This Tortilla de Patatas recipe is another from our Demuth’s Vegan Cooking Diploma Course we did recently in Bath in the UK. Each day focused on a different country flavour profile, and this was the Spanish day – obviously!
A tortilla is usually done in a frying pan, then flipped, or finished in the oven. For me neither really works perfectly. If it’s cooked on the inside, it is burnt on top, or vice versa. So I tried just baking it in the oven, and hey – perfect result.
And for a change, I followed their recipe exactly – well except they slice the potatoes. I found these pieces are too big and prevent the tortilla holding together. So I suggest cutting the potatoes medium dice – ie about 1.5 cm cubes.
Here is my version:
Ingredients:
- 1 large onion, finely sliced
- 600 grms potatoes, medium dice
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- olive oil or canola oil
- 100 grms gram (chick pea) flour
- 250 ml water
- 1 t baking powder
- 1/4 C nutritional yeast (optional)
- 1 t onion powder (optional)
- 50 mls aquafabe (tinned chickpea or bean liquid – reduced)
- Salt and pepper
What to do:
- Mix the gram flour and water together and let stand for a while. The longer the better, and if you can plan ahead, let it stand overnight.
- Preheat oven to 160 Deg C (fan oven) (180 Deg C if convection oven)
- Par boil the potatoes for a few minutes and then drain.
- Heat a little oil in a pan. Add the onions and a couple of pinches of salt. Fry gently for a few minutes till soft.
- Add the garlic and continue to cook for a minute or so.
- Add the potato and fry for another few minutes till soft, then set aside.
- In a bowl, using and electric hand mixer, whip the aquafabe, with a pinch of salt and pepper, till soft peaks.
- Add the baking powder, nutritional yeast/onion powder if using, to the flour mix and whick well.
- Fold this into the whipped aquafabe, and then fold in the cooked potato onion mix.
- Pour the whole mixture into a baking tin and bake for 40 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool, to firm up.
- Turn out and cut into whatever shape you want.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
Some notes:
1 – The recipe uses ordinary potatoes. I have also made it using sweet potatoes, and for a low-carb version I used pumpkin. This works okay but does not hold together quite as well as with potatoes due to less starch.
2 – Aquafabe – usually the liquid from a tin of chickpeas, but you can use the liquid from white beans, black beans or kidney beans, but the colour will affect the final outcome of the dish.
Also, the thickness (viscosity) of the liquid can vary, and is often too thin. I collect the liquid from several tins, reduce the consistency by 1/3 to 1/2, and then keep the reduced liquid in blocks in an ice tray in the freezer. Then just take out as much as you need.
3 You can make this in square tins, round tins of rectangular loaf tins. The above recipe fills 1 22 x 22 cm square tin to depth of about 2.5 cms, about 8 servings.
4 – This recipe is gluten free due to using gram (chickpea) flour.
Thanks to Demuth’s Vegan Cooking School in Bath, UK for the original inspiration.
