Spain's „MasterChef" has put out a new cookbook - „Lunch in the Family", a selection of recipes that read easily, get made at home, and live in everyone's collective memory. One of them rings particularly loud across the Balkans - grandma's croquettes, made from leftover boiled meat.

The idea is simple and very old-Balkan - don't throw the leftovers out. Yesterday's beef or chicken, plus a clove of garlic, a little flour, milk, nutmeg - and tonight's table gets something that looks like it was cooked from scratch.

Ingredients for the original recipe: 100 grams of flour, one liter of whole milk, one clove of garlic, one egg, leftover boiled meat (mixed beef and chicken), breadcrumbs, nutmeg, olive oil, salt.

Step by step. First - mince the garlic finely and fry it in olive oil. Add the flour and stir. Slowly pour in the milk, stirring constantly - you get a thick béchamel base. Salt it and add the nutmeg.

Second step - the chopped boiled meat goes into the thick mixture. Cook for another 15 minutes. Then refrigerate until completely cold. Without a properly chilled mass, you can't shape croquettes.

Third step - shape the cold mixture into finger-sized forms, dip in beaten egg, then roll in breadcrumbs. Fry in hot oil. Done.

The trick - the dough has to be thick but smooth, no lumps. Too thin and the croquettes fall apart in the oil. Too thick and they lose texture. That's why grandmothers did it best - they had a feel that no recipe can transfer.

The principle of „leftovers - dinner" isn't Spanish, isn't Italian, isn't Balkan. It's the principle of everyone who lived in a household where nothing gets thrown away. Which means - it's ours too.