Leche Frita (Fried Milk)

Leche Frita literally translates into "Fried Milk", leche meaning milk, and frita meaning fried.

This dessert is basically squares of fried milk custard or pudding, in my recipe the custard is infused with cinnamon, citrus, and sometimes vanilla, cut into squares, coated in flour and egg then deep or pan-fried tossed in cinnamon sugar.

A lot of people seem intimidated and think this is hard to make, they are very scared of the custard being to soft and breaking, but trust me if you follow my recipe it's super easy and you should be fine :)

Ingredients for custard:
-4 cups milk
-3/4 cup sugar
-1 cinnamon stick
-1 lemon only the zest
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
-8 tablespoons cornstarch
-1/2 and 2 tablespoons water (more or less)

Ingredients for coating:
-flour as needed (enough to coat custard squares)
-2 beaten eggs

Ingredients for cinnamon sugar dusting:
-1/2 cup white cane sugar
-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions for custard:
(1) Heat milk, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest on medium high heat, stir occasionally. When it bubbles and comes to boil lower heat to low and allow to simmer 5- 10 minutes.
(2) While milk is simmering in a bowl add 8 tablespoons cornstarch, and dissolve in water set aside.
(3) When milk mixture has simmered 5- 10 minutes, remove cinnamon stick and higher heat to medium high, give a quick stir with a fork to the cornstarch water mixture and whisk it in with a whisk of course, stiring constantly and fast until it begins to thicken and bubbles.
(4) Remove from heat and quickly put into a glass dish, allow to cool and refrigerate at least 4- 6 hours until cold and firm.
(5) Get everything ready, for the frying process, start heating a large pan with enough oil to deep-fry or pan0fry custard squares heat the pan on medium for now so your oil won't burn while prepping, then in one plate put flour enough to coat most custard squares, in a bowl beat eggs set aside, in another plate make cinnamon sugar by combining sugar with ground cinnamon, and get a seperate plate with paper towels to drain the oil after you fried your custard. Set everything aside.

(6) When firm, quickly pass the bottom of the glass dish over warm water (in the sink) then remove, cut squares, and gently remove using your fingers careful not to break the squares.
(7) Raise the heat in the pan with oil to high heat, pass squares one at a time, first through flour, then pass it through beaten egg (yes you heard FLOUR first THEN beaten EGG) and add to the how oil.
(8) With a spoon splash oil over or spoon over oil over the custard squares that are frying, carefully with a large wooden spoon and spatula or spider flip them over until golden on all sides.
(9) Remove from oil when golden and browned then allow to drain on paper towels, when cool enough to handle coat in cinnamon sugar carefully being careful not to break it.
(10) Transfer to serving plate, allow to cool before eating, I like it at room temperature but think leftovers in the fridge are even better :)
PLEASE NOTE:
(1) The making of the custard can be made 1 day in advance if you want to then the day of serving you can do the whole frying part

(2) You can flavor it however you want, you can use grated lime zest or orange zest instead of lemon.

(3) You can skip the cinnamon sugar and only coat in sugar, or dust with powdered sugar, or heck I've seen people drizzle it with chocolate syrup, or types of fruit syrups when serving.

(4) To make the custard richer some people beat 5 egg yolks with the cornstarch and use only milk to dilute the cornstarch instead of water, in addition when heating the milk they like to add 1 stick of butter for even more richness or omit the egg yolks and use only butter. I personally DO NOT l feel like adding egg yolks and butter, I think it's not necessary, the custard squares are already coated in flour and egg, plus fried in oil anyways...

I only add egg yolks and butter when making "Natilla" (a type of Spanish custard similar to this one, it's like a pudding, more soft and uses less cornstarch) or I use it when making "Crema Catalana" (another type of Spanish custard translates to "Catalan Cream" which is a soft milk pudding with a hard sugar crust on top)

Empanadilla de Carne (Mini Galician Meat Pies)

This is a repost of my old post for "Empanadilla de Carne" I feel I didn't do such a good job last time at taking the pictures, and just didn't make them the best I could. I'm reposting it.

