I regularly read and cook from Cook's Illustrated, but it's rare for an issue to contain a recipe that I was just looking for. But that's exactly what occurred with the current issue (#99) -- we were just talking about tortilla española and low and behold a recipe for it shows up. Of course I also studied the recipes in Anya von Bremzen's incredible book The New Spanish Table (thanks, Laurie!). Somewhat surprisingly, the recipes were similar, both suggesting Yukon Gold potatoes and similar technique. CI's basic recipe uses roasted red peppers and peas which isn't particularly authentic and I didn't have peppers handy, but I got inspired by their chorizo and scallions version; instead I added 4 finely sliced scallions and 1/4 tsp. chipotle chile (a bit more next time!) to the egg mixture. I cooked the potatoes in a 10-inch non-stick skillet as they recommended; however, it was clear that more volume would be necessary to avoid making a mess once the egg was added, so I switched to a 12-inch skillet. The only issue with this was that the tortilla was then exactly the diameter of my dinner plate, so flipping was a bit challenging, but worked just fine.
Looks delish...I sometimes use minced shallots in with the taters. Glad you like the cook book. I love it, too, though mine has fallen apart--bad binding and glue job. I just got from Phaidon a kind of Spanish bible of a cook book called 1080 (the number of recipes). They also publish a fabulous Greek cook book. Happy eating.
ReplyDeleteP.S. They sell wonderful tortilla-turners in Spain, with a small handle/pedestal on the bottom--perfect for tortilla-turning. I was told that these are made solely for the touristas. I once thought I should move to Big Bend and spend my life making tortilla- turners of all sizes and marketing them with some fab recipes.
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