3 cups plain flour
6 tablespoons caster sugar (add a bit more if you like them sweeter)
pinch salt
2 whole small eggs and 1 egg yolk
3 tablespoons grappa (or brandy or marsala)
finely grated zest of a large lemon (or an orange if you prefer)
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
1/4 cup water (more if needed)
sunflower or peanut oil for frying
icing sugar for dusting
Place all the ingredients in a food processor and process until a ball of dough forms (or you can mix this by hand). Empty onto a floured surface and knead for a few minutes to ensure it is homogeneous and smooth. It should be like a rather hard pasta dough. Add more flour or water if needed to get the right consistency whilst you are kneading the dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes.
Cut off a quarter of the pastry ball, leaving the remainder in plastic wrap. Roll it flat with a rolling pin into a rectangular shape that will pass through the widest setting of a pasta machine. Roll through the machine, making it thinner at each roll, adding a bit more flour if it is sticks to the bench. It should be rolled through to the thinnest setting of your pasta machine three times. Cut each long strip with a fluted pastry cutter so you have 3 long thin strips. Cut each of the long strips into 8 to 10 cm (3 inch) pieces. Make an incision in the centre of each piece of dough and thread one end through the incision to make a bow (you don’t have to make the bow but it looks prettier). Repeat with the remaining dough. If you have someone helping you, one person can start cooking the crostoli whilst the other continues rolling and cutting.
To cook, heat vegetable oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan. As crostoli are deep fried, you need the oil to be 5 to 7 cm high in the saucepan. Once the oil is hot, drop in 3 or 4 crostoli (or more depending on the diameter of the saucepan). They take about 30 seconds to cook on each side so you need to work quickly and turn them as soon as the edges start to colour. They should be a sandy colour when cooked. If they are brown, you have burnt them. Once cooked on both sides, remove them with tongs and drain them on absorbent paper. If they take longer than 30 seconds on each side to cook, your oil is not hot enough and they will absorb too much oil. The secret of light crostoli is in the short time they take to cook.
You can eat them warm but I like them at room temperature. Before eating, sprinkle icing sugar over them. I don’t put the icing sugar on until I am ready to serve. I find that this ensures they remain crisp and last in an airtight container for weeks (though you will eat them sooner than that!) .