Recipe
Spanish tortilla with chorizo and onion
The origin story of the Spanish tortilla involves a general, a siege, and almost certainly a lie.
The version usually told is that Tomás de Zumalacárregui, a Carlist general, invented it during the siege of Bilbao in 1835, needing something cheap and filling to feed his troops. It is a good story. There is also a written reference to a potato tortilla from 1817, which is eighteen years before the siege, and which rather spoils it.
What is beyond dispute is that the tortilla is now so central to Spain that it has acquired its own permanent national argument. Con cebolla or sin cebolla: with onion or without. The two camps are entrenched, the disagreement is entirely sincere, and asking a Spaniard which side they are on is a reliable way to generate twenty minutes of conversation from a standing start.
This version has onion, and it also has chorizo, which will annoy purists on a second front. It is here because a plain potato tortilla is magnificent but does not quite contain enough to be a whole lunch, and because chorizo renders an orange, smoky, paprika-heavy fat that then cooks the potatoes and gets into absolutely everything.
The technique is a frittata's, but slower and more patient. The potatoes are not fried crisp, they are poached gently in oil until they surrender, which takes about twenty minutes and cannot be hurried. Then they go into the beaten egg and sit there for five minutes before the whole thing goes back into the pan.
That five-minute wait is the step everybody skips. It lets the starch on the potatoes bind with the egg, and it is what makes a tortilla hold together instead of collapsing when you cut it.
- Prep 15 min
- Cook 35 min
- Serves 4
- Cost €
Method
- 1
Fry the chorizo in a 24 cm non-stick pan with 1 tbsp of the oil until the fat runs orange. Lift the pieces out and keep both the chorizo and the fat.
5 min
- 2
Add the rest of the oil to the pan with the potatoes and onions and a good deal of salt. Cook on low, turning gently every few minutes. They should stew, not fry, and no piece should brown.
22 min
- 3
Tip the whole lot into a sieve set over a bowl and let the oil drain off. Keep the oil, which is now excellent and can be used again.
3 min
- 4
Beat the eggs hard with plenty of salt and pepper. Fold in the drained potatoes, onions and chorizo, then leave it to stand for 5 minutes. Do not skip this.
7 min
- 5
Heat 1 tbsp of the reserved oil in the pan, pour in the mixture, and cook on medium-low, easing the edges in with a spatula, until the base is set and gold.
8 min
- 6
Slide onto a plate, invert the pan over it, flip, and cook the second side for 4 minutes. It should still be very slightly soft in the middle. Rest 15 minutes before cutting.
20 min
Variations
Leave out the chorizo entirely for the classic version, and leave out the onion too if you wish to take a side. Add a roasted red pepper, or a handful of spinach squeezed dry. Serve with alioli, or with bread and a tomato salad. Cold in a bread roll is how half of Spain eats lunch. Keeps 3 days and is better on day two, which is not true of most egg dishes.