Patatas Bravas
Tonight I deliver Patatas Bravas! This is a dreamy Spanish Tapas dish consisting of crispy potato bites with an incredibly flavorful spicy sauce!
This dish was inspired after watching a Quarantine Edition of Spain Revealed, How to Make The Best Patatas Bravas video. Spain Revealed features James Blick, co-founder of Devour Tours, who shares videos about Spain food, wine and travel and David and I are hooked because WE LOVE SPAIN. We love Spain for the exact reason James created his YouTube channel, the incredible food, drink and beauty we’ve found, visiting various parts of Spain.
We were drawn to recreate James’ dish for 3 reasons:
- WE LOVE TAPAS. If you missed my Spanish Tapas post after visiting Tenerife Island in November, head on over to that post.
- Potatoes are something we have on hand during quarantine.
- David makes incredible roast potatoes (which I’ve mentioned in my Roast Chicken and Beer Butt Chicken posts) and we thought, hey, let’s try the double fry like we saw in the video.
The key to delicious Patatas Bravas is the spicy sauce served with the potato wedges. For our sauce, David sauteed onions, red pepper, tomato, a rehydrated ancho chile pepper and garlic with paprika and then added vinegar and chicken stock. Once the sauce reduced, he blended it and was AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS 😋!
These potatoes were a labor of love since David double fried the potatoes and while the double creates a crispy and delicious potato, David and I both agreed his method (i.e. boil first and shallow fry) creates a more delicious potato. Two, he gets a great crisp without all the oil and fuss with a double fry 😉.
I hope you have potatoes in your pantry and feel inspired by this post, enjoy and cheers 🥂!
Some Notes
- Potato Prep – Once you peel and slice your potatoes, add them to a bowl with cold water and toss for a few seconds. Drain the water and fill the bowl again with cold water and soak for 20 minutes. By rinsing the potatoes initially, you’re removing any dirt and the heavy starch. The soak prevents browning of the potatoes and removes the potato starch.
- Spicy Tomato Sauce – The recipe calls for dicing the ingredients. However, the size doesn’t matter too much since you will blend the sauce. You can use a fresh or dried pepper. If you’re using a dried pepper, rehydrate it by boiling some water and adding the boiled water to the pepper. Allow the pepper to soak for 20 minutes.
- Type of Oil for Cooking the Potatoes – While James suggested olive oil, I would suggest a neutral tasting oil that can handle heat, i.e. peanut, canola or vegetable.
- Cooking the Potatoes – This recipe calls for a double fry. The first fry is at medium which cooks the potatoes and seals them up. The second fry at medium high heat to get the potatoes golden brown. Don’t forget to line a plate with paper towels to remove the excess oil.
- Seasoning – You need good sea salt for these beauties and don’t be afraid of the salt because that makes your potatoes delicious.
- Best with Wine – Since Patatas Bravas is Spanish, grab a bottle of Spanish Wine and enjoy your potatoes tapas style , cheers🍷.
Patatas Bravas
Ingredients
- 6 medium sized potatoes, cut into equal sized wedges
- Oil for Frying the Potatoes
- EVOO
- 1 onion, chopped
- ½ red pepper, inside pith (white parts) removed and chopped
- 1 roma tomato, chopped
- 1 rehydrated ancho chile pepper, inside pith and seeds removed and chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
- 1 TBS paprika
- 2 TBS red wine vinegar
- 2 TBS all purpose flour
- 2 cups chicken stock
- Sea salt, for seasoning generously
Instructions
Potatoes
- Take the potatoes out of the water and pat dry with a towel. Note: you want to remove any excess moisture from the potatoes before frying.
- In a large sauce, add your oil and heat to medium. Note: you want about two inches of oil in your pan.
- Test the oil temperature with one potato wedge. If the potato sizzles, dump the remaining potatoes into the oil.
- Fry the potatoes until fork tender.
- Remove from the oil and place on paper towels to remove excess oil.
- After the potatoes rest for about 20 minutes, place back into medium high heat oil to create the crispy exterior.
- When the potatoes are golden brown, remove from the oil and place on paper towels to remove the excess oil. Salt the potatoes generously while they're hot.
Spicy Tomato Sauce
- Heat 2 TBS of EVOO in a medium sized saucepan.
- Once the EVOO is hot, add the onion, red pepper, tomato, chile pepper and garlic and saute for ~10 minutes or until the onions are translucent. Don't forget to season with salt.
- Add the paprika and combine together for 2-3 minutes. Now the vinegar and stir together with the other ingredients. After 2-3 minutes, add the flour and stir it into the other ingredients. Let the flour cook for a few minutes, ~3-4 minutes to cook the rawness out of it.
- Add the chicken stock and simmer for 20 minutes or until the sauce is reduced.
- Once reduced, blend until smooth.
Preparing the Patatas Bravas
- Add the fried potatoes to a plate or bowl and top with the spicy tomato sauce. Enjoy and cheers 🥂
