Tortilla means something entirely different in Spain than it does elsewhere.  When you hear “tortilla” you might think of a thin, flat flour or corn wrapper for holding all kinds of delicious veggies, cheese, and salsa, but a Spanish tortilla is actually its own type of egg dish.  Cyril discovered this way back when he was on a month-long high school trip to Spain:  at first he was confused and slightly disappointed, but he very quickly came around to this kind of tortilla.

We decided one day to make our own Spanish tortilla, inspired by this recipe.  This is what we used:

• 5 potatoes
• An onion
• A green bell pepper
• Olive oil
• 6 eggs

First, we took the potatoes, peeled them, cut them in half, and then sliced them really thin.

We also diced an onion and the green bell pepper and mixed them in with the potatoes.

Then we fried everything in several inches of olive oil for about 10 minutes in a cast iron skillet.

Once the vegetables were cooked, we transferred them to a paper towel to absorb some of that extra oil, then put everything in a bowl to cool down a little.

Then we cracked open the eggs and beat them with the vegetables.

We drained almost all the oil out of our skillet but left just enough to coat the bottom, and then we poured our egg mixture back in.  We cooked everything over medium-low heat for about five minutes, then transferred the skillet to our oven and baked the tortilla at 375° for another 5 minutes.

You’ll know that the tortilla is cooked enough when the top starts to get just a little firm.  When it’s done, you can let it cool and then slice it up.  It should look like this:

It’s not a Mexican tortilla, and it’s not an omelet, a frittata, or a quiche either either.  You can think of it like an egg cake – and it’s definitely delicious.  The potatoes are a nice, soft texture under all the eggs, and the pepper and onion give it some good flavors.  Think of this as an interesting alternative to other egg dishes, and something a little unexpected to serve for brunch.