u/Gazelizz

I’m from Spain, and tortilla de patatas is one of those foods that just feels like home to me.
The traditional version is incredibly simple: potatoes and eggs, usually cooked in plenty of olive oil. Then there’s the eternal Spanish debate with or without onion. When I was a kid I would have never choose with onion but now I’m very much on the onion side.

Ingredients! ୨ৎ

-4 medium potatoes
-1 onion
-Around 100 g chickpea flour
-Around 150ml aquafaba (the liquid from a can of chickpeas)
-A little water, as needed
-A pinch of turmeric
-Kala namak / black salt, if you have it (regular salt works too)
-Olive oil

I have to confess I measured the chickpea mixture mostly with my heart, so those quantities are something approximate I tried to discover for you ( so don’t trust me a lot ) it just have to look like the thickness a thin pancake batter :)

First, I peeled the potatoes and cut them into small, irregular slices/chunks not too thick, but they don’t need to be perfect.
While I was cutting the potatoes, I chopped the onion and cooked it slowly in a pan with olive oil until it became very soft and golden.
Then I fried the potatoes in olive oil until they were completely tender. You want them soft rather than crispy almost falling apart when you press them.
While the potatoes were cooking, I made the vegan “egg.” I mixed together the chickpea flour, aquafaba, a little water, a pinch of turmeric and salt. Kala namak is especially nice here because it gives that slightly eggy flavour, apparent bc of the composition of hydrogen sulfide, but I just used normal salt.
The consistency has to be pourable but slightly thick, somewhere around a thin pancake batter. If it feels too thick, just add a little more water.
Once the potatoes were soft, I drained off the excess oil and mixed them with the caramelised onion and the chickpea mixture.

Then comes the part that feels very Spanish.
Add a little olive oil to a non stick frying pan, pour everything in and cook over low/medium heat until the bottom has set and turned golden.
Put a large plate over the pan, take a tiny moment to pray to the tortilla gods, and flip it.
Slide it gently back into the pan and cook the other side until golden too.
How long you leave it is really up to you. Some people in Spain love their tortilla very soft and almost creamy inside, others prefer it completely set. I used to hate the creamy ones bc it’s almost like eating raw egg…, and that disgusted me. But now I can cook it creamy bc it’s no longer egg so I can enjoy both of them.

It’s such a simple food, but making a vegan version of something I’ve eaten my whole life felt strangely special.