Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Tortilla de Patatas

To go with the delicious tri-tip that my husband grilled up, we wanted some potatoes. Having just come back from Argentina and having eaten some great Spanish Potato Tortillas there, I wanted to try making it at home.

This is a great alternative to boring old mashed, baked or fried potatoes. It looks so fancy but is really not difficult to make at all. Well, actually, I don't know that for a fact because I didn't make it. The hubz made it while I watched. But he didn't seem to have any trouble with it, so I'm going to say that it's not that difficult to make, though he might have a different opinion :)

The hubz probably did a better job of making this dish than I could have. It turned out crispy, flavorful and delicious, not to mention pretty! If it were up to me, I'm sure I would've broken it or dropped it during the flipping process and it would've come out a dreadful mess. Thanks goodness for my hubby!
Look how perfect that is!

Ingredients:
- Potatoes
- Onions (optional)
- Eggs
- Oil
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
- Slice the potatoes as thin as possible. A mandoline or the slicer blade on your food processor would work nicely. My husband decided to do it by hand and it turned out fine.
- To speed up the whole thing, a nice little shortcut is to pop the sliced potatoes in the microwave until they are slightly soft, but not so soft that they fall apart. You can also fry the potatoes in oil to be more traditional and less healthy :)
- Dice the onions and saute them in a bit of oil until softened. If you want to skip the onions altogether, that's totally fine.
- Beat some eggs in a bowl, mixing in the onions, salt and pepper.
- Carefully stir the potatoes into the egg mixture, being careful not to break too many of the potatoes.
- Heat a heavy bottomed skillet and coat the bottom with oil.
- Pour the egg, potato, onion mixture into the pan and let it cook on medium until the sides have solidified and you can easily slide the tortilla around without it falling apart. The edges and bottom should also be a nice crispy brown.
- Using a large plate, flip the tortilla upside down onto the plate.
- Carefully slide the tortilla back into the pan (adding oil if necessary) to finish cooking and crisping up the other side.
- When the other side is brown and crispy and the tortilla is cooked all the way through, remove it from the pan and slice into wedges to serve.

17 comments:

Juliana said...

Oh! I had this tortilla in a local Argentinean restaurant...love it...thank you for the recipe...will definitely give a try :-)

Daily Spud said...

Love, love, love tortilla de patatas. A Spanish relation of mine showed me how to make it years ago and it's been a firm favourite ever since.

That Girl said...

I've made this before - but it did not look as good as this!

MaryBeth said...

OMG...this looks so simple but yet so darn good. I love that it looks golden brown and crispy.

Joanne said...

My mom would occasionally make a dish like this when I was younger and we would have it topped with cheese on sandwiches. Yum!

Reeni said...

I've never had a potato tortilla! How delicious!

gaga said...

Why didn't I think of adding cheese? I'm definitely doing that next time, thanks Joanne!

lisaiscooking said...

I've never made this dish, but I'd love to try to sometime. Yours looks delicious!

momgateway said...

Yummy! When I make tortilla de patatas, I cut it into cubes and place a toothpick through each then serve it as hors d'oeuvre.

Carolyn Jung said...

Have you ever tried the Jose Andres recipe where he makes this, but uses potato chips instead of potatoes? It's pretty amazing. Comes out great. But then you realize how many potato chips you've just eaten as part of the tortilla, and the mind just reels. ;)

gaga said...

Carolyn - that's awesome! I would love that!

Ju (The Little Teochew) said...

Three cheers for hubz! Beautiful! I made frittata recently, with almost exactly all the same ingredients, and I topped it with cheese. Do try cheese!

Claudia said...

This looks wonderful and not to difficult to make. I do so much pasta I forget how much I love potatoes! Scrumptious, life-affirming potatoes. Thanks for the reminder!

Karine said...

I should try a tortilla de patatas sometimes. It sounds delicious!

Kerstin said...

Yum, your hubby did such a great job, I could definitely polish off a couple big slices!

Olga said...

that looks delicious! How I wish to visit Argentina.

Let me know if you try my biscotti recipe.

Ann (Healthy Tasty Chow) said...

This seems a lot like tortilla espanola, which I love but never get right b/c I have a hard time pouring in the olive oil- makes me want to try this version to see if I can get it right this time!!!