Wednesday, 29 October 2014

Cooking the perfect Spanish Omelette


There are a few secrets to the perfect Spanish Omelette.
 

The first one is good company.
 

It is Sunday night in Vigo.  We’ve had a beautiful day – and I have had to concede to Maria that she was right, there is actually sunshine in Galicia and we have swum in the Atlantic on 19 October and sunbathed on the beach until 7.30pm.  So now is the reckoning.  I said to Maria that I would like to cook her and her daughter Silvia a meal to say thank you.  My culinary skills as are about as honed as my flying skills (i.e. lots of time as a passenger and no time in a cockpit). 

I want to learn how to cook a good Spanish Omelette – Maria will supervise and guide.  Much laughter, a pretty blue apron later I’m armed and ready with the ingredients.  My large farmer’s fingers chop at a rate that is snail’s pace as Maria kindly smiles, picks up a knife and speeds up the proceedings.

·         6 potatoes , washed, peeled and dried then cut into small cubes

·         Put in bowl and sprinkle in salt

·         1 onion (the Galician soil is acidic so ½ an onion is used over here)

·         Frying pan of (good Spanish olive oil!). – very full (1/4 bottle)

·         High temperature then put potatoes in to fry after drying them off

·         After 5 minutes on a high heat, stir/turn the potatoes and still in the onion

·         Whisk up (7 – apparently the perfect number Maria informs me) – eggs with some salt

·         Once the potatoes are starting to crisp-up, take them out of the pan and put in the bowl with the egg

·         Pour out the oil from the pan into a container to use at a later date

·         Making sure there’s enough oil in the pan to cover the bottom for cooking the omelette, put on high heat until hot

·         Pour the mixture into the frying pan and turn the pan to low

·         Once the first side is done, put a plate that covers the egg over the top of the omelette and turn the pan upside down onto the plate.  You can then slide the uncooked side from the plate back into the frying pan.

 Serve with good wine and a smile.  We also ate [Spanish equivalent of Parma ham] and hot bread with it.



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