Albanian Fried Dough or how we call them in Albanian, Petulla are a staple for breakfast in Albanian cuisine. Petulla are served savory or with sweets, most commonly with honey, powder sugar, homemade jams, feta cheese etc.
If you’ve never tried Albanian petulla before, I’d say they’re almost a cross between pancakes and donuts in taste. However, they puff up like beignets!
How to leaven the dough for petulla?
Albanian recipe for petulla has many variations. Some leaven the dough with yeast which in Albania is called ‘maja’ or ‘maja birre’. Other recipes also use yogurt to leaven the dough!
When using yeast, I prefer to use instant yeast and let the dough rise for about half an hour. When using yogurt, I prepare the dough the night before and by morning it’s ready to fry. Yogurt acts as a fermenting agent.
If using yeast, you can still use the overnight method of preparing the dough, just add less yeast and let the dough ferment overnight in the refrigerator. Then next day, let it come to room temperature before frying.
There’s variability in this recipe when using eggs too. You can find recipes with no eggs at all to recipes that use up to 3-4 eggs. Ultimately, I prefer the recipe with eggs and yogurt because it provides more protein.
Ingredients for Petulla
This recipe is what I have settled upon recently, but please keep in mind that you can make petulla using many recipes. See the Notes section in the recipe cards for variations in case you like to try any of the other recipes.
- 3 cups Unbleached Organic Bread Flour
- 3 eggs
- 1.5 cups Greek yogurt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 0.5 tsp Mediterranean sea salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Oil for frying – I prefer using grapeseed oil however that is not authentic, so if you’re looking for traditional use vegetable oil for frying.
- 1 tbsp sugar (optional) – I don’t always add this to my dough. Sugar helps to create a better flavor if eating petulla with no syrups or added jams. But if you’re using honey, jams and other sides to serve petulla with, you can skip adding sugar to dough.
Let’s make Albanian Petulla:)
Ok this might be one of the easiest recipes you can make.
- Sift the flour if needed, add salt and baking soda, mix and set dry ingredients aside.
- Whisk eggs, add yogurt and keep whisking. Add olive oil and mix.
- Finally start adding the dry ingredients slowly to bowl and incorporate with the eggs/yogurt mix.
- Cover the dough with a kitchen towel, let it rest in the refrigerator overnight. Next morning take bowl out and let is sit in room temperature.
- Once dough is bubbly, you can fry it in oil. Make sure to flip the dough so it fries evenly on all sides. Petullas need to look golden brown.
- It’s important to let the fried dough rest on a platter with paper towel before serving. This step will ensure that the dough doesn’t keep the oil it has absorbed during frying process.
Sonila’s Tips and Notes
It’s hard to give tips on a recipe that I have done countless of times and I’m guilty of customizing many times. But if I were to give tips to someone making this recipe for the first time, I’d say:
- Don’t focus too much on time it takes for batter to be bubbly, it being bubbly it’s more important than the time it takes to get there. So the overnight method might be preferred if you’re impatient with the dough:).
- Use a good pot for frying, thick bottom, enameled cast iron etc etc. You don’t want the batter to stick to the bottom.
- Oil needs to be hot and shimmering but not blistering hot. Use medium heat and be patient. Once you add batter in it, the oil needs to bubble around it. Batter should get puffy and inflate like a little balloon. Once golden flip so it fries on the other side.
Albanian Fried Dough (Petulla)
Equipment
- 1 Whisk
- 1 Wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 3 cups unbleached organic bread flour
- 3 eggs
- 1.5 cups Greek yogurt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 0.5 tsp sea salt
- 0.25 cup water
- 1 tbsp sugar (optional)
- 3 cups oil grapeseed oil, avocado oil or any vegetable oil good for frying
Instructions
- Add salt and baking soda to flour, mix and set aside. If you're adding 1 tbsp of sugar, add it to dry ingredients too.
- Whisk eggs, add yogurt and olive oil and mix until homogenous. Slowly add the flour mix and whisk until it's too thick to handle with whisk. Use a wooden spoon to continue incorporating ingredients. Add water too.
- Cover with a kitchen towel and refrigerate overnight. Next morning let the dough rest on the kitchen counter until it arrives to room temperature and becomes bubbly.
- Heat oil in a pot or wide Dutch oven in medium heat until oil is shimmery. Add dough with a big spoon, wait few seconds before you add another spoon so the dough pieces don't stick together. Fry until golden on one side, then flip over.
- Dough pieces should puff up in oil. Remove with a slotted spoon when golden brown on both sides. Place on a platter lined with paper towel which will absorb the excess oil.
- Serve with jams, honey, cheese or confectioner sugar. Enjoy:)
Notes
- I only add a quarter cup of water to make the batter since Greek yogurt is so thick. But you can totally adjust up or down based on how thick or thin the dough looks.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
Ok so Albanians were not the first to invent fried dough. Yes, petulla is our version of this delicious breakfast and we have put our twist to it with our homemade jams and serving them with feta and honey. However, fried dough makes an appearance in the cuisine of many countries.
– Italy: zeppole
– South America: buñuelos
– France: beignets
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please pin any of the pictures to your boards in Pinterest so you can easily access it later on. Feel free to ask me any questions in comments or tag me in social media with your pictures of this recipe!
Thank you so much for reading my blog / Shumë Faleminderit!!
More Albanian Recipes from my blog
Feel free to look at some more Albanian recipes from my blog.
- Byrek me Mish (Phyllo or filo meat pie)
- Bakllava (Baklava)
- Burani me spinaq dhe vezë (spinach, rice and egg casserole)
- Japrak (Stuffed grape leaves)
- Gjelle me presh (Leeks casserole)
Ellen M.
THANK YOU, SONILA for posting this recipe … I’ve searched for it for quite a while. I was never successful when I tried to figure out accurate measurements because Albanian cooks use the “dump/handful/pinch” method! It is a delicious treat and my kids and family grew up loving it (when others prepared it:)
Ellen