It was obvious that I was feeling ambitious and brave earlier this week when I decided to make two dishes that were completely foreign to me. Tuesday I attempted to make two Spanish traditional dishes, paella and flan... And I kind of nailed it. Granted, my paella was very americanized and turned out to be more like a rice casserole, but it didn't stop my boyfriend (who ate paella often while living in Spain) from going back for thirds. While eating dinner I hadn't told him about the flan I had made for dessert; I wanted it to be a surprise and I was scared that it was going to be awful. He was shocked when I dramatically pulled the dish towel off to reveal the mini flans and I was shocked when I realized that they actual looked and tasted good!
I had only tried this Spanish custard dish once before, but after tasting my own version, I have to admit that it tastes exactly the same. I learned that there are so many variations to this recipe, but after buying Eagle Brand condensed milk, I thought it would be safe to use their recipe.
Everything was fairly easy, except coating the bottom of my ramekins with caramel. It didn't turn out quite as evenly as I had hoped, but I found that if you do one at a time while you continue to let the remaining caramel heat in the pan then you will have more luck.
My only other issue came with the cook time. The recipe said to cook these flans for just 25 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Well at 25 minutes they were not even close and I had to end up cooking these for 50 minutes until they reached a custard consistency. They eventually got there and all four ramekin dishes were quickly scraped clean.
What Spanish dish can I try next?
This looks amazing! Dishes like this always intimidate me. I might have to try this one out though. xx. McKenna Lou
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