My First Tortilla

Despite our poorly equipped kitchen—no oven, no food processor or blender, just a two-burner hot plate—David and I have been cooking up a storm here in Spain. We make a lot of Italian, Middle Eastern and Asian dishes, but one thing that's been conspicuously missing from our it's-a-small-word repertoire is Spanish food.

For a while I'd been thinking about attempting a Spanish tortilla. Not to be confused with the flat, round bread product that is a Mexican tortilla, the Spanish version is like a thicker frittata that's cooked on both sides in the skillet. And the thing that had stopped me from making one was a fear of the flip: to cook the second side, you've got to somehow turn the still very runny tortilla. This feat is usually accomplished by (a) sliding the tortilla onto a plate, putting an inverted plate on top, flipping the whole package, and then scooting the now-inverted tortilla back into the skillet; or (b) putting an inverted plate directly on top of the skillet, shaking/dumping the tortilla onto the plate, and sliding the flipped tortilla back into the skillet. Both options kinda freaked me out.

Fortunately, our next-door-neighbors, who are from the coastal Andalucían town of Almería, recently invited us over for dinner, and I got to see a real tortilla in the making. Watching María at work helped demystify the process; however, her tortilla broke apart a bit during the flip, which didn't help the fear factor. A few days later, I came across a tortilla recipe on Mark Bittman's fabulous food blog, Bitten, with lots of encouraging comments and tips from readers who'd successfully made one. So last Friday night, with my confidence bolstered, I decided to go for it.

The traditional tortilla is made with onions and potatoes—in slices, cubes or mushed-up chunks. I decided to thinly slice my potatoes; I also had a zucchini on hand, so I added that to the mix. After sautéing my veggies in a copious amount of olive oil, I combined them in a bowl with six beaten eggs and poured it all back into my medium skillet. Things moved slowly from there, probably because our lame hot plate doesn't get as hot as a standard stove; it was a good long while before the sides of tortilla began to show any sign of firming, yet I could smell that the bottom was browning.

Panic set in: how was I going to flip this thing when the top was still totally liquified? Luckily, David came to the rescue, encouraging/cajoling me to just do it. I went for flip option b—putting the plate directly on the skillet. And guess what? It worked! Within a moment or two—and with minimal runny-egg splatter and no breakage—the tortilla was back in the pan. The second side only needed a couple of minutes, and then it was done.

I have to say, my first tortilla was a beauty. I served it in the typical tapas-bar style, at room temperature, along with alioli (i.e., mayonnaise, milk and minced garlic). I also fixed a plate of tomates aliñados, which is just a fancy name for tomato salad—sliced tomatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano. I think we were feeling a little less like expats as we tucked in to our traditional Spanish supper, which we enjoyed with a very tasty three-euro bottle of 2003 Viña Albalí Reserva, a widely distributed Valdepeñas we use as our default house wine.

A toast to Spain, tortillas, good cheap wine and delicious dinners at home!