Nigerian Chin Chin Recipe

Xmas is the perfect time for fragrant, crunchy chin chin, a smaller, sweet crunchy fried Nigerian snack that will come in a wide range of shapes and measurements, from chunky cubes to straight noodles to thin flakes. Although eaten calendar year round, Christmas time is prime chin chin season and you’ll come across men and women frying up big batches at dwelling to consume, to entertain visitors with, and to give to some others. 

Chin chin starts off with a smooth sweet dough produced from all-objective flour, sugar, extra fat (such as butter, margarine, or oil), flavoring (nutmeg and vanilla are usually utilised but Nigerian crimson dry pepper may perhaps also be present), eggs, and/or water or milk. My edition capabilities fresh new citrus zest, possibly lemon or orange, which is an untraditional addition that has become a favored of mine. The dough is rolled out by hand or passed by means of a pasta roller, cut into a wide range of shapes, and fried. It is prevalent to take in chin chin both warm and cold: Freshly fried chin chin are tender and crumbly, but will harden and turn out to be crunchy once amazing. 

A number of things have improved with chin chin since I was a little one in Warri, on the southern coast of Nigeria. Developing up, you could not find chin chin in supermarkets. To get some, you both created it at house, purchased it from avenue stalls, or requested it from close friends. My mother experienced a close friend, Mrs. A, who we’d get tubs from just to have around. The tubs would get there loaded to the brim with golden nutmeg-scented chin chin. We would leave a tub out on the counter and stash the rest in the freezer in which they lasted a number of months. At the time we were being prepared for a further tub, we’d consume it immediately from the freezer or thaw it out. Around the very last ten several years, commercially-built chin chin have emerged, lining supermarket cabinets in hassle-free modest snack packs and in jars. Lots of professional variations do not use eggs for the reason that of its impression on preservation. Instead, they depend on margarine and total milk powder to improve shelf existence and to insert unwanted fat. 

For a lot of yrs, chin chin was almost exclusively located in its traditional nutmeg taste. Currently, there is a whole lot of creativity when it comes to taking part in all over with substances and flavors. For the dough, you can check out including gluten-cost-free flours like almond and coconut flours, and mixing in various spices (like masala chai, pumpkin spice, apple pie), aromatics (like the citrus zest I like to use), extracts like vanilla or almond, and floral waters like orange flower and rose. You can also toss the fried chin chin with flavored syrups, caramels, cookie crumbs, and extra. Experience absolutely free to experiment when producing your chin chin. After fried, you can delight in it on its personal, with your favored warm or cold beverage, and even in a bowl included with milk and eaten like cereal.