Spanish omelette — traditional and modernized

spanish omelette known as tortilla in spain or maybe tortilla de patatas tortilla espanola tortilla just means little cake traditionally it's just eggs and potatoes and maybe onions what's particular about it is the way that you put them together it's not as tricky as a french omelet but it's a little tricky some things can go wrong i'm going to show you what i understand to be the traditional way of making this then i'll show you what you could call a slightly modernized method of making it then we'll go crazy and get creative with the flavors while still using the basic spanish omelette method start with the veggies one big onion or a couple of smaller ones purists might not even use the onion but i think the onion makes it cut them thin in whatever shape i do quarter moons then about a pound of waxy potatoes 450 grams or so peel them if you want to i think the skins of waxy varieties taste good and they're nutritious with big potatoes you might cut them into quarters before slicing them but with little potatoes like these i'll just slice them into whole rounds thin but not paper thin if they're too thin they'll break apart before they even get into the omelet that might seem like a huge amount of stuff for an omelette but the potatoes are going to shrink in half the onions will shrink to almost nothing and the filling to egg ratio with the spanish omelet is about one to one traditional way of doing this is to pre-fry the fillings in olive oil fully submerged in oil shallow deep frying i see no reason to drop the onions into hot oil you could splash yourself the onions are gonna cook slowly so we can bring the heat in after we put them in safely medium heat on my stove but every stove is different you might need it higher on a gas stove we're trying to gently fry these until they go sweet the goal is to caramelize the onion so you don't want to see anything browning yet once i've given the onions a five minute head start i'll put in the potatoes and these i will gently lift in with a spoon a few at a time number one so that i don't splash boiling oil on myself number two so that i don't overflow my pan via displacement you can see none other than marco pierre white doing just that while making a spanish omelette in one of his nor stock cube videos some people do this frying step in an entirely different vessel in a tall pot i don't think it's necessary to get another thing dirty as long as we're more cautious about it than marco once the potatoes are in it'll take another 10 or 15 minutes of gentle frying depending on how thin you cut your potatoes stir it every now and then to make sure things are cooking evenly but while you're waiting you can crack your eggs into a big mixing bowl for this much veg i'd say six to eight eggs depending on how big they are this is going to feed at least four people give those a good beating before you put in the fillings some traditional recipes say don't ever let anything brown some say get a little browning right at the end and i'm in that camp it's done when everything has a little bit of color and you can see some potatoes just starting to break apart those onions got 20 minutes total cooking time so they should now be very sweet which to me is the entire charm of a spanish omelet now we got to strain this you could simply lift everything out with a slotted spoon but we need to get the oil out of the pan anyway so i've got a sieve over a heat proof jug you're not going to have a free hand to hold the sieve so make sure that the sieve sits securely over your vessel all by itself there's our leftover oil here's our piping hot fried vegetables and they have to go directly into the eggs stir immediately and aggressively this is key to spanish omelette you're using the heat from the fillings to start the eggs cooking i'll stir it for a couple of minutes just like if i was stirring hot cream into egg yolks for a custard if you don't stir the egg in direct contact with the fillings will curdle prematurely now salt for this much i would do like three quarters to one teaspoon of salt you could take my word for it or you could taste the eggs are still pretty raw so there's some possibility of foodborne illness make your own risk to reward calculations all right my non-stick pan is still on medium heat could you make this in a well-seasoned cast iron pan i never have successfully it sticks hopelessly every time i'm sure it's possible spanish omelette pre-dates teflon if you're a real cast iron cowboy go for it but a dish like this is the whole reason i keep a teflon pan around once the mix is in i'll immediately turn my heat down to low you've got to let this cook really gently to get the interior at least two-thirds of the way cooked before we flip it if the heat is too high the bottom will burn while you wait i'm doing a pretty thin tortilla here and even then it takes me four or five minutes of cooking before i can flip it if you go to the wikipedia page for spanish omelette you can see how thick some people do these i can't imagine how long that takes some people transfer these to the oven i think that defeats the entire point of the technique if you want to bother heating up your oven just broil the top and call it a frittata frittatas are way easier okay so when you shake the pan and you can see that it's like two-thirds or three-quarters of the way cooked inside you can go around the edge and make sure nothing is stuck and then you put a plate over the pan then you flip the whole assembly ideally your plate is at least an inch wider than your pan and mine isn't which is why i got some leakage there pan goes back on the heat and then you just slide the omelette back in i like to crank the heat back up to medium we don't have to cook this for as long on this side and i want some nice color at this point the omelette is solid enough that you can actually lift it up and have a peek without breaking it that looks good now a fresh clean plate goes on top again and we turn it out one more time this allows the hotter side to steam out before we eat it and i like this very well rested in a tapas restaurant they might even serve it lukewarm the taste of that is really sweet surprisingly sweet and the texture is pillowy like a big cushy mattress of egg much like the big cushy mattress of mattress that i got