Spanish Omelet: the queen of Spanish tapas

As I told in my first post I've chosen this recipe for two reasons: firstly, it's a dish that I love. On the other hand, it is one of the main dishes in the Spanish cooking. It's very traditional and common in our cooking.

Its origin is unknown although it's thought that it dates from the “Carlistas” wars in the 19^th century because it was a 'cheap' recipe. So the Army could feed their troops with very little money.

If you travel nowadays to Spain, you will find it in most of the bar-restaurants. It's the queen of the tapas. No doubt. Even there are bar-restaurants specialized in tortillas, I mean, they only cook Spanish tortillas with a great variety of types.

Tapa de tortilla

The common way to have it in a bar-restaurant is as a tapa o pincho de tortilla, that is a portion of tortilla with a couple of slices of bread. You can find it almost anytime in the bars: for breakfast, for brunch, for lunch or in the evening. Though it's also possible to have a whole tortilla with some friends and some drinks at midday or in the evening, times when Spanish people normally go out to have some drinks with tapas with your colleagues or friends. Even when you get home at night after several drinks having a piece of omelet is great!!!!

But it's not only the queen of the tapas but also a very common recipe at Spanish homes, especially for dinner, and in the picnic baskets.

In summer in many villages and towns you can find championships in the Festivals events. Even there are regional and a national championships every year.

The most common Spanish tortilla, whose recipe you can find below, is with potatoes, eggs and onion but it's not the only one. Nowadays you can find lots of types of tortilla but the base is always the same. So, once you learn to do the traditional one you'll be able to try new ways of tortilla with for example:

   Cheese and ham
   Chorizo
   Veggies 'n chorizo (Tortilla Paisana)
   Mushrooms
   Red or green peppers
   Tuna (canned tuna) and mayonnaise
   Tomato and lettuce
   Spinachs and cheese
   Smoked ham
   Anything you wanna use to fill it

Other way to have the Spanish omelet is a BOCADILLO DE TORTILLA. This is a sandwich (with French bread) filled with some portions of tortilla. I don't know how many bocatas (it's the short word for bocadillo in Spanish) de tortilla I've had in my life. Hundres, thousands...probably. 
 

Yummy bocata of tortilla

  
 RECIPE 

INGREDIENTS

4 or 5 potatoes medium side (1 kg aprox)

1 onion (if you don't like it, you can avoid it).

6 eggs (if free range, much better)

Olive oil (not extra virgin). You can use other lind of oil as sunflower or canola oil

Salt

COOKWARE

A non stick frying pan

A fork

A potato peeler

A knife

A spatula

A bowl

A flat plate or the lid of a pot

A cutting board

ELABORATION

Peel and wash the potatoes, then cut into fairly thin sheets. Set aside.

Put the olive oil in the frying pan and heat it while you add salt to the potatoes. When the olive oil is hot, place the potatoes in the frying pan.

While the potatoes are frying, peel and chop the onion into small pieces, and add to the pan with the potatoes. (Note that potatoes takes longer to fry than onion, so it is convenient to place the potatoes a little before).

Leave the potatoes until golden brown (but not too much, they must be between crunchy and fluffy).

Meanwhile in a bowl beat the eggs firmly and quickly.

When the potatoes and onion are ready you have to drain them very well, probably this is the most important step in the whole process, because if the tortilla is greasy, will not be tasty, and it may to be indigestible. If you notice, you'll have almost the same amount of olive oil when you started frying them (potatoes and onion)

Mix the eggs with the potatoes carefully, (don't break the potatoes), try it and add a pinch of salt if necessary.

Now in the same frying pan but without oil (don't wash the frying pan, just pour the oil in a container) put the entire mixture in the frying pan and heat to medium-high and leave for a little over a minute. This always depends if you like the tortilla very curd, then you should leave a little more. If instead you like the tortilla little curd, a minute or minute and a half on each side will be enough.

Once the tortilla is cooked on one side, you have to help yourself with a flat plate or a lid of a pot to lip it. This is perhaps the hardest part of the whole process. You have to put the plate on top the pan, and turn it until the tortilla is on the plate. Be careful, do not burn yourself!!!

Then put the pan back on the fire and helping with a spatula toss again carefully the tortilla in the pan, so that will not come apart and hold a round shape.

Put the flat plate over the frying pan (now if you want, you can change the plate by one in which you want to serve at the table) and flip back, so now leave it on the plate and serve.

Here you can find some tricks to prepare it:

1) Quantity of olive oil in the frying pan:

We have to take a fair amount of olive oil, otherwise the potatoes will absorb much of it and will be very greasy. I can not to tell you the exact amount of oil because it will depend on the size of the frying pan. But it is important the potatoes are covered by oil, which must be a high temperature at first to lower it when they take a few minutes and go little by little and not too browned, otherwise the potatoes won't mix with the eggs correctly.

Do not be afraid to use a lot of oil, fried foods trick is to have a good amount of oil and it is at the right temperature.

2) Spanish Omelet for lazy people:

If you're in a hurry or you don't like to much cooking, you'll be able to cook a omelet very quickly. Instead of peeling and frying the potatoes and onion you can open a pack of chips (fries) and mix them with the eggs, following the rest of steps of the traditional recipe. I tried it and...well, I prefer the normal one but...it's another way to get it.

Here you can have a look a video where the chef Karlos Argiñano cooks it. Sorry because it's in Spanish.

3) Tortilla filled with other ingredients: tuna, mushrooms, crab, mayonnaise, etc.

Some of them (i.e. cheese and ham) you will be able to cook them just mixing the other ingredients with the fried potatoes, fried onion and beaten eggs. Mix all the ingredients and continue with the rest of steps of the recipe. But you will need to cook other ingredients before mixing (i.e. peppers/capsicums/mushrooms/etc.) but then continue as in the regular recipe.

There some other products (i.e. mayonnaise or a mixture of mayonnaise with sticks of crab) that you cannot mix will the eggs and potatoes and cook all together. In this case, the way to get the omelet filled with those products is making a 'sandwich' with two Spanish Omelettes and filled with the rest of ingredients. So, you need to cook two thinner Spanish omelets. Place on in the base, then put the filling, and on the top the other Spanish Omelete. And ready, you have a filled Spanish Omelette.

4) Viradeira:

This is not a trick but a tool. It has not been very common in Spain but nowadays its presence is increasing at Spanish homes. You can use instead of the flat plate or the top of the pot. It's specific just for Spanish tortillas. Probably you will not find them in your country but if you try to do the tortilla and you're interested on a viradeira, please contact me and we can try manage to send you one. 

Well, I hope you liked my first recipe and  you try to do it.

Good luck and enjoy it!

¡Salud!