Cooking with grandma (Spain): Potato Omelet

Posted on Sep 20, 2016

In this episode of “Cooking with Grandma” we’ll show you how to cook the famous ‘Tortilla de Patata’ (potato omelet), also known as Spanish omelet.

Spain is internationally known for its gastronomy. A great number of its dishes make up the Mediterranean diet and has historically been influenced by the strategic location of the country on the map. Nowadays, thanks to our grandmothers we can still enjoy traditional recipes prepared with culinary techniques from the past, such as the potato omelet.

First and foremost, which ingredients do we need? According to grandma, an omelet for four hungry people requires 8 eggs, 6 potatoes, 1 big onion, oil and salt. You can add or remove ingredients, but as a basis it should always contain eggs and potatoes, as shown below:

Ingredients for the potato omelet

1. Peel the potatoes and the onion, cut them into thin slices and add some salt. This is the most arduous part of the process, don’t give up!

Sliced potatoes

2. Fry it all in olive oil then put through a strainer to get rid of the excess fat.

Use a generous amount of olive oil

3. Beat the eggs and put them in a pan with hot olive oil together with the potatoes and the onion and let it cook for a while. The pan size will determine the thickness of the omelet, so you should ideally use a pan like the one shown below:

Hint: use a non-stick frying pan

4. Now it comes the most stressful part of the preparation, flipping the omelet! Grandma recommends doing it with the help of the lid of the pan if you don’t have a ‘tortillera’.

Did you know that there is a cooking tool in Spain called ‘tortillera’? It’s useful for flipping omelettes as well as for serving them.

5. You will have to repeat the process a couple of times until the inside is cooked through. Then you can finally serve it on a plate: Now your potato omelet is ready, enjoy!