Short-grain rice cooked slowly in plenty of milk with lemon peel and cinnamon until creamy, then topped with sugar burnt to a crust.
What makes it arroz con leche
Short-grain rice and a great deal of whole milk.
Lemon peel and cinnamon, cooked in slowly.
A burnt-sugar top — requemado.
Where it comes from
It's eaten all over Spain and far beyond, but Asturias holds it as its own: rich with the region's milk, cooked for a long time and stirred often, and finished requemado — its sugar top burnt with a hot iron.
It's the dessert of Sunday lunch and village feasts, and Asturian cooks argue about how thick it should be and whether butter goes in at the end.