Red Circles, or, Tra-la-la...Taralli!

During Mrs. Hudson's Grand Tour of Europe, she spent a month in the beautiful city of Florence. She had access to a kitchen again, giving her ample opportunities to create something with an Italian flair for this blog. When one thinks "Italy and Sherlock Holmes" it is natural to think of Mr. Holmes' encounter with the Neopolitan group The Red Circle. Napoli is known throughout the world for the wonderful things its citizens do with dough, so Mrs. Hudson decided that she would tweak the tarallo, a classic Italian snack cracker, to create Red Circle Taralli.

Red Circles at the Ponte Vecchio

Taralli are boiled like tiny bagels and then baked until they are crunchy. They are often flavored with fennel seeds, hot pepper, or other such spices. To make a nice red dough, Mrs. Hudson experimented with adding concentrated tomato paste and quite a bit of paprika.

Here are the ingredients you need:
4 cups flour
1 cup olive oil (a good one--you can taste it in the final product)
2/3 cup white wine
1/4 cup concentrated tomato paste (not pureed tomatoes)
1 1/2 tablespoon mild red paprika
1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes, or to taste
(Attenta! Attenta! Attenta! There were no measuring cups in Mrs. Hudson's student apartment so she had to use an empty Nutella jar as a stand in. It may be necessary for her to test these proportions again in her Baker Street kitchen.)

This is not intended as an ad for Conad supermarkets. Mrs. Hudson was on a budget.

If she had it all to do over again she would have picked a decent bottle of wine

 because leftover Conad box wine is undrinkable.

1. Mix all the ingredients together and knead into a smooth dough.

A dough as bright as a sunny day in Italy. Admittedly, more orange than red, but 

Mrs. Hudson did not wish to use red food coloring.

2. Let the dough rest for about 15 minutes.

3. Start boiling a big pot of water.

4. Pinch off bits of dough, roll each into a long thin logs, then connect them at the end to form circles.

5. Drop a few taralli in the boiling water at a time and let them boil a minute or two. They should rise to the top. Take them out of the water, set them to dry on a clean kitchen towel, and repeat until all are boiled.
6. Put them on a baking tray and bake at about 325 degrees until they are crunchy. This should take 20 to 30 minutes depending on their size.

Buon appetito!