For years, there has been a tradition in my parents' house. When someone gives my mother real eggs, the kind that one of her friends collects from their own chickens in the town, she always prepares them in her favorite way: fried eggs with potatoes. That moment when you dip the bread in that creamy yolk and put it in your mouth is blessed glory. But there are many (many) ways to prepare eggs that go beyond frying them. And one of the best is a recipe for use.
I'm not talking about taking advantage of stale bread to dip it in sweetened milk flavored with lemon and cinnamon to make torrijas, but about repápalos from Extremadura, a traditional recipe from the grandmothers of Extremadura with which to take advantage of leftover stale bread. This recipe is a juicier version of Aragón silly eggs, because after frying them, they are added to a delicious sauce prepared with onion, wine, paprika and broth.
They explained in Directo al Paladar that “this basic mixture of bread and egg has as many names as there are areas of Spain in which it is prepared: sponges, rolls, stuffed or rellenitos, cucaracho balls, pelluelas, matahambre, meatballs, cakes, San José tortillitas and, of course, Extremaduran repápalos.” To make the last ones we start with the sauce.
We chop the onion very finely that we are going to sauté with a little oil. When it is transparent, we add the wine over high heat and let it evaporate. Once ready, we sauté the flour to toast it lightly and when it is ready, the paprika. We don't want it to burn and become bitter, so we remove it from the heat and stir well to immediately add the vegetable broth. We salt and let the sauce simmer for about ten minutes.
While the sauce is getting ready, let's go with the repápalos. It is a dough that we will then fry and that we will achieve by mixing the grated garlic, fresh parsley leaves, beaten eggs and coarsely grated hard bread in a bowl. We can chop the crumb with our hands and mix everything in a deep, wide container, adding a little salt to the mixture that we will stir very well until we get a homogeneous mixture. If you see that the dough is too chewy, you can add a little milk, but do it little by little until you achieve a consistency similar to that of croquette dough.
When it is well mixed, we shape it into croquettes or small fritters and fry in plenty of oil until golden brown. We remove them to a plate with absorbent paper and when we have all the fried dough, we add to the sauce and let it boil for about five minutes.
Prepare bread as you would for fried eggs because I already told you that you are going to need it very much.
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