Tortilla Espanol

Hooray, I went to the dump today! Dumping my containers into the huge bins, watching other people dump their containers into the huge bins, the humongous, resultant music, the workers in their day-glow parkas and funny hats, if you're after my heart, take me to the dump! I'm not kidding, I totally love that place.

When I lived in Florence, I looked forward to two things: dump day, obviously, and watching Made in Spain on PBS. One time the host went to this crazy restaurant in Spain where the chef made the most bad ass Tortilla Espanol I'd ever seen. I'd always boiled my potatoes, but this dude just cut them all-wild-like, totally irregularly, banged the lot of them into the deep fryer, and then banged them, all hot and greasy, into the waiting eggs. Some of the potatoes got all bubbly-like, real air pockets, which I thought was totally amazing! Anyway, driving around with a bunch of recycling in my back seat, it occurred to me that I should deep fry some potatoes and make a greasy Tortilla.

There is one thing to keep in mind when making a Tortilla (or fritatta): SALT! It is absolutely crucial to get the right amount of salt. If you are boiling your potatoes, boil them in salty water. If you fry them, hit them with salt while they are still hot. I'm not trying to kill you or give you hyper-tension, but you also need to salt your egg mixture, with a heavy hand, too. As someone once said, an egg without salt is like sex without sin. The worst thing is an under-salted Tortilla. Trust me. Cook a spoonful of egg. Is there enough salt? There's not? ADD MORE SALT.

So this is how it looked after I flicked the hot potatoes into the eggs. If you put really hot potatoes into the eggs all at once, the potatoes alone will cook the eggs, and you kind of want to avoid doing that. Why? I don't know. Why is marijuana legal in some places and not in others? Moving forward.

There is one other thing to keep in mind, well, actually two things: use a lot of oil and cook your Tortilla over a low flame or in a "low" oven. Low ovens are not like the so-called low countries, prone to flooding, nor are they base or vulgar, prone to cussing, they are simply cool, like 200 degrees.

Ingredients:


SALT, OIL.

ADIOS, AMIGOS