the chocolate sauce: Place the chocolate chips in a bowl. Put the heavy cream and salt in a saucepan and warm over medium-high heat. Just before the cream comes to boil, remove saucepan from heat and pour over chocolate chips. Let it sit for 1 minute. Stir until a thick chocolate sauce forms.

10. Enjoy immediately!