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Spanish Tortilla With Tomato-Pepper Salad
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- Total Time
- 45 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 5medium Yukon gold potatoes (1¼ pounds)
- 1white onion, diced
- 1¾teaspoons kosher salt, more as needed
- ¾teaspoon black pepper, more as needed
- About 1½ cups extra-virgin olive oil
- 6large eggs
- ¾cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes
- ⅓cup diced Italian frying pepper (also called Cubanelle), or green bell pepper
- ¼cup sliced scallion, white and green parts
- 1garlic clove, minced
Preparation
- Step 1
Peel potatoes and halve them lengthwise. Thinly slice them crosswise. Pat potatoes dry with a dish towel or paper towels. Toss potatoes with onion, 1½ teaspoons salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper.
- Step 2
Place a large skillet over medium heat and warm through. Add oil, then add potatoes and onion. (You need enough oil to almost cover the potatoes, so adjust amount according to your pan size.) Cook until potatoes are just tender enough to cut with a fork, 10 to 15 minutes, adjusting heat so vegetables do not burn or take on too much color. Using a slotted spoon, transfer potatoes and onions to a colander set over a bowl and let cool. Reserve 3½ tablespoons oil from the skillet to use for finishing the recipe. (You can reuse the rest of the remaining oil, too; store it in the refrigerator.)
- Step 3
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Heat 2 tablespoons of the reserved oil in an oven-safe 8- to 9-inch nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and season with ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Stir potato mixture into eggs. Pour mixture into pan and use a spatula to flatten out surface. Cook, using spatula to occasionally loosen eggs from edges of pan, until top is almost set, with just a small amount of liquid remaining, about 5 minutes. Transfer to oven and cook until top is just set, 5 to 7 minutes longer. Slide tortilla onto a plate.
- Step 4
In a large bowl, toss together tomato, pepper, scallion, garlic and remaining 1½ tablespoons oil. Season with salt and pepper. Top tortilla with salad and serve warm or at room temperature.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
No Spaniard would ever put a tortilla in the oven. It should be fried. To save greatly on calories, boil the potatoes first. Fry the onions in a little oil, add the cooled sliced boiled potatoes, add the beaten eggs (be careful to let the onions cool first or the eggs will curdle). Then fry gently, turning once. I guarantee you will not be able to tell the difference.
A Spaniard advised that pouring the egg mixture into a very hot skillet will form a "crust" that will ensure the thing doesn't fall apart as easily. After pouring the egg mixture into the skillet and letting the outside set, turn down the heat and cook as directed.
Tortilla is a stove top fry pan dish that challenges the most accomplished cook to regulate it after placing back in the pan and flipping it onto a dish and sliding back into the frying pan to complete the process. It is every Spaniards go to dish and one of the first things we learn to prepare. Salad on tortilla? No...a crisp romaine, fresh tomato and onion salad with EVOO and a splash of wine vinegar on the SIDE. This is also a great dish for a picnic or day at the beach!
Great dish out of the oven, but I liked it even better the next day, cut into small squares with a bit of the salad on top - with drinks.
I researched many recipes for Spanish tortilla before making it for a tapas meal with our gourmet food group. This one turned out to be perfect. I stopped to watch the video mid-way to decide whether to try the flip or not - in the end I went with Melissa's advice and used the oven to finish it off.
If you use a special tortilla pan -- 2 pans that hook together -- it's really easy to flip the tortilla. In addition, the pans act as a stovetop oven of sorts with excellent results every time.
Tbks is not the rexipe of spanish omelette. There isn't versions of spanish omelette.
It's a crazy idea. The spanish omelette never cook in this form.
Potato + onion + Aceite de oliva + eggs + grandmother spanish hands
Thats all you need!
At last, I learned how to make a real Spanish tortilla which tastes as I recall from travels in Spain. Easy, delicious, and tastes just as good the next day.
A Spaniard would flip the tortilla over. Put a large plate over the skillet, large enough to cover the entire skillet. With one hand FIRMLY over the plate and another on the skillet's handle, do a quick motion to revert the plate so the plate is down and the skillet is up and hopefully the tortilla is on the plate and not the kitchen floor. Put the skillet back on the stove. Use medium-high heat to cook both sides of the tortilla and shake the skillet often so the tortilla does not stick.
That is not a Spanish tortilla, that's all
TERRIBLE. Step by step, tortilla: The onion is slowly fried at first with low heat, then you fry the potatoes with it. Once done, you get them out, and let'em cool. Mix eggs + salt + pepper. Stir in the eggs mixture with the already cooked potatoes and onion, and mix well. With a little bit of olive oil, cook the batter till it has a "crust". Then do the FLIPPING (100% necessary) and cook by the other side. No extras needed. TIP: Try the unhealthy but real stuff 1º
To Lorraine, I agree that no Spaniard would ever put the tortilla in the oven..... but neither would they ever use boiled potatoes either! I suppose it might cut down the cooking time but it would not taste the same. And, as Melissa Clark says, it's good both hot and cold.
