like butter
March 22, 2020 10:42 PM Subscribe
Have you ever made a Spanish tortilla with butter instead of olive oil?
A member of our household can't tolerate oil but is fine with butter. I don't want to waste the ingredients if it's not going to work well to use butter instead of the roughly one million cups of olive oil my relatives from Spain use in just one of their incredibly delicious tortillas.
By "work well" I don't mean just making tasty eggs and potatoes fried in butter, but rather that magic Spanish tortilla thing where the potatoes almost merge with the egg.
So: have you made this with butter? I do know it's sacrilege to omit olive oil in this recipe, but it can't be helped.
A member of our household can't tolerate oil but is fine with butter. I don't want to waste the ingredients if it's not going to work well to use butter instead of the roughly one million cups of olive oil my relatives from Spain use in just one of their incredibly delicious tortillas.
By "work well" I don't mean just making tasty eggs and potatoes fried in butter, but rather that magic Spanish tortilla thing where the potatoes almost merge with the egg.
So: have you made this with butter? I do know it's sacrilege to omit olive oil in this recipe, but it can't be helped.
I have done this. It was Less Good than when I* do it with olive oil, but still Good.
* No matter how I do it, the results are far Less Good than when I used to have a Catalan housemate.
posted by shb at 4:34 AM on March 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
* No matter how I do it, the results are far Less Good than when I used to have a Catalan housemate.
posted by shb at 4:34 AM on March 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
Your average commercial US butter is about 15% water, so I would use 15% more butter. Give it time in the hot pan before you add other ingredients to bubble off some of the water, too.
posted by carrioncomfort at 5:15 AM on March 23, 2020
posted by carrioncomfort at 5:15 AM on March 23, 2020
The potatoes are supposed to be cut into thin slices, so they cook in just a few minutes until tender (not brown), but that's with a good amount of oil. Adjust for butter.
posted by sukeban at 6:26 AM on March 23, 2020
posted by sukeban at 6:26 AM on March 23, 2020
I'm going to try doing this myself. Thanks for the bold idea.
posted by Pechorin at 6:28 AM on March 23, 2020
posted by Pechorin at 6:28 AM on March 23, 2020
Your average commercial US butter is about 15% water, so I would use 15% more butter. Give it time in the hot pan before you add other ingredients to bubble off some of the water, too.
Ah, this is why I was thinking of either parboiling the potatoes or clarifying the butter. Now I thought of looking at the Danish dairy organizations cookery blog, because obviously they have a butter version, and they recommend parboiling the potatoes.
posted by mumimor at 7:55 AM on March 23, 2020
Ah, this is why I was thinking of either parboiling the potatoes or clarifying the butter. Now I thought of looking at the Danish dairy organizations cookery blog, because obviously they have a butter version, and they recommend parboiling the potatoes.
posted by mumimor at 7:55 AM on March 23, 2020
A former SO used to do this because eggs without a nonsensical amount of butter was a no-go for them. It tasted perfectly fine, but the texture was off compared to the olive oil version, and the responses upthread make it clear that not parboiling the potatoes probably had something to do with that.
posted by blerghamot at 8:34 AM on March 23, 2020
posted by blerghamot at 8:34 AM on March 23, 2020
Alternatively to more butter would be to use something like ghee that already has the water content mostly removed.
posted by mmascolino at 12:40 PM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by mmascolino at 12:40 PM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yup I would either clarify the butter or use ghee, and parboil the potatoes first. It will be delicious.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:51 PM on March 23, 2020
posted by aspersioncast at 2:51 PM on March 23, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
Probably I would parboil the potatoes a bit before cooking them long and gentle in the butter. And maybe it would be best if you clarified the butter before cooking. Why don't you make a tiny test portion?
posted by mumimor at 1:54 AM on March 23, 2020