What to eat SPAIN 🇪🇸 Tortilla de patata
Tortilla de patata is a dish with a few certain origins and a mountain of legends. Its stunning simplicity and basic ingredients are maximized to deliver a punch of flavor and certainly to satiate any hunger. Spain's national dish is a humble one...

Tortilla de patata
Published July 11, 2025 · by Amanda Rivkin Häsler

Tortilla de patata is a dish with a few certain origins and a mountain of legends. Its stunning simplicity and basic ingredients are maximized to deliver a punch of flavor and certainly to satiate any hunger. Spain's national dish is a humble one, consisting of potatoes, eggs, olive oil, a bit of salt and potentially onions – the source of the biggest controversy and intramural feuding among the country's gastronomic scene and those who appreciate the country's culinary traditions.
Divided into two camps, those in favor, the concebollistas, and those opposed, the sincebollistas, Swiss Global Dining is decidedly in the former camp. Sure, caramelizing onions can add time, but with time comes added opulence. And besides, we have been known to add caramelized onions where they do not necessarily go traditionally (think Bulgarian banitsa), kicking off the social media commentariat and working them up into a frenzy of culinary ethnonationalism.

Potatoes are of course a new world root vegetable. For this reason, many attribute the origins of tortilla de patata to the region of Extremadura, where many of the earliest conquistadores first set sail for the new world under the authority of the Spanish crown.
In 1573, the arrival of potatoes in Spain was first recorded, where they were put to use at the Hospital de la Sangre or Blood Hospital in Seville. But it was not until nearly two centuries later, in 1767, when the first documentation of tortilla de patata appears in a text by Joseph Antonio Valcárcel, General Agriculture and Government in Rural Society. In this text, Valcárcel describes tortilla de patata as a sort of potato bread made with flour.
In 1798, Javier López Linage, a scientist at the Higher Council of Scientific Research, which is funded by the Spanish state, contributes that a document in the town of Villanueva de la Serena in the region of Extremadura again, attributes the invention of tortilla de patata to Joseph de Tena Godoy and the Marquis of Robledo.
However, as Spain's paper of record, El PaÃs, correctly writes, it is "important to note that the culinary life always happens before it can be recorded." So it goes that the following year, in 1799, Henrique Doyle's Treaty on the Cultivation, Use and Utility of Potatoes, notes that in Spain it was custom to prepare fried potatoes and mix with eggs to make "cakes, puddings and other delicate doughs."
While other legends focus on feeding the armies of Navarro or the rural peasants, the true origins, as El PaÃs notes, rests somewhere between the pages of history and the travels between the old world and the new world. There are likely pre-Colombian influences as well – how else would the Spanish know what to do with the humble potato? But by now, the dish has slipped into the national lexicon and can be found in Spanish restaurants the world over.

Recipe
Ingredients:
8 small or 2 large white or yellow onions
Olive oil
Maldon or kosher salt
4-5 large potatoes
5 eggs
Step 1: Peel and cut onions and caramelize on low heat.
Step 2: Pour olive oil into a non-stick pan. Place on high heat and add the onions. Once they begin to fry, turn to the lowest possible heat and stir the onions so all the onions are coated in olive oil. Add two pinches of salt, then stir periodically until onions are caramelized.
Step 3: Wash potatoes and remove dirt. Slice the potatoes thin, removing the eyes first. Add to the onions and oil once onions are translucent and browning. Add three to four pinches of salt to taste. Add more olive oil as needed and turn up heat slightly.
Step 4: When potatoes also become translucent, turn the heat down or off.
Step 5: In a bowl, scramble the eggs with a fork or whisk.
Step 6: Pour the potatoes into the egg mixture hot or cooled off. Combine with a wooden spoon. Using the same pan, turn heat to medium high and add olive oil if necessary to the pan. Pour the potatoes and egg mixture into the pan.
Step 7: Once the surface of the eggs starts to bubble, use a rubber pastry spatula around the sides to ensure that the egg and potato mixture is not sticking to the pan. Wiggle the pan a bit to ensure that it is not sticking.
Step 8: Place a plate over the surface of the pan over the sink and quickly flip it. Return the pan to heat and slide the tortilla back into the pan so the uncooked side can cook. Use the pastry spatula technique again to see if it is ready.
Step 9: Wiggle the tortilla de patata onto a plate using either the aforementioned flip method or even with the pastry spatula. Cut into wedges or squares and serve.
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