Spanish omelette — traditional and modernized

Spanish

omelette

known as

omelette

in Spain or maybe potato omelet Spanish omelet omelet just means pastry

traditional

ly it's just eggs and potatoes and maybe onions what's special about it is the way you prepare them, it's not as complicated as a French omelette , but it's a bit complicated some things can go wrong. I'm going to show you what I understand to be the

traditional

way of doing this. Then I'll show you what you could call a slightly

modernized

method of doing it. Then we'll go crazy and get creative with the flavors while still using the basic Spanish tortilla method, start with the vegetables, a large onion or a couple smaller ones, purists may not even use the onion, but I think the onion makes me cut them thin in any shape that I make into quarter moons. then about a pound of waxy potatoes, about 450 grams, peel them if you want.

I think the skin of the waxy varieties tastes good and is nutritious. With large potatoes, you can quarter them before slicing, but with small potatoes like these. I'll just cut them into thin whole slices, but not paper thin. If they are too thin, they will break before even entering the tortilla. This may seem like a lot of stuff for a tortilla, but potatoes are going to shrink. halfway through, the onions will be reduced to almost nothing and the ratio of filling to egg with the Spanish tortilla is about one to one. The traditional way to do it is to pre-fry the fillings in olive oil completely submerged in oil and shallow fry them, I don't see any reason.

To drop the onions into hot oil, you can splash them. The onions will cook slowly so we can increase the heat after putting them on a safe medium heat on my stove, but every stove is different, you may need them higher on a gas stove. I'm trying to gently fry them until they turn sweet. The goal is to caramelize the onion so you don't want anything to brown. Once I've given the onions a five minute head start, I'll put in the potatoes and these. I'm going to gently lift it with a spoon, little by little, number one so I don't get splashed with boiling oil.

Number two so as not to overflow my frying pan due to displacement. You can see none other than Marco Pierre White doing simply that while making a Spanish omelet in one of his bouillon cube videos there are people who do this frying step in a completely different container in a tall pot I don't think it is necessary to dirty another thing while we are more cautious than marco, once the potatoes are in it will take another 10 or 15 minutes of gentle frying depending on how thin you cut the potatoes, stir them occasionally to make sure everything cooks evenly, but while you wait, you can break them.

Place your eggs in a large mixing bowl for so much veggies. I would say six to eight eggs depending on how big they are. This will feed at least four people. Give them a good beating before putting in the fillings. Some traditional recipes say don. Never let anything brown, some say it browns a little right at the end and I'm in that camp, it's done when everything has a little color and you can see some potatoes just starting to break down, those onions have 20 minutes in total. cooking time, so now they should be very sweet, which for me is all the charm of a Spanish tortilla.

Now we need to strain this, you can just scoop everything out with a slotted spoon, but we still need to get the oil out of the pan, so you have a strainer over a heatproof jug, you're not going to have a free hand to hold the strainer. , so make sure the strainer sits firmly over your bowl on its own, there's our leftover oil, here's our fried vegetables piping hot and You have to go straight to the eggs, stir immediately and aggressively. This is the key to the Spanish tortilla. You are using the heat of the fillings to begin cooking the eggs.

I'll stir it for a couple of minutes like I'm adding hot cream. egg yolks for custard, if you don't scramble the egg in direct contact with the fillings it will curdle prematurely now salt for this amount, I would like three quarters to a teaspoon of salt, you can take my word for it or you can try the eggs yet They are quite raw, so there is some potential for foodborne illness. Make your own risk to reward calculations. Alright, my nonstick skillet is still on medium heat. Could I make this in a well seasoned cast iron skillet?

I have never achieved it. It sticks irremediably. whenever I'm sure it's possible Spanish omelette predates Teflon, if you're a real cast iron cowboy go for it but a dish like this is why I keep a Teflon skillet on hand once I the mixture is ready, I will do it right away. Lower the heat to low. You want to let this cook very gently so that the inside is cooked to at least two-thirds of its temperature before turning it over. If the heat is too high, the bottom will burn while you wait. I'm doing. It's a pretty thin tortilla here and it still takes me four or five minutes to cook before I can flip it.

If you go to the Wikipedia page for Spanish tortilla you can see how thick some people make them, I can't imagine how long it takes. some people transfer them to the oven, I think that defeats the whole point of the technique, if you want to bother heating the oven just broil the top and call it a frittata. Frittatas are so much easier, okay, when you shake the pan and you can see. that it is about two-thirds or three-quarters cooked inside, you can go around the edge and make sure nothing is stuck and then you place a plate on the pan and then turn the whole thing over, ideally your plate measures at least one inch. wider than your pan and mine isn't, that's why I have some leaks, the pan heats up again and then you just slide the omelette back in.

