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Recipe: Tortilla Espanola

Tortilla Espanola is a Spanish tapa (bar snack). It’s made with potatoes, onion, olive oil, and egg and is CRAZY delicious. It’s relatively easy to cook, but the execution can be tricky. You see, you cook the whole mess in a frying pan and then you have to finagle it out by flipping it onto a plate. I think I’ve FINALLY mastered the technique but I have definitely destroyed a few in my day. But, as Julia Child said, if you’re alone in the kitchen, WHO’S GOING TO KNOW? No one, that’s who. So it rips in half. You’re cutting that bitch into slices anyway. Nom.

6-7 medium sized potatoes

5-6 eggs

1 medium-large onion

Lots of olive oil

salt and pepper

Cut the potato and the onion in half lengthwise and then slice thinly. The slices will be in half-moon shapes.

Mix the potatoes and onion together in a bowl and salt liberally. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and add the onions and potatoes. You want enough olive oil to barely cover the veggies-maybe 1/2 a cup? Fry the vegetables until the potatoes are tender, but make sure they don’t burn. You’ll know they are ready when you can break a potato in half with a spatula.

Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk them together. Pour the potatoes and onions into the egg and mix. Add a tablespoon more oil to the frying pan and then pour the potato-onion-egg mix into it and spread it evenly around.

Allow to cook until the edges of the egg are slightly browned. The egg will still be runny, but the bottom will be cooked.

Now you can do one of two things to cook the other side. If you have a frying pan that is oven safe, turn the oven to 350 and cook the tortilla for 10 minutes to set the top. You still have to brown the top, though, so you’re going to need to flip the tortilla.

Grab a large plate and put it on top of the frying pan. Put your hand firmly on the plate and quickly flip the pan over so that the tortilla ends up on the plate. Put the frying pan back on the stove with a little more olive oil and allow to heat for a few seconds, then slip the tortilla back into the frying pan and brown for 2-3 minutes.

If you don’t have an oven safe frying pan, you’re going to have to flip the tortilla without the time in the oven first. This will work it just might be a smidge bit more messy. It’s ok though. It will be delicious either way!

When you’ve browned the other side, slip the tortilla onto a plate and cut into wedges.

Serve.

Yum yum yum.

❤ stef

Tags: bar, espanola, snack, spanish, tapa, vegetables

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Categories breakfast, dinner, ethnic foods, for veggies, lunch

Recipe: Buttermilk Biscuits and Maple Cream

18 May

Sorry about the Friday debacle. I totally did not intend for this delay to happen, I usually just assume I will have computer access wherever I go. I should probably stop assuming things.

I’m going to admit that I made these biscuits as a vehicle for the maple cream that is to come. Not that I don’t enjoy a nice biscuit, quite the contrary, but I really just needed something to slather with maple cream and I thought you might too.

Biscuits:

2 C flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 TB baking powder
1 tsp salt
6 TB butter
1 C buttermilk

Pre-heat the oven to 450˚.
Mix all of the dry ingredients together.

Cut the butter into tiny cubes.

Cut into the flour until it looks like course cornmeal. You can do this with a fork, or use a food processor. I used my immersion blender and it worked wonderfully!

As a side note, I got this immersion blender for my birthday and I am in LOVE with it. I’ve wanted one for a few years, but didn’t really think I would use it nearly as much as I do. It’s amazing for so many reasons, but one of the things I like the best about it is that I can make milkshakes directly in a glass! YUM!

When the mixture looks about right, add the buttermilk. Mix together just to blend. Don’t over mix or the resulting biscuits will be tough! Wet your hands and scoop the dough into biscuits approximately 1/4 C in size. Pat gently to make a thick, flat disc shape and put on a cookie sheet 1/2″ apart.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the biscuits are slightly golden. You don’t want them to be brown.

Maple Cream!

I love, love LOVE maple cream! I had it for the first time years ago, in a teeny tiny jar labeled “maple butter” that my aunt had gotten in some kind of gift basket. I didn’t try it again until I moved to San Francisco and found it in a health food store (for the curious-Green Earth Natural Foods, home of the lovable grumpy old man). When I went on a search for a recipe, I found that what I was eating was technically not called maple butter but maple cream. Who would have known? Not I, child of the west coast.

So maple cream is deliciously delicious. It tastes like maple syrup but better. The process (you basically just heat, cool, then stir) makes the syrup sort of crystallize, and it is turned into a thick, sweet, spreadable, opaque ambrosia suitable for using on anything you would regularly put maple syrup on or for simply eating with a spoon. Which I have done. And it’s AMAZING.

1 C pure maple syrup – you can use more. This makes a smidge bit more than 8oz (1C) of maple cream.
a few drops of veggie oil

Fill a sink full of cold water.

Put 1 C of maple syrup and a few drops of veggie oil in a large pan. You can see the veggie oil drops, to the right in the picture.

Put a thermometer that can reach 236˚ into the maple syrup and turn on the heat.

Make sure the thermometer isn’t touching the bottom of the pan, just the syrup. I used a rubber band to secure it to the handle of the pot on the outside to do this. Boil the syrup until it reaches 236˚. I should note here that, according to the majority of the recipes I read, the temperature should be 24˚ over the boiling point of water. I just tacked on 24 to 212 because I live in San Francisco, which is basically at sea level, but depending on where you live this number may be different.

my ultra-cool, maple cream making thermometer apparatus.

Watch the syrup! You want it to boil, you do not want it to boil over. So be careful!

When the syrup reaches 236˚, turn off the heat.

This is what the syrup looked like when it reached the correct temperature.

Place the entire pot in the cold water. Do not touch or stir the syrup. Simply allow it it come to room temperature. You will know this has occurred when it is no longer giving off heat.

Remove from the water and slowly stir the syrup until it becomes opaque. This is the hardest part. I’m going to be honest, I felt like my arm just might fall off. But the persistent will be deliciously rewarded. You’re done when it has reached the consistency of very smooth peanut butter. Spoon into jars and refrigerate.

When I first started with the stirring.

After a few minutes.

After a few more.

This is the result of too much stirring!

If you stir it too much, it will get too hard. That happened to me, and I ended up having to start the process all over again! Very annoying, and set me back another hour. Just remember that you want it to be a spread, not a candy. The result should be somewhere between pictures 3 and 4.

Spread it all over everything. Like those lovely biscuits you just made! NOM!