Hola! It’s egg time! With this theme I knew what I was looking for in my cookbooks straight away. Which meant far less umming and arrhhing then normal. So it was straight to the Spanish cookbooks for this one. I’ve had the home cooked torillas a couple of times before at a friend, Irene’s place. Irene has a Spanish background and makes the tortilla as a side dish to her amazing paella’s. I’m pretty sure that she uses her Dad’s recipe to make it. It’s always tasty, so I very much inspired to give it a crack.
Tortilla De Patatas as found in the Movida cookbook
serves tapas 12, entree 6, main 4
1kg floury potatoes
1brown onion, finely diced
2 garlic clove, very finely chopped
about 1 litre/4 cups olive oil
8 eggs
sea salt flakes
60ml olive oil, extra
Cut the potatoes into paper thin slices using a mandolin or a very sharp knife and then cut into 1cm squares.
In a large heavy-based frying pan confit* the potato onion and garlic. To do this, cover them with the olive oil and heat over high heat until the oil just starts to warm then reduce the heat to low-medium and cooked for 30-35 minutes. You should only be able to see very fine bubbles occasionally – it should not be rapidly bubbling. The idea is to soften the potatoes but not turn them into little chips. As the potato cooks, use the back of a large spoon to break them up into smaller pieces. After 30-35 minutes try a piece, it should be very soft to touch.
When done, put the potato mixture into a chinos or fine sieve and drain the oil. The oil can be used another three or four times to confit other dishes in this book.
Meanwhile in a large bowl gentle whisk the eggs until smooth and mix in 1 teaspoon of salt. Reserve 185ml of the egg mixture in a separate bowl. Add the potato mixture to the egg mix in the bowl and briefly mix. Season with sea salt flakes to taste. Heat the extra olive oil in a 28cm non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Pour in the egg and potato mixture. As the mixture starts to thicken shake the pan in a circular motion- the edges should start to round. Using a wooden spatula, start shaping the mixture into a thick disc that is rounded at the edges like a flat Frisbee. After 1 minute cover the frying pan with a plate or round flat tray, and quickly flip the plate and the pan so the tortilla is on the place. Gently slide the tortilla back into the pan, uncooked-side down, and reduce the heat to low-medium. Smooth out any imperfection in the cooked surface of the tortilla by pouring over a little of the reserved beaten egg and smoothing it in with a wooden spoon. Cover and cook for 2 minutes, Flip the tortilla again and repeat the smoothing process with some of the remaining beaten eggs on the freshly exposed side. Cover and cook for a further 2 minutes. Repeat the process and then cover and cook for 2 minutes.
Flip the tortilla , pour on any remaining egg mix, smooth, cover and cooked for 1 minute, Slip and cook covered for a further minute.
When done the tortilla should not be completely firm and should have a little wobble in it when you gentle shake the pan. Remove from the heat and keep in the pan in a warm place for 5 minutes.This allows the residual heat to set the remaining uncooked eggs without the interior becoming rubbery. Serve at room temperature.
*Confit is a process of cooking in oil under 100C (200 F). It is it hotter than that the water in the food boils and evaporates as steam, which forms bubbles to escape.
So I had no problems with chopping everything, I even managed the whole confit process without a hitch. It was the flipping that got me. I think I used a pan that was a little too large. Consequently I didn’t have a plat big enough to do the flipping (why do you always notice this after you’ve put the mixture into the pan!), so I had to get a platter to do it. Man! It was heavy! I had to call in for back up. Needless to say the flipping process was not crash hot. Some of the mixture stuck to the bottom too, just to further complicate things. So I flipped the mixture onto the platter and then washed the pan. After heating it again with a fresh batch of oil I transfer the mixture back to the pan. At which point, I managed to break the omelette in half. %$@#en brilliant! I patched it up as best I could with the reserved egg mix, and pieced it back together after much swearing. I managed only one further flip as the whole process was seeming a bit dangerous by this point.
Unforgivably the crack in the middle was not all that repairable it turn out so hence no gorgeous full omelette shot. Your have to settle for the 1 of the 4 neat slices I was able to recover. To serve I made some garlic and chilli mushrooms and some green beans. Anyways if you decide to have a crack at this one I hope you manage to learn from my mistakes. Size of pan and plate are imperative! Ole!
