TORTILLA TO GO!

Some foods, especially eggs, really should be served hot out of the pan. Others taste just as good after setting a few hours. The Spanish tortilla is the perfect example of a cooked dish that can wait. 

Tortilla with peas, favas and potatoes. Lunch or tapa.

Cooked in advance, the tortilla sets on the bar at room temperature, ready to be cut into tapa portions. Or, it’s packed in a hamper for a picnic or road trip. In the days before high-speed rail travel, anybody going on a long train journey surely packed a tortilla for an afternoon merienda.

Tortilla with eggplant, zucchini and roasted peppers--ready to roll.

The classic tortilla—I don’t call it an omelette—is just eggs, potatoes, sometimes onion and, of course, olive oil. (recipe is here). But all sorts of vegetables can be incorporated in the egg mix. The tortilla can be served for lunch, snack (kids love it), tapa, supper or, hey, even breakfast.

A tortilla that’s going to be eaten immediately is usually cooked so it’s still a little juicy in the center. But tortilla that’s going to be packed to go should be thoroughly cooked through. You can make tortilla a day before it’s going to be eaten and refrigerate overnight. Allow it to come to room temperature before serving.

Tortilla with fava beans and a dollop of alioli garlic sauce.

Traditionalists don’t serve tortilla with anything but bread. But, you might enjoy it with a sauce, such as alioli, garlic mayonnaise. I like a few drops of Tabasco. My kids always liked ketchup.

Tortilla with Fava Beans, Peas and Potatoes
Tortilla con Habas, Guisantes y Patatas

Fava beans and peas from my garden were the inspiration for this tortilla that also includes potatoes. The potatoes should be tender before incorporating them into the eggs and they take a while to cook. Use lots of olive oil—the potatoes absorb very little oil, but it helps them cook quickly without browning. You don’t want crisp potatoes for tortilla.

1 pound potatoes
½ cup olive oil
1 cup shelled fava beans
1 cup shelled peas
¼ cup diced Serrano ham (1 ounce)
¼ cup chopped spring onion or scallions
1 clove garlic, chopped
6 eggs
1 teaspoon salt

Cut the potatoes into ½-inch dice. Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet. Add the potatoes. Lower the heat to medium and fry the potatoes, turning them in the oil so they cook evenly. Cook potatoes, without letting them brown, until they are tender, about 15 minutes.

Drain off the cooking oil.

Place a heatproof strainer over a heatproof bowl. Carefully pour the oil and potatoes into the strainer, letting the oil drain into the bowl. Reserve the oil.

While potatoes are frying, blanch the fava beans in boiling water and drain. Blanch the peas in boiling water and drain.

Add 1 tablespoon of the reserved oil to the skillet. Sauté the ham, onion and garlic for 1 minute. Add the fava beans and sauté for 3 minutes. Add the peas and sauté for 2 minutes more.

Mix vegetables into beaten eggs.

Beat the eggs in a bowl with the salt. Stir the fried potatoes into the eggs. Stir  the favas and peas into the eggs.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in the skillet. Pour in the eggs and vegetables. Lower heat to medium and let the tortilla set on the bottom without browning. Don’t stir the eggs. Use a heatproof spatula to firm the edges of the tortilla. 

When the egg is almost set, remove the skillet from the heat. Place a flat plate or pan lid on top of the tortilla and, working over a bowl to catch any drips, very carefully reverse the tortilla on to the plate.

Slide tortilla back into the skillet.

Then, slide the tortilla back into the skillet to cook on the reverse side.

Lift the edge of the tortilla with a spatula and carefully slide it out of the skillet onto a serving dish.

Strain the remaining cooking oil and use it another time.

Eggplant Tortilla
Tortilla de Berenjena

Packed for a picnic. Beach or sierra?

This tortilla is typical of Murcia, which is known for its market gardens. With no potatoes, it’s quicker to prepare than a classic tortilla. Make it with any combination of eggplant, zucchini and roasted peppers. To save time, I used  roasted peppers from the grocery store. Canned ones could be used too.

Unlike potatoes, which absorb very little olive oil while cooking, eggplant absorbs a lot. A smaller quantity of oil is needed for this recipe.

Serves 4-6.

