The World Cup Food Challenge - Day 15, Spain (Leche Frita)

The catch-up posting continues. This one will be quick because it was a dessert, which within the parameters of this challenge, is synonymous with failure.*

Spain, or rather my dish for Spain in the World Cup Food Challenge, threw a spanner in the whole works more than any other dish. The problem presented by Spain prompted me to pause and ponder the parameters of the present project. (Aside: like the alliteration?) What is it exactly which matters in this Challenge? What was my quest about? I had decided very early on that I was not going to try to make the dish of the country. It would involve way too much effort to try to figure out the one dish which is the national dish, or most popular, or which actually originated from that country. And for many countries and many dishes, it is not possible to make that distinction. I decided that my associating a particular dish with a particular country was reason enough for me to choose it. That eased up the questions surrounding how I chose the dish of the day/country, though still, left open the question regarding the process and / or result. Is it more important to attempt something, regardless of the complexity and result, just to be able to say I tried, or was I better off picking some easy which I knew would work so I could say I did? Was the attempt or the result more important?

I had this dilemma with Spain more than any other country because I got myself fixated, with no discernible cause or reason, on making one particular dish. The first and possibly more obvious dish which occurred to me was the paella. For whatever reason, I decided it was too much effort for one person. I suspect part of the reason was also that my idea of a paella is a seafood paella. I know, you can have non-seafood paella. But somehow, a paella without mussels and such like, is not a paella in my books. Strange considering I actually do not like mussels and therefore have no intention to (1) buy or (2) cook with them. Someone suggested that I should just make a sangria. Loved the idea though I did, I decided that was too little effort. I eventually landed on a tortilla, and that was the option I was going for until, in the course of searching for a good recipe, I came across the leche frita. And that, in the end, was what I became fixated on.

Leche frita
Directly translated, it means fried milk which is essentially what the dish is: Milk with a bit of sugar, flour and cornstarch, fried in egg.

The milk is cooked with sugar, flour, and cornstarch and left to set. Of course, it was not as easy as all that. Part of the milk is mixed with flour and sugar; the rest of the milk is cooked and infused with cinnamon. Then the one is slowly added into the other and the whole returned to heat. It is then left to set in the fridge overnight, before being cut into squares, dredged in flour, then egg, and fried.

The only problem was, mine would not set. The first time, I suspected that it was my own fault. I scaled down a recipe and possibly got my measurements wrong. I might have added teaspoons of cornflour instead of the required tablespoons, or something. I was kicking myself but resolved to try again. I did it again, following the recipe to the T. It did not set. I tried numerous times, and with different recipes. I have no idea what I was doing wrong. For days during the challenge, regardless of whatever else I was making on the day, I was also still trying to make this on the side. I went through litres and litres of milk. I never got it to set enough that I could even think about frying it. In the end, I gave up. I came across so many different recipes, with significantly different propotions of ingredients that I became convinced that many of the recipes, do not in actual fact, work. It did not make sense to me that recipes with radically different ratio of dry to wet ingredients, not to mention cornflour, can be expected to set in the same manner. I gave up on finding the one recipe which would work, and that was it. Verdict: failure.

By then, I was so fed up with the "spanish dish" that I was not really up for making something else Spanish. Also, I decided that my numerous attempts more than made up for the lack of a result. And so, I went ahead and cross Spain off my list, rather than go through the process of picking another dish to make.

Looking at a leche frita recipe now (e.g. on http://spanishfood.about.com/od/spanishcustardspuddings/r/lechefrita.htm), I am tempted to try it again. It sounds so simple. I might just try this recipe, one day...

*For more, see: http://diamondglints.blogspot.se/2014/07/the-32-dishes-good-great-bad-and-those.html