Spanish Tortilla with Aioli

Happy mid-summer everyone! I don’t know how many of you celebrate mid-summer, but here in the North, I guess at least in Sweden alongside of Finland, it’s a big fest. It’s three days of relaxing, fleeing from cities and spending time at the summer cottage, enjoying the nightless night when the sun doesn’t go down at all, drinking beer and grilling sausages.

I just read from the newspaper that Finnish people, we’re about 5 million all together, eat 4,4 million packets of sausages and drink 11 million liters of beer during the mid-summer. Imagine that! 11 million liters of beer is more in three days than what Saudi-Arabians have consumed in centuries. No wonder alcoholism is the public health problem in Finland.

I spent my mid-summer with S at a friend’s parents place, comfortably near the nature and the city. My friends are food enthusiasts, so for me there was not much to do. Me and S just got to enjoy the incredible summer food and mood. It was a good break from work stress, with good people and we both really enjoyed the weekend!

As I haven’t been cooking anything lately, and I didn’t cook anything basically during the mid-summer either, I am posting you something I did a while ago already. I had a lot of potatoes to use, and I had been yearning for a Spanish omelette for a lot of time. I don’t remember which dish I made, but afterwards had many boiled potatoes as left-overs. So I finally got the omelette done!

Spanish tortilla is basically an omelette with potatoes. It’s super simple to do, just takes a while to prepare it. In Spain they eat it a lot in tapa style, as small snacks with other types of tapas. We had this for brunch. It’s best served with aioli, a strong garlic mayo.

Here I used boiled potatoes, but I know some prefer to use raw ones. If you use raw potatoes, need to cook them in the skillet in generous amount of olive oil before adding the eggs. Using boiled ones is also a bit healthier, if you’re after that!

Spanish Potato Omelette aka Tortilla

4 medium firm potatoes, boiled, peeled and completely cooled

1 large onion

6-7 large eggs

3 tablespoons good olive oil

salt and black pepper to taste

Cut the onions in half and slice thinly. Slice the potatoes.

Heat up the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat.

Beat the eggs with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Gently mix the sliced onions and potatoes with the eggs.

Pour the egg-potato mixture into the skillet. Cook until the edges start getting firm, and reduce the heat to medium-low.

Cover with a lid and cook more 5-8 minutes until the top starts to get firm too. While the omelette is cooking, check that it’s not stuck in your skillet by sticking a spatula under it or shaking the skillet gently.

Flip the omelette by sliding it on a plate, topping the plate with your skillet and flipping the whole thing over. Now the bottom of the omelette should be nice and golden.

Cook for 5 minutes more until the other side gets a golden color too.

Slide on a serving plate and serve warm or room temperature with aioli.

Basic Aioli

2 cloves garlic

2 egg yolks

250ml olive oil

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon lemon juice

pinch of salt

All your ingredients should be in room temperature before starting.

Peel and carefully ground the garlic in a mortar. It’s important that there are no garlic chunks, would be a nice surprise!

Transfer the mashed garlic into a medium bowl. Using a wire whisk, whisk in first the mustard and then egg yolks.

Very slowly, start adding the oil. It’s very important to add it slooooowly, as it will emulsify and your aioli will become thick. Add the oil first in drops, and then in a slow, fine stream while constantly whisking with a wire whisk.

When your aioli has reached the desired thickness (it should be thicker than a normal mayonnaise), add the lemon juice and a pinch or salt. Whisk until smooth.

If you wish, you can also spice the aioli with chili or lime juice. Be creative!

Sweet Potato Hummus and Pita Bread

Hummus has been one of my favorite things to prepare for almost any occasion since I lived in Berlin for 8 months and got to eat a lot, and a lot of Lebanese food. Usually the chicken schawarmas and falafels in pita bread were accompanied by tahini sauce, but sometimes you were lucky to get some hummus too. Hummus is rich in flavor, in nutrition and childishly simple to prepare. You can dip various kinds of stuff in it to create delicious combinations - most traditionally of course pita bread. 

I ran into different variations of hummus lately, as I’ve been actively browsing Pinterest. My typical hummus includes the basic ingredients, chickpeas, tahini, garlic and lemon, and often also sun-dried tomatoes. I find them almost unbeatable in hummus! But I wanted to try something else for change, and there came the idea of this one, sweet potato hummus. The recipe I took from Martha Stewart. I still keep preparing my favorite hummus with tomatoes, but this was actually very fresh, delicious and sweet, too. 

I also baked my own pita bread, for the first time, and they became quite okay. I highly recommend, as they’re super easy to make and cost you much less than buying them from the market. I got the recipe from a Finnish super popular food blog, you can find the original here.

Sweet Potato Hummus

450g sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed, or equal amount boiled chickpeas

juice of one lemon

3 heaping tablespoons tahini

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 garlic clove, chopped

salt

sweet paprika powder

Set a steamer basket in a large pot. Fill with enough water to come just below basket and bring to a boil. Add potatoes, cover and cook until tender, about 10 to 12 minutes.

Combine chickpeas, lemon juice, tahini, oil, cumin, and garlic. Puree all the ingredients, including boiled sweet potatoes, in a food processor until smooth paste. I used a stick blender because I (still) don’t have a food processor. Thin the hummus with water if necessary. Season with salt and pepper and let cool.

Before serving, sprinkle with sweet paprika powder and top generously with olive oil. Serve with freshly baked pita bread.

Simple Pita Breads (makes 10-12)

300ml lukewarm water (or 42 C)

11g (one bag) dry active yeast

7-8dl all-purpose flour (I used a little less, maybe 6,5dl)

0,5 teaspoon salt

Mix the dry ingredients together and gradually add the warm water, kneading until the dough is almost chewy in its texture.

Let it stand in a warm place, covered with a kitchen towel until it has doubled in size. This takes usually around one hour, but keep sometimes even more.

On a floured surface, using a rolling pin, roll the dough into small, approximately 10-15cm diameter rounds. The thinner you roll them, the better the result as the pitas are supposed to form an air pocket inside them in the oven, and with too thick dough the upper part doesn’t rise properly. So make some effort in this.

Preheat the oven to 250C and let the pitas stand covered until the oven is hot. Bake the pitas for 3-5 minutes, depending on the oven. They should stay very light in color, so once they have puffed up, they are starting to be ready. Don’t over bake, otherwise they might end up being too hard to eat.