The Teaspoon: Leche Frita

By Julie

When Spanish people want to express something is awesome, fantastic, great, they often use the idiom “Es la leche!” which translates to “It’s the milk!” Our recipe suggestion for this week is inspired by this expression, as I believe it is one of the best desserts I have tried in my life. I discovered ‘leche frita’, literally “deep-fried milk”, after a sumptuous meal in a traditional asador, one of the many barbecue restaurants around Pamplona and was first drawn to try it for the interesting name. Let me say I did not regret my curiosity and so I will share this delicacy with you here.

Ingredients

(for 4 people)

1/2 l of milk

50 g of sugar

peel of one lime or lemon

1 cinnamon stick

40 g of potato starch

some flour and one beaten egg

sugar mixed with cinnamon for sprinkling at the end

Preparation method

Start by putting the milk to simmer for about 5 minutes with the lemon peel and cinnamon. Mix sugar with starch and bit by bit add it to the hot milk. Keep simmering and pay attention to stir it well as it easily burns, which leaves a nasty taste and will force you to start from the beginning. When the mixture starts thickening, pour it into a baking pan (or whatever you got at hand) to let it cool down. Discard the cinnamon stick and the lemon peel. Ideally you want your mixture to be about 2 cm thick.

When completely cooled, you can cut the “milk” into the shape you like - triangles or rhomboids work well, but if you can pull off baby dolphins, go ahead and don’t forget to send us pictures! We would love to see you get creative with our recipes!

Flip your baby dolphins first in flour, then in the beaten egg and deep-fry them in hot oil until they have a nice golden brown colour.