Bringing Spanish Tastes to Montclair

The other day I tried to do something I have wanted to do since I got to Spain: make a Spanish tortilla.

The goal was to make something that looked like that but it is not as easy as it looks. What you do is you slice potatoes into thinnish pieces, cook them in oil at low heat so as to soften them up but not fry them, drain the oil, replace with a bunch of eggs, cook, flip, cook, flip, eat. I kept getting caught up at the same stage, not the flipping part (surprisingly enough) but to flip the tortilla from the pan to a plate to slide back in and cook the other side you need to separate them, but my tortilla always gets stuck to the pan. I think I need to cook it more to fix that issue, if that's not the solution I'm not sure what is. In the end the taste of my tortillas is fine, but the presentation is lacking. Everyone has said it is fine, but I disagree. I have seen too many perfect tortillas to let mine be anything less.

There are a few variations of the tortilla, but I am not going to mess with my methods yet because:
1. I haven't gotten it right with the basics yet
2. Thin sliced potatoes are better than the chunk potato method
3. I am following Pepi's plan and I don't want to mess with perfection.

As this dish is based on oil, salt, potatoes and eggs it'll be easy to translate to the US. Yes I have to futz with the rations since our eggs are smaller but our potatoes are bigger than in Spain, but it's still the same stuff. I am, however, worried about trying anything with milk.

Milk and butter is different in different countries. Milk classification is based on its percentage of butter fat but these classifications are not unified internationally. Whole milk in the US is 3.25% fat and is very rarely used for drinking. In France I am pretty sure what we were drinking had the same fat content as our half and half. It took me a long time to figure out why it was so different, but I think that is it. I spoke with an American friend in France who has lived there for many years and she mentioned that the percentages of fat in butter in France and the US is different which causes some issues.

So now I am wondering what do I do if I want to follow one of Pepi's recipes that required regular Spanish milk. Do I go for whole milk, half-and-half? Should I just get my own cow and experiment? I'll figure something out and let you guys know how "being a cultural bridge" works out.

Oh and my mom bought a blender the other day. Gazpacho here I come!

Comments

[marc]

I can't drink anything but whole milk, thank you very much... ;-)

[Heather]

Your tortilla tastes and looks great. The stovetop doesn't look so great when you finish, but you're good at cleaning that up. So, I'd give your presentation a solid 9 out of 10. Of course, I'm an unsophisticated American who thinks that tortilla is tasty with a side of ketchup...

[Mara S]

OK, blenders absolutely rock. You already heard a bit of my spiel on homemade peanut butter, but that doesn't even get close to how I feel about homemade fruit smoothies...
Also, on a less appetizing note, another difference between the States and other countries in terms of milk is the fact that the States has far less strict regulations on how much pus can be in the milk (as in, pus forms due to constant irritation from factory farm milking, yum!).