November 24, 2010: Leftover makeover - Spanish-style tortilla

This was one of those meals designed entirely around the leftovers we needed to finish off - silverbeet, potatoes and onions from our vege box, some firm tofu that didn't make it into that orange marinade, and eggs we'd bought for the pizza loaf.  I web-searched Spanish tortilla recipe and winged it from there.

Pre-cooking the potatoes, onion and silverbeet made for some long-ish preparation but ultimately we thought it was worth it - this generated 4-6 satisfying serves.  The egg doesn't dominate quite so much as it would in a quiche or frittata, it's more there just to bind the other ingredients together.  I'll leave the tofu out of the recipe below - we had just a small amount, sliced and fried with the potatoes.

The most memorable part of this meal was Michael's impressive tortilla flipping - I don't think either of us has successfully upended anything so large in a frypan before!

Spanish-style tortilla
(inspired by online recipes such as this one)

3 large potatoes (about 600g)
300g silverbeet
1 large onion
6 cloves garlic
5 eggs
olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel the potatoes and slice them into thin rounds.  Separate the silverbeet stems and leaves; chop the stems finely and the leaves roughly.  Chop the onion and garlic finely.

Heat some oil in the base of a frypan and lay out the potato slices so they're not overlapping; fry them on both sides until they just start to soften (they don't need to be cooked through).  Transfer those spuds to a plate lined with absorbent paper and continue to fry the potato slices (+ bonus tofu slices) in batches.

When you're finished with the potatoes, sauté the onion and silverbeet stems until softened.  Add the garlic and silverbeet leaves, cooking until the leaves are slightly wilted.

Lightly beat the eggs in a large bowl.  Stir in all of the vegetables gently, so that they're all coated in the egg.  There's no need to be too fussy, though - there's no harm in a few crumbled potatoes.  Transfer the entire mixture back to the frypan, cover it and cook it over low heat for 5-10 minutes, until it's cooked at least half-way through.  Take a deep breath and prepare for flipping!  Gently place a dinner plate over the tortilla and flip the plate and frypan together, so that the tortilla now rests on the plate.  Slide the tortilla back into the pan and cook it for a further 5 minutes.  When it's ready, slice it into wedges to serve.