The Fried Dough Ho

This was sort of a bait-and-switch. Coming down to Los Angeles, I asked the friend with whom I was staying to come up with some fried dough offerings for dinner. We had a grand night of it (six stops in all!), but one of the immediate suggestions which came to mind were empanadas. And fortunately, the South Bay has a wide variety of Central and South American offerings against which we were going to compare.

To start the evening, my friend brought me to El Gaucho Meat Market, a perfectly delightful Argentine market in Redondo Beach. It really is an exceptionally well-stocked store and it seems, a well-stocked meat market. That was rather impressive and if you walk all the way to the back of the crowded space, it opens up to display a fairly large seating area and a small food service counter. Shame on me for not being cognizant of what other foods were being offered, because I knew we were here for empanadas.

For $1.65 each, we tried two of their three flavors; spinach and beef (chicken is also available). The bait-and-switch is that Argentine empanadas are baked and not fried. I am slightly upset with myself for wasting the calories on it, but I can appreciate the comparison check next to what was to come that evening; Colombian and Salvadorean empanadas which were fried.

When I lived in SoCal, I really loved Empanadas Place but those that are offered here at El Gaucho are not nearly as good, although for the price they were not that bad. Too wishy-washy? Well, I used to live in Redondo Beach and a decade ago, Empanadas Place had a branch there on Artesia Boulevard, so it was close by, inexpensive, and incredibly tasty. And fried. El Gaucho’s were gummy and heavy. The spinach filling was decent enough and tasted so much like spanikopita I wondered if they included cheese. The beef was spiced nicely but I found the binding ingredient to be a tad pasty. This all makes it sound like I wasn’t enjoying myself which is not the case. Again, for the price they were perfectly acceptable. But unfortunately, it mostly made me long for those which I knew to be better.

2715 Manhattan Beach Blvd
Redondo Beach, CA 90278
(310) 297-2617

I have really great friends. It is a pretty fabulous friend who, knowing she is driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco makes a special stop just to bring The Ho a Bay Area rarity, Portuguese Doughnuts known as Malasadas. It was my buddy, Lisa, who did just that. A few days before my birthday, when Lisa was visiting family down south and stopped at Natas Pastries in Sherman Oaks. Here in the Bay Area, the only Portuguese Bakeries I can locate seem to be in Hayward or Santa Clara, cities I just don’t get to very often (okay, those are cities I don’t ever remember having gone to at all).

So I was pretty stoked when, after a 6+ hour drive, Lisa deposits on my doorstep a small white box filled with three Portuguese malasadas (also known as malazadas or malassadas). History has them being produced for the first time on the Island of Madeira and the Azores. As with many of the other  European-centric doughnut offerings, it is said that the malasadas originated by the necessity of using up sugar and lard before Lent, making them classically served for Mardi Gras.

Like my recently-prepared Pączki, these yeast-risen offerings are supposed to include a great deal of egg yolks and heavy cream. And while I greatly enjoyed the Natas malasadas that Lisa procured for me, now that I have tasted a REAL egg and cream-based doughnut, I am inclined to believe that these from a store have come from a different recipe. They are more like the standard bombolini I have been trying of late; very light and fluffy with a tender crumb. Two of the ones Lisa brought were just the fried dough while the third, larger one was filled with custard. Dusted with granulated sugar and even despite a very lengthy car ride, these were very rich, excellently-prepared doughnuts. The custard was not too sweet and quite rich. In some fashion, I much preferred these over the bombolini and continue to be very appreciate and grateful of my darling friend, Lisa.