Paparajotes – fried lemon batter with cinnamon sugar

Whisk the egg with 30 g sugar, then with the milk. Mix the flour with the baking powder and salt, add to the wet ingredients, and stir into a smooth, fairly thick batter that will coat a leaf rather than run straight off it. Stir in the yellow lemon zest. Cover the bowl and leave to rest for 30 minutes. Measuring the ingredients and making the batter will take about 10 minutes.

During the first 10 minutes of the batter's rest, wash the leaves and thoroughly pat both sides dry with paper towels or a clean cloth. Keep them whole, with their short stalks. Use only lemon leaves from a known, unsprayed source for culinary use; leaves from a florist or an unknown ornamental plant are not suitable. The leaf provides aroma and shape and will be removed before eating.

Once the batter has rested for 30 minutes, pour the olive oil into a deep saucepan about 22 cm in diameter. It should form a layer roughly 2 cm deep. Heat over moderate heat for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the remaining 60 g sugar with all the cinnamon on a shallow plate and prepare paper towels for draining. These tasks take place while the olive oil heats.

Stir the batter briefly. Hold a leaf by its stalk and dip both sides of the blade into the batter until evenly coated. Let only a large drop of excess batter drip back into the bowl. Coat the leaves as you go, just before frying each batch. Depending on their size, you will get about 24 pieces; use the batter to coat further leaves, scraping it from the sides of the bowl with a spatula.

Gently lower the first battered leaf into the olive oil on a slotted spoon. Small, steady bubbles should surround the batter, and the surface must not darken immediately. Fry about 4 at a time, leaving space between them. Carefully turn them halfway through frying. A batch usually needs about 2–3 minutes, until the batter shell has puffed up, is golden on both sides, and has set. Lower the heat if it browns quickly; let the oil heat up again between batches. Coating the leaves, frying six batches, and short pauses will take about 25 minutes.

Lift out the paparajotes with a slotted spoon, drain briefly over the saucepan, then transfer to paper towels. While still warm, lightly coat them in the prepared cinnamon sugar. The first batches will cool while the next ones fry. Leave the last batch for about 5 minutes, until comfortably warm and the batter shell can be opened safely.

Before eating, gently open the fried batter shell, hold the stalk, and remove the whole leaf together with its stalk. Discard the leaf; eat only the lemon-flavored batter with its sugar coating. Tell everyone you serve the dessert to. Divide everything into 6 servings, usually about 4 batter shells each, and serve warm. Allow about 1 hour and 15 minutes in total: 25 minutes of active work, 25 minutes of frying, and 25 minutes of separate resting and cooling. The ten minutes spent preparing the leaves fit within the half-hour batter rest, and the coating is prepared while the olive oil heats.