Youtiao- Chinese doughnut

Make the dough

1. Stand mixer method: in a stand mixer, add all the ingredients together and then knead on low speed for 7-9 minutes until the dough is quite elastic. Shape into a ball and then cover with a plastic wrapper and set aside to rest. The dough will be like the high water content bread dough.
2. By hand: combine the dry ingredients, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar with flour. Crack the egg and add oil. Stir with a chopstick or a spatula to mix the ingredient well. Then start using your hand. I love the method of using the fist to press the dough gently, this helps a lot with the sticky problem. Once a dough is formed, cover and rest the dough aside for 15 minutes. Then repeat the process until the dough becomes almost smooth on the surface. No need to be super smooth! At this stage, the dough will be super soft but not sticky. We only need the gluten network to be formed. Cover well and set aside for 1 hour.
3. Shape the dough into a long retangle and brush some oil on the surface (this can help to avoid sticky problems after the later stage of shaping and assembling). Set aside and resting for 2 hours. If you are in a hurry, you can shorten this to 1 hour.

Assemble the deep-frying strip

1. Cut the rectangle into strips around 3cm wide.
2. Take a chopstick, wet it with some water, and work a line in the center of one piece of the strip.
3. Lay one stripe over the other one and press a mark in the center (lengthwise). Water helps to make sure the two pieces stay together in the deep-frying process.

Deep-fry the youtiao

1. Heat the oil to around 180 to 190 degrees C (400 degrees F). Then hold the two ends and slightly stretch the strips (or slightly adjust the length according to your frying wok).
2. Gently slide into the oil and roll around continuously with chopsticks. This can prevent any surface of the youtiao is overcooked and thus firmed too quickly. Once the youtiao expands and turns golden brown. Transfer to a baking rack to drain out the extra oil. The whole deep-frying process may need 1 minute.
3. Do this by batch and use a slow fire to keep the temperature of the oil. You can fry two youtiao each time but adding too many ones will decrease the oil temperature immediately, and usually, we don't have enough space for them to roll and rotate. So take your time.

How to store and serve

1. Freshly deep-fried youtiao has the best flavors and taste. If you have leftovers, keep them in fridge with an air -tight bag up to 7 days.
2. How to reheat: you can choose to re-deep fry them with a lower heat. or you can choose to reheat it in the oven. 4-5 minutes at 180°C/ 356°F