This is part of the ongoing Das Tor series “Global Eats,” in which T-birds share cooking stories and recipes unique to their culture or travels around the globe. Global Eats is currently having a cooking competition, collecting recipes from around the world. To submit your recipe before the 9 February 2022 deadline and get a chance to film it live in ASU’s Multicultural Center, click here.
Probably one of the most famous dishes of Spanish cuisine is the tortilla de patata (potato omelet).
It’s made of relatively simple ingredients (eggs, potatoes, salt, and maybe onion if you’re feeling adventurous) and is ubiquitous across Spain. As a result, it’s natural to assume that there is one commonly accepted method for making this quintessentially Spanish dish.
This assumption is very, very wrong.
When I started classes at Thunderbird in Fall 2020, I was still living in Spain due to the COVID-19 travel restrictions. Between classes and study sessions, I would walk into town, accompanied by the smell of tortillas de patata cooking in my neighbors’ homes and at local cafés. As a cooking enthusiast myself, I made it my goal to discover the perfect tortilla recipe and would always ask friends to tell me the best way to make a tortilla de patata. To my surprise, this question often sparked heated debates.
One day, I was talking with a friend about her tortilla de patata recipe as we rode on a bus into town. She was animatedly telling me about how she thought that it was best to roast the potatoes in the oven instead of frying them in olive oil. She also suggested that instead of using real onion, I should toss the potatoes in onion powder when I roasted them.
Suddenly, her speech was interrupted by a loud “No, no, no.” The bus driver, who had apparently been listening into our conversation, couldn’t keep silent any longer. “That’s completely ridiculous,” he broke in. “You fry the potatoes in oil. Period. And none of this onion powder either. You use a real onion.”
The conversation then dissolved in a fervent debate in rapid-fire Spanish about whose recipe was the best. I decided not to tell them that I had just spoken with a shopkeeper the other day who insisted the best way to prepare the tortilla was to boil the potatoes.
That bus scene was not unusual. I asked over a dozen Spaniards to tell me the best way to prepare a tortilla de patata. Not one of them gave me the same answer. The most common points of disagreement were as follows:
Cooking the potatoes
I was told to fry the potatoes in oil, boil them, heat them in the microwave and then finish them on the stove, roast them, etc. The simple act of softening the potatoes became a battlefield where one wrong step ruined your perfect tortilla.
The Onion
There was a fervent debate on whether a true tortilla de patata includes onion. Some think it ruins the pure simplicity of the eggs, potato, and salt. Others argue that it imparts a flavor that brings all the other ingredients together. My friend’s idea to include onion powder was an outlier, since most I spoke with were leery of adding any spice other than salt to the tortilla. Of course, if you included the onion, that brings up point 3…
How to cook the onion
Once again, this became a hot topic. Anything between boiling and frying was suggested.
How (and when) to add all the ingredients together.
I had people that suggested that I should combine the potatoes, egg, onion, and salt and let it rest all day before making the tortilla so the potatoes could absorb the taste of the egg.
Ultimately, I learned one important lesson from my conversations: Everyone has a special family recipe for a tortilla de patata, and that recipe is the absolute best recipe that exists. Everyone else’s recipe is just wrong.
With this infallible concept in mind, here’s my family recipe for tortilla de patata. It is, of course, the best recipe in existence. Everyone else’s recipe is just wrong.
Recipe: Sophie’s Best Tortilla de Patata
Serves: 2-3
Ingredients
4 eggs
2 small potatoes, peeled and cut into triangles
1 small white sweet onion, diced
Salt to taste
Instructions
- After slicing the potatoes and onion, add them to a pot and fill with water to cover them. Add a generous pinch of salt to the water.
- Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Remove the lid and cook until potato is just softened. It still should be rather firm because it will cook more when you fry up the tortilla.
- Drain the onion and potato and let cool.
- While the potato and onion are cooling, beat the eggs in a medium bowl with a generous pinch of salt (around ½ teaspoon). Add the cooled onion and potato to the egg.
- Cover and place the egg mixture in the fridge for at least 2 hours and up to one day.
- Once the egg mixture has rested, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pan on medium-low heat. When hot, pour the egg mixture into the pan.
- Let the bottom of the egg start to set, and then take a spatula to loosen and lift the sides of the tortilla. Tilt the pan to let the extra liquid egg run under the lifted side of the tortilla. Continue to lift different sections of the tortilla and let the liquid run to the bottom of the pan.
- When most of the liquid egg is gone, run the spatula around the edges of the tortilla to prepare to flip it.
- Once the tortilla has been loosened from the pan, take a plate that is slightly larger than the pan and place it face-down onto the pan to cover it. In one smooth motion, flip the pan upside down and let the tortilla fall onto the plate.
- Place the pan back down and slide the tortilla from the plate back into the pan, with the uncooked side down. Cover.
- Cook for 2 minutes more, or longer if you like your omelets and eggs firmer. Personally, I enjoy a gooey center to my omelet.
- Serve with a fresh baguette and salad.
Note: The tortilla can be served hot or room temperature.