Can You Say Fratelli?

Sunday evening, my DH and I were invited over to our long time friends, the Delbridges, for a birthday party. Both of their sons (Chris and Bobby) had birthdays only a couple of days apart and requested "fratelli's" for their birthday dinner. Now I have to admit, we have always called them "fertilles" but another friend from Italy said they were probably "fratelli's" and, for once, Google was absolutely no help.

In any case, our friends did a tour with the Air Force over in Italy where they learned to love and make fratelli's. We all love them. Steve and Helen were invited too but they had to take the kids back up to Brownwood to meet their Mom.  Steve was very disappointed and made Bobby, one of the birthday boys, promise to save him a couple. These sandwiches are so good but they are also a lot of work to make so it doesn't happen often. First you make the bread or roll dough, let it rise, then make large balls of it and let it rise again. Then you have to roll each one out individually.

Inside you put some ham, some mozzarella cheese, and some Italian seasoned and diced tomatoes. We always used to put sliced black olives and some onion in them as well which really adds to the flavor but one of the birthday boys doesn't like those two items.

And then you deep fry them. Bob has a big deep fryer that he sets up outside. Loretta made a total of 48 fratelli's and there weren't a lot of them left but Steve did get his.

We prepared these once quite a few years ago for a booth at an air show when the hubbies were still in the Air Force. We couldn't keep up with the demand and made Bob promise to never volunteer us again. It was hotter than heck outside that day and we made the dough for and rolled out hundreds of these popular treats.