This recipe is "Pilar Lechuza" who cooks traditional home-style Galician food, she is what I consider the "Queen of Empanadas" she is very skillful at what she cooks, and of course the "Empanadas" of other countries originate in Galicia, Spain (or so it is claims).

Ingredients for dough:-1/2 cup dry white wine
-1/2 cup water
-1/2 cup oil (preferably oil released from cooking the filling, but if not I suggest heating olive oil on medium heat until it get's hot then turn off and stir in a big fat pinch of sweet smoked spanish paprika to infuse the oil, don't burn the paprika be careful, then strain and use to make dough)
-1/2- 1 teaspoon salt
-plain all purpose flour (as much as needed to form dough)

Ingredients for filling I used today:
-1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
-1 onion minced
-1 green bell pepper minced
-5 cloves garlic finely minced
-1 can 8 oz. tomato sauce
-salt to taste (about 1 1/2 teaspoon)
-1 heaping teaspoon sweet smoked spanish paprika
-3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (seems like a lot but it will be drained to be used to make the dough this oil will be very flavorful for the dough)
Directions:(1) Prepare filling by heating oil, sautee onions and bell peppers 5 minutes on medium high add meat season with salt and brown rendering the meats fat on medium high, then add garlic sautee until fragrant, then add sweet smoked spanish paprika stir a bit when fragrant add tomato sauce stir and raise heat, let the tomato reduce and oil starts frying it. Finally remove heat and put meat filling on a strainer to drain fat over a large bowl about 5 minutes which will be used to make dough mine yielded exactly 1/2 cup flavored oil.

(2) Set aside meat drained meat mixture and leave oil in large bowl, in large bowl add dry white wine, water, and salt, start stirring in flour little by little with your hand until the dough no longer sticks to your hand and becomes workable. Transfer to a floured surface, work dough.

(3) Stretch dough out on floured surface with a rolling pin, cut into round flat circles using whatever you have, put some meat filling and fold over, seal with a fork. DO NOT SEAL WITH WATER the dough is oily and water will not stick. It doesn't need egg either, just press well, and seal with fork. The dough tends to shrink, I cut it into circles from the rolled dough, then again roll out those circles individually to and proceed with adding filling and sealing.

(4) Heat oil on medium high to high (but not super high) to fry empanadas, fry until browned on all sides. Drain, set on a large plate with paper towels to absorb oil, I used a large baking pan.I didn't have enough filling to finish all the dough so we made a thin large one which ended up being delicious and crispy as well.
I served it with a raw salad for my late lunch

IMPORTANT PLEASE NOTE! Fillings can vary:
(1)Shredded "Fricasse de Pollo" which is a chicken stew (see recipe by clicking on link)
(2)Picadillo without the potatoes leftover see recipe for "Picadillo Salteado"
(3)Leftover "Ropa Vieja" (shredded beef)
(4)Or Pilar Lechuza's filling done in the old post which was a tasty ground pork filling click on link. It's in spanish though. The filling is basically ground pork sauteed in olive oil with onion, garlic, and a large grated tomato seasoned with salt and sweet smoked paprika
(5)Cooked rotisseri shredded chicken mixed with grated cheese of your choice (I like Monterrey jack)
(6)Any leftover meat dish in a sauce shredded. Take any meat cooked leftover meat, shred or chop finely it, sautee lots of minced onion, maybe garlic in olive oil, add a little tomato sauce maybe some sweet smoked spanish paprika and there's your filling.

P.S.

These came out delicious, just made they are very crispy and delicious, enjoy hot and fresh because over time if left out they lose their crispiness, you'd have to reheat them in the oven at 375 or something to get them crispy again. Or the toaster oven. So best enjoy fresh :)

ALSO I make another delicious Empanada dough that Marilyn from "My Cuban Traumas" taught me :) check out the post for "Empanadas Cubanas" larger meat pies are "Empanadas Gallega" (Galician Pies) I'll start making a larger variety of those in the winter using Pilar's knowledge and what I have available. :)