Rustic Neapolitan bomboloni with fontina and mortadella (fascingraf)
Here is one of my most requested signature dishes, a precious and unmissable recipe from the ancient Neapolitan aristocratic cuisine: very soft and stringy Rustic Neapolitan bomboloni (fascingraf) filled with fontina and mortadella. An ancient Neapolitan recipe, unmissable!
These rustic Neapolitan bomboloni are incredibly soft and stringy and, at my house, they literally disappear — I don’t have time to finish frying them before my family devours them like cherries, one after another; they are so soft that they melt in your mouth!!
In short, they are a kind of rustic krapfen!
Of course, you can fill them however you like, according to your taste, but I assure you the fontina/mortadella combination is perfect.
I recommend saving this ancient and precious recipe of Neapolitan cuisine: with my rustic Neapolitan bomboloni with fontina and mortadella, you’ll impress your guests even at parties and important occasions, especially during Carnival, when lots of frying is done.
If you love Neapolitan cuisine, I highly recommend checking the special section of my blog entirely dedicated to Neapolitan recipes: “NEAPOLITAN CUISINE DOC“
You might also be interested in:
- Fried Neapolitan calzoncelli from Nonna Anna, very soft and stringy
- Sweet fritters with smoked provola. Ancient Neapolitan recipe
- Stringy Neapolitan Gattò. Original step-by-step recipe
- Very soft rustic brioche: the Gateau Santa Chiara
- Baked donuts with cinnamon and divine maple syrup glaze. Easy and quick recipe.
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Inexpensive
- Rest time: 2 Hours
- Preparation time: 1 Hour
- Cooking time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 15-20 bomboloni
- Cooking methods: Frying
- Cuisine: Regional Italian
- Region: Campania
- Seasonality: All seasons, Carnival
Ingredients for Rustic Neapolitan Bomboloni (fascingraf)
- 2.5 cups All-purpose flour (00 flour) (I use Petra n.1 or Caputo Blu)
- 0.66 lb Yellow-fleshed potatoes
- 7 tbsp Butter (softened)
- 3 Eggs (small)
- 0.9 oz Fresh brewer's yeast
- 2 tsp Milk (lukewarm)
- 1.75 tsp Salt
- 4.25 cups Olive oil (or vegetable oil for frying)
- 5.3 oz Mortadella (coarsely chopped or diced)
- 9 oz Fontina cheese (diced)
Tools
- Kitchen scale
- Mixing bowls various sizes
- Immersion blender powerful, with 5 accessories
- Stand mixer Kenwood 1200 W with double bowl
- Deep fryer electric with timer and basket
Preparation of Rustic Neapolitan Bomboloni (fascingraf)
Wash the potatoes and put them whole, with the skin, into a pot with cold water and a pinch of coarse salt. Bring to a boil over high heat and cover with a lid.
As soon as the water reaches a boil, remove the lid and cook the potatoes over medium heat for about 20-30 minutes (depending on size and quality).
Drain them and press them through a potato ricer while they are still hot.
In the mixer bowl, add the flour (about 2.5 cups) BUT the amount of flour depends on the quality of the potatoes and the flour itself (if the dough is very sticky, add another 3/4 cup (about 100 g) or 1/3 cup (about 50 g)). Add the riced potatoes, the yeast (dissolved in a little lukewarm milk but not hot, otherwise the yeast won’t activate), and finally the 3 whole eggs. Mix everything using the paddle attachment.
Work the dough well and for a long time with the paddle, and when it begins to come together (after about 20 minutes) add the salt.
Soften the butter without melting it and add it to the dough in small pieces, little by little.
At this point, replace the paddle with the dough hook and work the dough for another 10 minutes.
The dough should end up soft and elastic and come away from the sides of the bowl in a single mass.
On a floured work surface, form small balls about 3-4 cm in diameter (about 1-1 1/2 inches). Flatten them with your hands (as if making a tiny pizza), place a little fontina and mortadella (chopped) in the center, close them like an egg and shape them into a neat, rounded ball, making sure they are well sealed around the filling.
Place the bomboloni you have formed on a sheet of parchment paper and let them rise for about 2 hours.
Once the bomboloni have risen, cut each bombolone together with the parchment paper beneath it.
Take a pot about 4–4 3/4 in high-sided, pour the oil up to two-thirds of the height and, as soon as the oil is hot (about 347°F), begin frying by gently placing each bombolone into the oil three to four at a time (no more) with its small piece of parchment. Be careful to continually baste the surface of each with spoonfuls of hot oil, an essential condition to make them puff up well and evenly.
You will see that, as the bomboloni puff up while frying, the parchment will detach by itself (the same method is used to fry St. Joseph’s zeppole).
Continue cooking until golden, drain the fascingraf on paper towels as you fry them.
Serve the rustic Neapolitan bomboloni hot, accompanied by a fresh salad with arugula.
Notes and Tips
Handy tip, very useful especially for Carnival, when a lot of frying is done: with the same dough you can make both a savory version and a sweet version: I divided the dough in half.
For the sweet bomboloni: I made balls with half the dough (as in the recipe), fried the bomboloni and then rolled them hot in sugar (you can mix sugar with cinnamon); they turned out to be delicious krapfen, soft as a cloud.
For the savory bomboloni, I used the remaining half of the dough, filled them as in the recipe and then fried them.
So, if you have guests or for a kids’ party, with a single dough (perhaps doubling the quantity) you can prepare wonderful bomboloni, both rustic and sweet!!
If you prepare and fry them a little in advance, before serving place them on a tray and warm them for about ten minutes in the oven at 212–248°F.
They are equally delicious the next day if warmed in a preheated oven at 392°F (or in the microwave).
If any should remain (BUT they won’t, you’ll see!), you can also freeze the cooked fascingraf in single-portion bags and then, when consuming them, simply defrost for a couple of minutes in the microwave or 15 minutes in the oven at 302°F.
I also leave you a link for achieving a perfect and even fry: 10 golden rules for frying (including “fritto non fritto”).
As I said above, the recipe for these rustic Neapolitan bomboloni is ancient and unmissable and comes from a precious and now hard-to-find book: “La cucina aristocratica napoletana” by Franco Santasilia di Torpino.
Shopping Tips!!!
I mashed the potatoes smooth and free of lumps with the very handy electric potato ricer
Accessory already included with my Braun MultiQuick immersion blender with 5 accessories, 1200 W, multifunctional, very useful for chopping and blending, perfect for mashing potatoes for mashed potatoes and many other functions.
To comfortably work with leavened doughs, I use my Kenwood Titanium Chef stand mixer with double bowl (3 and 5 L), integrated scale and 1200 W.
For a perfect, evenly cooked fry, I bought the Cecotec fryer equipped with a timer and a glass lid that avoids splashes, smoke and bad odors with a removable outer container that makes cleaning easier.
Alternatively, for great frying this frying pan with basket included is also very practical.
You can purchase all the items I recommend above on Amazon at a great price by clicking directly on the related links.
Origins of the Aristocratic Neapolitan Cuisine?
“The Aristocratic Neapolitan Cuisine” originated with Queen Maria Carolina of Bourbon, who wanted to refine the delicious poor cuisine of the Neapolitans with the touch of refined cooks who came from across the sea.
In the court and aristocratic families, the cooks — later called Monzù (a corruption of the French Monsieur) — passed down these precious recipes which often took the names of the families themselves. The apotheosis of the Monzù cuisine were timbales, pizzas and leavened doughs in general”.
