Nigerian Snack: Chin Chin

Ricelessasian here! Matchachoco and I have been extremely busy with schoolwork lately, and we haven’t really have the time to update the blog. Luckily, most of our schoolwork and school-related activities revolve around food, so we haven’t really been depriving ourselves with our baking and cooking urges :). For one of our courses, our major group assignment was to select a country and research about its food and culture. Our presentation was about the food and culture of Nigeria, and we served the class some samples of Nigeria’s popular dishes: Jollof rice (tomato rice), efo riro (vegetable soup), and chin chin (fried dough). Our team cooked all of these wonderful dishes from scratch!

We’re glad that the food was well-received, and one student even asked for the recipe for chin chin, a popular fried dough snack in Nigeria. It tastes similar to a doughnut, but it has a crispy texture. Since it was a hit in class, we figured we should definitely feature it in UCL 🙂 .

Keep calm and eat Jollof rice,

– Ricelessasian

P.S. Even Ricelessasian eats rice sometimes.

Chin chin
Adapted from Dobby’s Signature

Ingredients

550 g all-purpose flour
150 g (~1/2 cup + 2 tbsp.) butter
150 g (~2/3 cup) granulated sugar
1/2 cup 2% milk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups vegetable oil
1 tsp. nutmeg

Directions

1. In a medium sized bowl, mix together flour, sugar, salt and butter with your hands until you get a bread crumb consistency.
2. Make a well in the middle of mixture and pour in whisked eggs. Mix the ingredients again with your hands.
3. Pour the milk and the vanilla extract into the mixture, and continue to work with the mixture with your hands until you form pliable dough. If the dough is too sticky, add some flour until you get a pliable dough. Knead the dough until it has an elastic feel.
4. Flour a clean board, and roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Cut the dough into square pieces with a knife.
5. Heat the oil in a pan. To test if the oil is hot enough, drop piece of dough into the oil and check if it sizzles. When the oil is hot enough, fry the dough in batches. Avoid overcrowding the pan. The chin chin is ready when it turns golden brown. Transfer to a plate covered with paper towel and leave to cool at room temperature.
6. Serve the chin chin or store them in an airtight container to snack on later.