José Pizarro’s recipe for leche fritas with caramel blood oranges

I made this for my partner’s mum Hilda not long after we met, and apparently it won her heart. This dish is actually a popular, sweet street food snack, but here I’m serving it with sticky caramel blood oranges – the pick of the winter crop. As far as I can tell, leche frita ( or ‘fried milk’) was first made and sold by nuns in northern Spain to raise money for their convents and was traditionally eaten at Easter; nowadays, though, it’s popular all year round, probably because it’s just so moreish.

Leche frita with caramel blood oranges

Save the excess orange peel for another use: put them in the freezer to drop into cold drinks and cocktails, or to bring a welcome hit of citrus to beef stews, or to flavour desserts, or use them up in marmalade.

Prep 10 min
Infuse 20 min
Chill 3 hr+
Cook 50 min
Serves 8

For the oranges
5 blood oranges
100g caster sugar

For the leche frita
750ml whole milk
1 cinnamon stick
The pared zest of 1 orange (see above and method)
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways and seeds scraped out
100g caster sugar, plus 2 tbsp extra for the cinnamon sugar
50g plain flour, plus 25g extra for dusting
30g cornflour
2 medium egg yolks
150ml olive oil, for frying
½ tsp ground cinnamon
2 whole eggs, beaten

First, prepare the oranges. Peel the skin and pith off four of the oranges, reserving one of the skins, then slice the peeled fruit and put it in a medium bowl. Juice the fifth orange – you should get about 100ml – then pour into a jug. With a small, sharp knife, remove and discard all the white pith from the reserved orange skin, then cut the zest into wide strips.

Put the caster sugar in a pan with 30ml cold water, then melt gently, stirring, over a low heat. Turn up the heat and leave to bubble until you have a dark golden caramel. Pour this into the jug of orange juice – be careful, because it will sputter and spit – then pour the mix over the sliced oranges and leave to cool. Once cool, chill until needed. You can prepare the oranges up to a day ahead, if need be.

For the leche frita, put the milk, cinnamon, reserved orange zest and vanilla in a pan and heat gently until almost boiling. Take off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.

Blend the sugar, 25g of the plain flour and all the cornflour in a bowl, then strain in 100ml of the infused milk and whisk to make a smooth paste. Beat in the rest of the milk and the egg yolks, then return the mix to the milk pan and cook, whisking, on a medium heat for 10-15 minutes, until the mix becomes lovely and thick.

Pour the milk mix into a greased, deep-lipped baking tray, so it comes about 2½cm up the sides, cover with clingfilm and chill for at least three hours, or even better, overnight.

To finish the dish, carefully turn out the chilled leche on to a clean work surface or board, then cut into 2cm squares. Heat the oil in a pan or wok. In a small bowl, mix the remaining two tablespoons of caster sugar with the ground cinnamon. Working in batches, dip the leche squares first in beaten egg, then dust them in flour and fry for about a minute on each side, until nicely golden. Drain on kitchen roll, dust with the cinnamon sugar and repeat with the remaining squares of set milk.

Once all the leche are fried, serve them hot with the caramel blood oranges.