Tortilla Espanola

Ugh.  Well I feel like I've posted so many successful cooking endeavors in a row that the cards were just stacked against me.  I found a recipe for Baked Tortilla Espanola in the June issue of Martha Stewart Living that sounded tasty.  I've never had Tortilla Espanola before, but the components sounded good to me: potatoes, red onion, garlic, and eggs.  Now I will admit that it is probably not entirely the recipe's fault.  I did leave out what I think may have been a key ingredient: saffron.  I don't keep that on hand, and I wasn't about to buy an expensive bottle of it when I only needed 4 strands, so I (mistakenly) just left it out.  Also I hate buying a giant packet of fresh herbs when I only need a sprig or two so I (mistakenly) substituted dried thyme for fresh.  2 mistakes before even starting is bad... but of course I didn't know they were mistakes yet.

The best thing about trying this recipe was that I got to use my mandoline!  I love this tool.  It makes quick, neat work of anything!  I buzzed through a red onion and 2 potatoes in record time.

Everything was sauteed in olive oil then covered and cooked for 20 minutes with stirring halfway through.  It stuck really bad to the bottom of the pan.  We took the potato/onion mixture out and mixed it with an egg/thyme mixture.  I deglazed the pan with some chicken broth just to get the burnt stuff out for the next step.  More olive oil went into the pan and we poured everything back in and let it cook for a couple of minutes before putting it in the oven to bake.

It took much longer than stated in the recipe for the eggs to set.  When they finally did, Brett and I were quite unimpressed with the results.  Brett's comment was, "It tastes like it looks... tan."  It was bland and boring.  It wasn't terrible.  We ate every bit of it.  But it wasn't good either.  I'm sure the saffron would have added a lot of flavor, and I'm sure fresh thyme wouldn't have turned the whole thing brown.  Oh well.  At least I got to use the mandoline :)