4 cups eggplant cut in ½-inch dice (1 medium eggplant)
1 ½ cups zucchini cut in ¼-inch dice (½  zucchini)
¼ cup olive oil
½ cup chopped onion
½ cups grated tomatoes (1 small tomato
1 ½ cups roasted red peppers, cut in strips (about 3 peppers)
1 ½ teaspoon salt
Pinch of oregano
Red pepper flakes (optional)
6 eggs

On a high heat, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a skillet. Add the onion and eggplant and fry, turning, until eggplant is lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Lower heat and add the zucchini. Sauté 3 minutes more. Add the tomato pulp and strips of red pepper. Season with 1 teaspoon salt, oregano and red pepper flakes, if using. Cook until vegetables are soft and most of the liquid has cooked away, about 10 minutes.

Carefully ladle the vegetables into a strainer and allow to drain for 5 minutes. (Save the liquid for another use.) Wipe out the skillet.

Beat the eggs and ½ teaspoon salt in a bowl. Mix the fried eggplant mixture into the eggs. 

Cook eggs and vegetables until eggs are set.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the remaining oil and pour in the egg and vegetable  mixture. Turn the heat down to medium and let the tortilla cook until set, about 10 minutes. Use the back of a spatula to firm the sides. Shake the skillet occasionally to make sure the tortilla is not sticking on the bottom.

Working over a bowl to catch any drips, place a flat plate or pan lid on top of the tortilla and, very carefully, reverse the skillet to turn the tortilla onto the plate.

Add remaining 1 tablespoon of oil to the skillet and slide the tortilla back into the pan to cook the reverse side, about 3 minutes.

Use the spatula to lift the edge of the tortilla and slide it out of the pan onto a serving plate.

Pack a picnic basket and we're off!

SPANISH VILLAGE COOKING

During my first year living in a small village in southern Spain,  shopping and cooking were a daily adventure. I hung out in the kitchens of local tapa bars. I  collected recipes from Spanish neighbors. In search of recipes, I would be sent off to talk to someone’s grandmother in the barrio at the end of the village, or to a tia way out in the country.

I scribbled notes, filling many notebooks with recipes—I’ve lost count of how many versions of gazpacho I gathered! I borrowed recipe notebooks from friends and transcribed their family dishes, handed down from grandmother to mother to daughter, to try in my own kitchen. 

Through the cooking, I learned much about the people, culture and way of life of my adopted village. I made lifelong friends. My cooking articles, cookbooks and, now, this blog have all grown from those early forays into the village kitchen. (Read about my experiences in My Kitchen in Spain, the cookbook.)

Cookbook by Debbie Jenkins. The dish pictured on the cover is Gachasmigas, fried bread crumbs with sausage.

So, it was with much interest that I opened SPANISH VILLAGE COOKING—Over 150 simple, family recipes from a rural village in Spain, by Debbie Jenkins and the Chefs of La Murta (NativeSpain; Great Britain, 2014).  Debbie, who is from Birmingham, England, moved to Spain with husband, Marcus, in 2005.

“We wanted to find a place to live away from the touristy areas, with some land and close to a Spanish village - that's how we found La Murta,” says Debbie. La Murta is a village in the province of Murcia, south-eastern Spain, about halfway between the city of Murcia, to the north, and the seaport, Cartagena, to the south. The village has just slightly more than 100 inhabitants. Debbie and Marcus live on 6 ½ acres of land outside of the village,  in the campo, countryside.

“One of our main plans when moving to Spain was to properly integrate, not to live in an urbanization and converse only with English speakers. So we offered to be on the village fiesta committee.

”Being part of the fiesta organizing gang means you get intimately involved in village life - we cook for a village fund raiser every month and have bigger parties a couple of times a year. We quickly realized that our village likes their food! It's probably the most important part of our village identity. We have three bakeries that supply restaurants in the city. To put that into perspective, 100 people in the village, 3 bakeries producing 600kg of bread per day that gets driven into the city every day by 3 bread vans. That's 200 tonnes per year! We also have our own sausage-making shop, a cake-making shop and our own wine!”

Just as I did all those years ago, Debbie gathered traditional recipes from her neighbors in La Murta. In spite of the words “chefs” in the book’s title, none of the collaborators is a professional cook. Most of the recipes, which are published in both Spanish and English, are extremely local.

