Tortilla de Patata

 

 

This first recipe we dedicate to Abuela Matilde(my Mum) who passed away 3 years ago. She was dearly loved by us all and will never be forgotten. Needless to say she used to make the best tortilla in the world.

Esta primera receta se la dedicamos a Abuela Matilde (mi Madre) que falleció hace 3 años. La queríamos mucho todos y nunca la olvidaremos. Va sin decir que ella hacía la mejor tortilla del mundo.

 

Ingredients:

800 grammes of potatoes

1 large onion

6 medium eggs

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

 

Method

1.       Peel the potatoes and onions, cut into slices and season.

2.       Fry the potatoes and onions in a high sided pan in about 3 centimetres of oil until the potatoes are tender and some are very slightly caramelised at the edges. Once this is done put the potatoes and onion in a sieve in order to drain the excess oil.

3.       Meanwhile beat the eggs and season. Stir in the potatoes and onions.

4.       In a medium sized frying pan heat two tablespoons of olive oil until quite hot.

5.       Pour in the egg, potato and onion mixture and, after a minute or so, turn the heat down to medium. With a wooden spoon press down the edges of the mixture so that you start to see a tidy round shape. Cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes or until you see the mixture beginning to set.

6.       Put a plate face down (one that fits snugly just inside the rim of the pan) on top of the mixture and turn the whole thing over. Keep everything on the plate for a moment.

7.       Meanwhile, put another tablespoon of olive oil in the pan, allow to heat briefly and then slide your tortilla mixture back into the pan to cook the other side. Leave to cook for another 3 or 4 minutes. You can repeat this last stage if you prefer it more well done.

 

Tortilla

As the morning draws closer to the necessary swap to the afternoon, something keeps us going. Not in a big way, but neither is it a small occasion; smells of lunch permeate the end of the morning. The smell I associate most clearly with this shift is onions frying with potatoes, the sweetness of the smell coming to the point of burning, before adding the egg. This is the moment we arrive at the table, the signal at which I lay out plates and cutlery. I tear a piece of kitchen roll in four and lay it under each knife. I prepare a salad. We all wait for the tortilla, torr-tee-ya.

   Yet the ceremony of this preparation doesn't concern me, or concerns me only in as much as a congregation hears mass; it's the speaking that matters. 

   The tortilla is a bedrock of Spanish cooking because of the simplicity of the ingredients, but it is the test of a Spanish cook in its execution. Not anyone can follow a recipe for the tortilla and pull it off. It's a trick that leaves the dish vulnerable to accident right up to the point of plating. 

   I'm talking, somewhat hyperbolically, about the flipping. 

   This is because anyone who has taken on the responsibility of cooking the tortilla is solely responsible, and knows, that if it goes Pete-Tong, that they not only leave everyone hungry, but that they will leave everyone with mess in the kitchen, and a hollow salad to make up for it. 

   Everything is moving: the pan, the tortilla —half cooked—, the plate. Even without the heat of the pan, it's dangerous, and the key is speed, the unified motion of the plate on top, hand on, flip (!), pan off, and lay the tortilla back in its place. 

   Before this domestic drama, it's also a real fuss. You peel potatoes, then cut them, then chop onions, and fry it all for a long time. We think of it, at home, as a quick lunch, but whoever cooks finds themselves there half an hour for this one dish alone. Tortilla is not a dish you make for just anyone. 

                                                                 *

When I lived in Madrid, I learned a lot about where I was from. Discussions there are never limp, even about the most trivial things: tortilla is not trivial. I saw rooms separated by the debate on tortilla, friends at each other's throats, and stunned incredulity of both sides at the aberration advocated by their opponents. The debate on whether the humble onion has a place in the tortilla has gone on for years, and like the most profound rifts, will never find reconciliation. 

    I grew up with the taste and the smell of the sweet onion forming part of the experience, and the same went for roughly half the combatants. The other half saw no place for sweetness in the tortilla of today; the pure flavours of potato and egg were structure enough, not just foundation. Though it's easy to sit on the fence with these things, and more often than not, when there is a debate, I try to take a side, but with the tortilla, I truly can't. I have enjoyed the sweetness, and the simplicity, I have eaten them well cooked, and less well cooked —but that is a matter of taste, not an issue of sect. 

    

   The simplicity of the flavours, whether the two or three components, and the versatility of its uses has seen it travel with my family, to picnics, and on ferries, to work, and on holiday. Most of all, whether hot or cold, you find treasure if you come across a piece of tortilla; late at night, the quarter in the corner of the fridge is heaven itself. 

    But travelling isn't that simple. In Madrid, as in all big cities, the regulations require pasteurisation, but the provinces are free to make tortilla as they wish, more by laxity than by law. It is entirely fitting with my own semi-native notion of Spain; there is a fractured, individual anarchy right down to the level of food, and yet, that label travels quite freely over the corners of the peninsula. 

   Be warned: the tortilla takes practice, and you must find what you like; however, before chucking chorizo and paprika in, try this simple dish in its pure form. Even in anarchy, there exists a code of conduct.

   

'Cuando Seas Padre, Comerás Huevos'

As a child, a phrase stood out amongst my father’s jokes: ‘Cuando seas padre, comerás huevos,’ or, ‘when you become a father, then you’ll eat eggs.’ It seemed, even then, a vulgar expression, or at least a nod to my innocence, and his experience.

  

  The phrase is said to have originated in post-civil-war Spain; the rationing system was harsh, and the little sustenance available would go to the breadwinner. The father’s position, as much in Spain as my adopted Wales, was not gluttonous, but in many ways necessary. The children and the mother needed less because they didn’t work, and gave back less. But it’s an obscene idea now that a father would sit at the head of the table, eating eggs and bacon, whilst the rest of the family made do with simple broth and bread.

   

  My dad only ever said this with a smile. At the dinner table, he never ate more than us, and he was never favoured. Though he was a chef, running his own place, and working hard, his needs never came before ours.

   

   Then I became a father, and the eggs I ate were my equal share; my children ate like me because I was the breadwinner. The whole point of working hard was for them, and so we all ate together, enjoyed the whole meal together.

  

   We have always eaten at the same time, despite the boys growing up and wanting to pull away and do their own thing, they know that every evening, whether they show up or not, the food will be on the table. To eat together is to digest the day together, we reunite over the food we eat and for that period, we exist as a unit.

  

 ‘Cuando seas padre, comerás huevos’ is a response to a child asking for more; a miniature moment of Oliver Twist’s hunger, rejected in favour of the breadwinner tingles with a horrible injustice. My view of food is that its enjoyment should be far removed from its cost –like opening a present, you don’t look for the price-tag. The value of food is the moment you put it in your mouth, and taste something new, or something nostalgic, real, beyond what we need to sustain ourselves. It’s only after eating a lot of food, over a long time, that you really get to know what’s good and what’s bad.

  

 And that’s what we do.