from the sponsor of this video helix sleep whom i'll now briefly thank if you go to helixsleep.com you can take a little quiz you tell them your basic size and shape and that of anyone you might be sleeping next to regularly you tell them how you two usually sleep i'm a stomach sleeper you tell them if you like it soft or firm if you have lots of back pain and then they match you with a mattress for your and your partner's needs like up the moonlight helix is a premium mattress in a box company and they mean that literally your mattress comes in a box how is this possible check it out it's under extreme vacuum compression listen as i 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stir them almost constantly if you don't individual pieces or parts of pieces would be burned by the time the rest was caramelized they've had their five-minute head start now in goes my pound of sliced potatoes again i'll stir almost constantly just taking a quick break to break my half dozen eggs into my mixing bowl caramelizing everything this way does involve about 20 minutes of near-constant stirring but to me it's worth it to not have to strain out the fry oil and find some appropriate way to reuse it if it seems like you maybe gave your onions a little too long of a head start like they're getting too brown before the potatoes have cooked soft just pour in a little bit of water this is a really common technique when caramelizing onions if you have some pieces that are looking a little crispy and threatening to burn sauteing the veg rather than frying it gives you more flexibility and control in this respect don't worry all that water will boil out before we put this into the eggs the potatoes are starting to break apart they're cooked so in the hot fillings go straight into my eggs and i'll stir them for a few minutes to get both the fillings and their heat distributed evenly throughout a teaspoon of kosher salt the reason i specify kosher is not because the grain size matters it doesn't you can use whatever salt you want the salt is going to dissolve i specify because different grain sizes measure differently big grains like kosher occupy a greater volume of space a teaspoon of kosher salt is equal to about three quarters of a teaspoon of table salt by weight adjust for whatever kind of salt you're using why not just weigh the salt because kitchen scales tend to be super inaccurate when it comes to differences of just a few grams remember i reduced my heat to low or medium low right after i put the eggs in and after four or five minutes it's at least two thirds of the way cooked through time to flip and don't flip it right over the burner i was doing that to keep everything in the light and in the focal plane but yeah you're gonna get some drippage especially if your plate isn't quite big enough for the job the fillings underneath tend to bunch up a bit when you slide the omelette back in you can even them out by just swishing the omelet around in the pan that works very well i'm on medium heat again because the second side takes less time and i want some nice color on it like that let it cool thoroughly and the texture of this is really reminiscent of a potato gratin it has that satisfying al dente feel as you bite through the layers you wouldn't get that if you slice the potatoes paper thin and i can perceive zero difference in texture or taste compared to the traditional version where we fried the fillings so now let's be totally unbound by tradition and get creative i'm going to slice up one medium onion and the rest of my onion will be green onions i've already taken off the decaying outer layers i'm just slicing the white parts thin and i'll caramelize those with the rest the green parts i'll slice diagonally to make them pretty and i'll put those in at the last second hence keeping them separate i'm going to use a sweet potato this time i'm still trying to like them they're pretty and they're far better for you it's big so i've cut it into quarters before slicing thin sweet potato with caramelized onions is gonna be pretty sweet so let's balance that with some fresh red chilies these are mild ones so i'll slice them seeds and all and i'll chop up a little bit of rosemary i'll caramelize my onions as before stirring almost constantly in a little olive oil over medium heat after a five minute head start in go my potato slices stir stir stir when they seem about halfway cooked i'll put my sliced chilies in when the potatoes are just starting to break i'll put in my rosemary and some spice this is harissa the great traditional spice blend of north africa tons of cultural exchange between north africa and spain obviously i'll let that fry for a minute before stirring hot into my half dozen beaten eggs stir for a couple minutes to distribute the heat in with only a half teaspoon of salt this time because i'm going to grate in some of this manchego the iconic firm cheese of spain it's quite salty like parmesan hence less salt in go my green onion tops at the last second to keep them green and firm stir those in back into the pan on medium heat back it down to low when it's mostly cooked through i'll turn it out onto the plate whoops that one got a little bit toasty but nobody has to know because we're flipping this one more time after just a couple of minutes back up on medium heat beautiful let it cool slice her up and check this out rosemary flowers totally edible tastes like rosemary i would never spend money for something this precious but they're growing on my plant outside right now i'm either going to eat them or let them rot off so i'll eat them they're super pretty so there you go there's the spanish omelette technique keep it super traditional or you know don't

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 971,989

Keywords: omelette, spanish omelette, omelet, spanish omelet, tortilla, Spanish tortilla, Tortilla de patatas, Tortilla de papas, Tortilla española, omelete, spanish omelete, potato omelette, potatoes, potato, onion, onions

Id: reC-BN-_VKI

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/kinoki1984]

Why not just put a lid on it for a few seconds to let the top firm up a bit from the steam before you flip it? That spill can be avoided. But you do you, as the man says.

[u/BillyHoyle_]

I like the version with less oil, also tastes better in my opinion.