I just invested in a 'gira tortilla' (literally a 'tortilla flipper'), which is basically a thick flat pot-lid-shaped wooden plate with a handle on it. It fits exactly over the tortilla in the skillet so flipping is a breeze: no spills, easy handling, tortilla perfection! If you plan on making these somewhat regularly, it's absolutely worth it -- cost me $3.50 at a spanish specialty/gourmet shop.
This is a very traditional and excellent recipe. But I did follow Penelope Casas and learned how to flip the tortilla. It was easier when I was younger and stronger. Using a smallish skillet (and making several tortillas) made it easier now. This is a meal worth making again and again.
Great for a picnic. Made it the day before, using a spring form pan for the last step in the oven. Easy to transport that way and then undid the outer ring for serving.
I also added some dried sausage I had leftover--chorizo and genoa--that I'd browned in a bit of the left over olive oil. Next time I'd also had some jalapeña pepper or a good splash of Sricha or some such.
Added a few ramps I got in my Purple Dragon veggie box, otherwise made as directed in a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. Excellent recipe! Put in the oven instead of flipping; glad I did because the center took kind of a while to set; would have had barely cooked eggs all over and may never have made this again... The method may not be authentic but the taste is. Whatever gets the job done, I say.
Made this for a big brunch with friends. I trusted the 5 star rating. I dont know what went wrong but I was not happy with this. It was not thick as seen in the photos. The flavors were so..so. I will have to try it again because the reviews made it sound like a sure thing.
This was so good. I made it to practice for making it for others next week. I just made a separate salad but the tortilla itself really was great. I question whether it would serve five. Maybe four as a main dish. I put it under the broiler for the last five minutes. Maybe it’s better if you flip it but I can’t see how it could get better. I didn’t add any oil to the pan. There was still plenty of oil in the pan. Can’t wait to make it again.
Agreed. This is not a Spanish tortilla. Needs the stovetop, to be flipped, and for the cooked potatoes to soak in the beaten eggs for a decent amount of time before cooking. I like them to soak with caramelized onions as well, but that’s all. Recipe needs to be renamed.
I followed the directions for the tortilla but improvised on the salad. I added a teaspoon of sherry vinegar to the olive oil to make a simple vinaigrette. That added acidity balanced the starchiness of the tortilla.
Honestly, Melissa Clark can do no wrong. I took some liberties and cut the potatoes into medallions with a mandolin and layered them into the hot oil. Additionally, boiling the potatoes prior to frying made for a crispier crust. 10/10.
Some of the notes talk about how this is a stovetop dish and should be flipped in a pan. I think the oven piece of this recipe is genius! It finishes the top perfectly without all the fuss of trying to flip a very dense tortilla. It's gorgeous to eat. We made the vegetable salad with some leftover leaf lettuce and ate on the side. There are so many things that could be done with this base recipe. Making this again for sure!
Let sit five minutes before flipping
My family loved this. We will definitely make it again. The only change we made was to triple the salad part because we love the salad and want to balance the tortilla part with the lighter salad. We also added some lemon juice to the salad for contrast. It was even better as leftovers!
Tasty! I opted to do it all on stovetop and also let cooked potatoes and onions soak in eggs for 15 mins before cooking.
Way too much pepper. The flavor is in the basic ingredients. It needed considerably more egg to potato ratio, based on having eaten this in Spain, and to my taste. There was barely any egg. I am in Europe where the eggs are not as big so I added one extra, but it needed 3 - 4 extra. I made two tortillas. One was undercooked, one overcooked. As another person said, it's a tricky dish!!! I will just get my fix in Spain :)
Taking @Lorraine’s idea a step further, I first microwaved 1.25 lbs of washed baby potatoes for 1 1/2 minutes then flipped them over and microwaved them for another minute and a half. They come out dry and perfect. Sliced them thin and added them to the sautéing onions to brown everything up before adding the egg.
This was excellent. Used 5 small gold potatoes (1lb) 1 shallot, 1 clove garlic and 3 eggs for perfect fit in my 9 in le creuset cast iron. Half the oil, cooked with pan mostly covered and flipping potatoes often on med low, took 15 min. Used flip method for cooking tortilla. I found this tasted best the same day after it had cooled to room temp after a few hours. Still eating slices of it 2 days later though and it is still wonderful.
Used this recipe as a template and cooked entirely on stovetop. I don't like my tortilla browned on the edges so I cooked over lowest heat for a longer period on both sides. Also covered during cooking as I used an 8inch skillet to get a fatter tortilla. Cooked onions separately but used the same ratio of potato-onion. Used *all* the oil and it's true, most of it gets discarded/left in the pan but it creates such a delicious taste!! Perfection!!
My husband and I would make this again and again and again. We did a Mark Bittman and I put a plate on top of the pan when it cooled and flipped it on it, producing a beautiful crust.
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