Venezuelan Tequenos: Crisp Cheese Sticks for After-School Snacking

Pulse the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor, then add the cold butter and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 6 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 large egg
• 2/3 cup ice water
• 1 lb queso blanco or low-moisture mozzarella, cut into 3-inch batons
• 1 egg, beaten, for sealing
• 4 cups neutral oil, for frying
• 1/2 cup guava paste, melted with 2 tbsp water, for dipping

Instructions

1. Pulse the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor, then add the cold butter and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.
2. Add the egg and ice water and pulse just until a dough comes together. Knead twice on the counter, wrap, and chill 30 minutes.
3. Roll the chilled dough out to 1/8 inch thick and cut into long strips about 3/4 inch wide. Work with half the dough at a time and keep the rest cold.
4. Wrap each cheese baton in a strip of dough, spiraling with a slight overlap so no cheese peeks through, and press the ends firmly to seal.
5. Brush the seams and ends with beaten egg and pinch again. Any gap will leak cheese into the oil, so seal more carefully than feels necessary.
6. Freeze the wrapped sticks on a tray for 20 minutes. This firms the dough and is the single best insurance against blowouts.
7. Heat the oil to 350F and fry in batches of 6 for 3 to 4 minutes, turning once, until deep golden and blistered. Drain on a rack, not paper.
8. Serve hot with the warm guava dipping sauce. Unfried wrapped sticks freeze for 2 months and go straight from freezer to oil, adding a minute.
9. Tequenos are named for the town of Los Teques and are so embedded in Venezuelan life that no birthday party, graduation or Sunday gathering is considered properly catered without a towering platter of them. The traditional filling is queso blanco duro, a firm salty white cheese that softens without turning to liquid, and the guava dip provides the sweet-savory contrast that Venezuelans consider non-negotiable. Because they freeze so well raw, a single afternoon of wrapping keeps a household in after-school snacks for weeks.

Nutrition (estimated, per serving)

• Calories: 398 kcal
• Protein: 16g
• Fat: 22g
• Carbohydrates: 34g
• Fiber: 1g
• Sugar: 7g
• Sodium: 560mg