The Cookbook Challenge Week 35 - Spanish - Tortilla - 2 - $ - V

Now before you read on you have to promise (cross your heart and hope to be allowed to eat at any of the Movidas again) that you won't tell Frank Camorra about how I changed his recipe. I couldn't help it! I just couldn't (for financial and the ever-expanding-size-of-my-backside reasons) bring myself to use the 1 LITRE of olive oil he listed in order to cook the potatoes.
Not following Frank's word to the letter was also brave as well as cheeky because every single time I've attempted tortillas in the past they have been an unmitigated disaster and I probably should JUST FOLLOW A RECIPE for once. Even my gorgeous friend Agus who is Spanish and gave me a cooking lesson in his kitchen in Alicante one summer evening couldn't help me get it right.


For this week's challenge I was going to pick something fancy from Frank's cookbook Movida, which is full of gorgeous recipes from his acclaimed restaurant of the same name in Melbourne. Then I thought I should cook my most feared, yet most favourite Spanish dish, and conquer a simple potato tortilla once and for all!


I have two tortilla recipes from Frank, one from the book above and one from an issue of the Masterchef magazine. The quantities vary between the two so I am going to give you the amounts in the magazine (which I halved) and you can decide what works best for you. The only major thing I did differently was to par-boil the potatoes, then slice them, rather than slice and cook them off in a litre of oil.
Once I sliced them I tossed them and the onion and garlic in about 2tbs of olive oil and this seemed to work OK.

Ingredients

800gm floury potatoes
1 onion, finely choppe
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 litre olive oil
12 eggs
salt and pepper to season

Slice the potatoes 5mm thick. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a heavy based fry pan and then cook off potato, onion and garlic for around 20 minutes until the potato is par-cooked.
Meanwhile beat the eggs, season with salt and pepper and pour 180ml into a jug and set aside.
Once the potatoes are done, remove them and drain on a rack. Reserve some of the leftover oil.
Stir the potato mix into the big bowl of egg, heat the oil in the pan and then pour in the potato and eggs. Use a spatula to round the edges and then cook over a medium heat for about 12 minutes or until the egg is set just enough to flip it. No need to poke it and lift the edges and tilt the egg into the gaps, just let it do its thing.

Put a dinner plate over the pan and then VERY CAREFULLY flip the pan and plop the tortilla onto the plate - the cooked side should be golden and looking up at you. Return the empty pan to the heat and then using your spatula slide the tortilla uncooked side down back into the pan.
Pour the reserved egg mix around the edge to fill in the gaps. Cook for around another 6 minutes until the egg is almost set all the way through.
Let it cool slightly before serving with other tapas offerings.


My par-boiled potatoes worked OK but needed a lot more salt than what went into the eggs, so next time I will season the spuds and the googs. I also overcooked mine because I forgot to take into account that using half the amount of eggs in a smaller pan meant the cooking time should have been adjusted.
Overall I was happy with this tortilla because at least it was edible. All my other ones have ended up in the bin. I am confident that when I attempt the next one it will be spot on.

Enjoy!