No Venezuelan party, wedding, birthday or office celebration is complete without a tray of tequeños, and the tray is never complete for long. They are fingers of firm, salty white cheese wrapped in a ribbon of soft wheat dough and fried, so the outside shatters and the inside stretches. The name points to Los Teques, a hill town near Caracas, where most stories place their birth around the start of the twentieth century; the details vary with the teller.

They are sold everywhere from bakeries to stadium stands, often with a dipping sauce, and Venezuelans abroad have carried them to every city they now call home. They can be shaped a month ahead and fried from frozen, which makes them the most strategic snack in this book. Make twice as many as you think; it is never enough.

The dough

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups (315 g) all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon (12 g) sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 tablespoons (55 g) cold butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup (120 ml) cold water

Shaping

Ingredients

• 1 lb (450 g) firm salty white cheese (queso blanco duro)

Frying

Ingredients

• about 6 cups (1.5 liters) vegetable oil

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