I like to turn the heat up to medium, we don't have to cook this. for as long as it's on this side and I want a nice color at this point the tortilla is solid enough that you can pick it up and take a look without breaking it, that looks good now place a clean, fresh plate on top again and we turn around. We take it out one more time, this allows the spicier side to steam before eating it and I really like being chilled in a tapas restaurant, they can even serve it warm, the flavor is really sweet, surprisingly sweet and the texture is like a pillow big. comfortable egg mattress, very similar to the large comfortable mattress I got from the sponsor of this video, helix sleep, who I will now briefly thank.

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If you don't, individual chunks or parts of chunks would burn when the rest were caramelized, you've already had your five minute head start. Now goes my pound of sliced ​​potatoes again. I'll stir almost constantly, just taking a quick crack to crack my half dozen eggs into my mixing bowl, caramelizing everything this way involves about 20 minutes of almost constant stirring, but for me it's worth it not having to strain the oil for frying. and find some suitable way to reuse it if necessary. It sounds like maybe you gave your onions too long a head start, like they're getting too brown before the potatoes have cooked, just pour in a little water.

This is a very common technique for caramelizing onions if you have some chunks. which look a little crunchy and threaten to burn, sautéing the vegetables instead of frying them gives you more flexibility and control in this regard, don't worry, all the water will boil before you put it in the eggs, the potatoes are starting to break down. They are cooked, so the hot fillings go directly into my eggs and I will scramble them for a few minutes so that both the filling and its heat are evenly distributed in a teaspoon of kosher salt. The reason I specify kosher is not because grain size matters, no you can use whatever salt you want, the salt is going to dissolve, I specify it because different grain sizes measure large grains differently like kosher They take up a larger volume of space One teaspoon of kosher salt is approximately three-quarters of a teaspoon of table salt by weight, adjust depending on the type of salt you are using, why not just weigh the salt?

Because kitchen scales tend to be very inaccurate when it comes to differences of just a few grams. Remember to reduce the heat to low or medium low. right after laying the eggs and after four or five minutes they are at least two-thirds of the way through, it's time to turn them over and not turn them right over the heat. I was doing it to keep everything in the light and in focus. plane, but yes, it will drip a little, especially if your plate isn't big enough for the job, the fillings underneath tend to clump up a little when you slide the tortilla in, you can even them out by simply shaking the tortilla. in the pan that works great, I'm on medium heat again because the second side takes less time and I want a nice color like that, let it cool completely and the texture of this really reminds me of a scalloped potato. satisfying al dente feeling when you bite into the layers, you won't get that if you slice the potatoes paper thin and I can't discern any difference in texture or flavor compared to the traditional version where we fry the fillings, so now let's not limit ourselves completely. tradition and be creative, I'm going to cut a medium onion and the rest of my onion will be green onions.

I've already removed the decaying outer layers. I'm just cutting the white parts thin and I'll caramelize them with the rest, the green parts, I'll cut them diagonally so they're nice and I'll put them in at the last second, therefore, keeping them separate. This time I will use a sweet potato. I'm still trying to like them. They are pretty and they are much better for you. It's big, so I cut it into quarters before thinly slicing the sweet potato with caramelized onion. It's going to be quite sweet, so let's balance it out with some fresh red chillies.

These are soft, so I'll do that. Cut up the seeds and everything and I'll cut up some rosemary. I will caramelize my onions as before by stirring almost constantly in a little olive oil over medium heat after a five minute head start. My potato slices stir stir stir when they look half cooked I'll put in my sliced ​​chillies when the potatoes are starting to break down I'll put in my rosemary and a little bit of spice this is harissa the great traditional North African spice mix tons of cultural exchange between the North Africa and Spain, obviously, I'll let it fry for a minute before adding it hot to my half dozen beaten eggs.

I'm going to stir for a couple of minutes to distribute the heat with just a half teaspoon of salt this time because I'm going to grate some of this. Manchego, Spain's iconic firm cheese, is quite salty like Parmesan, so add less salt to the ends of the green onions at the last second to keep them green and firm, stir them back into the pan over medium heat, and return. Reduce them to low heat when it is almost cooked. through, I'll put it on the plate, wow, that one got a little warm, but no one has to know because we'll flip it one more time after just a couple of minutes, put it back on medium heat, beautiful, let it cool, cut it into slices. and look at this totally edible rosemary flowers tastes like rosemary I would never spend money on something so precious but they are growing on my plant outside right now I'm going to eat them or let them rot so I'll eat themThey're super pretty, so there you have it, there's the Spanish tortilla technique, keep it super traditional or you know, no.