In fact, it seemed to me that I could “read” the region’s geography in the recipes. So many called for pine nuts. Yes, confirmed Debbie, there are pine forests in the Sierra de Carrascoy. Almond and olive trees grow on surrounding hills. Huertas—Murcia is known for its market gardens—lead down across the Campo de Cartagena to the sea.  The locals also farm sheep, goats and pigs.

The book opens with a recipe for Michirones—no translation provided! This is a rustic dish peculiar to the Murcia region, made with dried fava beans stewed with ham, pork fat, chorizo and sobrasada, a soft sausage. I think I’ll save that one for cold weather.

The book has a good selection of arroces—rice dishes, not called paella—many with the local vegetables. Rice with rabbit; rice with snails, artichokes and peas; rice with beans, sweet potatoes, artichokes and peas; rice with spare ribs and pork; rice with market garden vegetables; rice with fish and seafood; rice with cod.

Recipes for fish croquettes, meatballs, stuffed squid, rabbit, lamb stew, roast lamb and cabrito, kid-goat, all call for pine nuts. All sound delicious.

The cooks of La Murta seem to be specialists in all types of sweets—puddings, desserts, cookies and cakes—for this section of the book is the longest of all.

There are photos of many of the recipes by Marcus Jenkins. These are especially helpful in picturing how a dish should appear.

I chose two recipes from the book to try out in my kitchen, both using seasonal vegetables.  I’ve left the recipes in metric measures that Debbie uses in the book, but added helpful conversions in parentheses.

Zarangollo
Scrambled Eggs & Vegetables

Zarangollo, a Murcia dish of eggs scrambled with vegetables.

I love this typical Murcian dish. Debbie says that in La Murta it is usually served as a light supper. “We also eat it as a side dish at fiesta lunches - but it's more usual for supper. They put all sorts of vegetables in the dish - basically whatever is in season or left over!”

My kitchen notes: I used 4 tablespoons of olive oil to fry 1 ¼ pounds chopped potatoes, 1 cup chopped onion, 4 cups chopped zucchini (1 pound) and 1 teaspoon salt. I couldn’t resist adding a little chopped red bell pepper, definitely a seasonal addition.

Serves 4.

3 potatoes, sliced thinly
1 onion, finely chopped
1 courgette (zucchini), finely chopped
2 eggs
Olive oil
Salt to taste

Slowly fry the potatoes, onion and courgette in olive oil. When softened add the eggs and mix well. Continue cooking until the eggs are firm. Add a little salt to taste.

Pastel de Berenjena
Aubergine (Eggplant) Terrine 

Fried eggplant, ground pork and cheese--a delicious casserole.

My kitchen notes: Use 4 good-sized eggplants, about 3 ½ pounds. You will need quite a lot of olive oil to fry this quantity of sliced eggplant. I tried the recipe both with fried eggplant and with slices that were brushed with oil and baked until soft. The authentic version really is better--frying makes for a juicy and delicious final dish. You will also need about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to make the frito of onion, pork and tomatoes. I used 6 slices of cheese (about 4 ounces) between the layers.

Serves 4-6.

2 kg aubergines (eggplants)
500 g (1 ¼ pounds) minced (ground) pork
1 large onion
500 g (1 ¼ pounds) tomatoes
Slices of cheese
100 g (4 oz) grated cheese
1 egg
Knob of butter
Pinch of salt

Cut the aubergines into finger-thick slices. Fry them in olive oil and set aside. Make a frito by frying the minced pork, finely chopped onion and chopped tomatoes until they are softened and reduced, about 20 minutes.

Now make the terrine: place a layer of aubergines(half of them) in a deep oven pan, followed by a layer of the frito (about half of it) and the slices of cheese. On top of that the rest of the aubergines followed by the rest of the frito.

Mix the egg and grated cheese and pour on top with a knob of butter. Cook in the oven for about 30 minutes at 180ºC (350ºF).

A satisfying dish.

Debbie blogs about life in Spain at http://nativespain.com/http://nativespain.com/  The cookbook, Spanish Village Cooking, is available from Amazon.

Murcia is known for its market gardens.