Put some warm water in a deep bowl and dissolve the yeast. Add the sugar and a little bit of flour to make a batter which you leave to stand so that it rises.
Put the flour in a large bowl together with the salt, the zest from the 2 oranges, the cinnamon powder and the clove powder. Mix.
Add the oil and rub the flour well with our hands so that it becomes like trahana.
Our flour has to acquire a texture like the one in the photo.
We boil some water with the cinnamon sticks, the whole cloves and a part of the orange peel (maybe the top, since we won't have got the zest from there). This way, we get fragrant water.
We add the batter that has already risen to the big bowl with the flour, as well as the fragrant water, the orange juice, the eggs and the cognac.
We add some warm water and knead well. We start adding more water gradually till we get a soft pliable dough that doesn't stick to our hands.
We cover the bowl with a towel and wrap it with a blanket. We let it stand for about 2 hours, until it doubles in size.
We take a piece of our dough as big as a small walnut and make it into a thin string, roughly as thick as our finger (see video). It isn't as simple as it looks. It takes practice. If the dough breaks, then you stick it back again and keep on molding.
In a deep pot we put oil to the boil. We form our strings (see video) and put them in the oil till they are golden brown. The thinner the strings are the crunchier the lalagia will be. Take care, because if you spent a long time kneading them they will have risen. That is why you need at least two persons, one is molding them and the other is frying.
You can use the same dough to make rusks. Add a bit of anise, knead and mold into a baguette. Score it with the spine of the knife and put it in the oven. When they are done, cut the pieces and put them back in the oven to turn them into rusks. I strongly recommend them!!
