Patatas Bravas

D and I had a Spanish night earlier in this week.  He didn’t come to Madrid with me last weekend and I wanted to share some of the food ideas I had picked up.  In particular patatas bravas and clara.

The latter is a shandy made from light Spanish lager and cloudy lemonade rather than the standard clear lemonade – very simple but wonderfully refreshing.  The former dish is one of my favourite tapas – fried potatoes topped with a picante tomato sauce. 

Traditionally the potatoes in this dish are poached in olive oil before being fried over a high heat but I just couldn’t bring myself to use all that fat.  Instead, I blanched the unpeeled potatoes in water before roasting them with a mere brushing of oil.  It worked very well, I thought.  🙂

 

Note: The following recipe makes a lot of sauce.  We used half of it over two nights on potatoes and the rest was diluted with stock and cream to make a rather tasty soup.

Patatas Bravas (sauce adapted from Moro)

(Tapas for 4)

500g small, waxy potatoes – halved

Salt

Papika

Olive oil

1 onion, chopped finely

1 green pepper, chopped finely

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/2 tspn chilli flakes

Bay leaf

Glass of white wine

400g tin plum tomatoes

1 tspn sugar

1/2 tspn smoked paprika

Cayenne pepper (optional)

• Parboil the potatoes in salted water for 10 minutes.  Drain and layout on baking tray.  Brush thoroughly with olive oil and sprinkly with salt and paprika.  Roast in a 200oC over for 30 minutes until crisp on the outside and fluffy in the middle.
• Meanwhile, make the sauce.  Fry the onion and pepper in a little olive oil until soft (medium heat).
• Add the garlic, chilli flakes and bay and fry for another 2 minutes.
• Add the wine.  Turn up the heat and reduce the liquid by half.
• Add the tomatoes and sugar and mash down to a pulp.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
• Blend until smooth. 
• Add seasoning and cayenne to taste.
• Serve potatoes in a heated dish with the sauce spooned over the top.

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