Tag Archives: Eggs

Tortilla de Habas con Menta

20 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by in breakfast, Main Courses, Starters, Vegetable Dishes

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Broad bean spanish omlette with mint.

The Spanish tortilla made with potatoes is universally known, but tortillas are also regularly made with other vegetables, peas, green garlics, peppers and beans, as in this case. Really any flavoursome vegetable that is not to wet to hold the cake shape can make a tortilla, or a combination of vegetables of course.

The fresh broad beans from my huerta or vegetable garden are sweet and tender, perfect for this dish.

For 2 portions

220 grams broad beans

3 eggs

1 -2 tablespoons of olive oil

small bunch of mint – finely chopped

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Blanch the beans by pouring boiling water over them and leaving them to steep for five minutes. Drain.

Break the eggs into a bowl and beat lightly to mix.

Add the beans and mint. Season well with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a small non stick pan. When hot add the egg mix, turn the heat low and cover.

After about five minutes of cooking check how the omlette is cooking. With a spatula pull the egg slightly away from the sides and towards the middle.

Cover again and leave to cook for a few more minutes.

Once you can see that the tortilla is cooked at the edge, but not quite cooked through in the middle, its time to turn it over.

With a spatula make sure that the tortilla is loose from the pan. Put a plate over the pan and in one quick movement invert the pan over the plate.

Return the pan to the heat and add the other spoon of oil, slide the tortilla back into the pan to cook the second side. This will only take three to four minutes.

Turn the tortilla onto a plate and enjoy with a fresh salad….or two.

Patatas a lo Pobre – Poor Mans Potatoes – with Broken Eggs – con Huevos Rotos

17 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in breakfast, Food for One, Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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This is a very common dish down here in Andalucia, especially at this time of year when, in the old days, the ingredients for it were pretty well all that was in the larder. Potatoes, good olive oil, onions, garlic and green peppers. It can then be fortified with whatever you have, chorizo, fresh sausages, a slice of pork, or my favourite, eggs, or if you are really hungry, all of those.
All sorts of other ingredients can be added to this basic recipe to vary it. Mushrooms work well, red peppers of course, olives for a different flavour.
Per person you want

150 grams more or less of waxy potatoes – scrubbed and cut into thickish slices

1/4 of a large onion – cut into slices

2 cloves of garlic – cut into thin slices

1 green horn shaped pepper – cut into bite sized pieces

extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

one or two free range eggs

Traditionally the potatoes are fried with the rest of the ingredients from raw, but as you have to use a generous amount of olive oil to ensure that they don’t stick in the pan, I prefer to par boil them for five to seven minutes until half cooked, then I drain them and put them to one side while I cook the rest of the ingredients. You can do this or go the traditional method, the choice is yours.

Put two tablespoons of oil into a shallow pan, add the onions, garlic and green peppers. Fry on a low heat stirring regularly, until lightly browned at the edges.

Add the potatoes and continue frying and stirring, adding more oil if you think you need to.

Season well, and continue cooking until the potatoes are cooked.

Either poach or fry the eggs.

Serve the potatoes with the eggs on top cutting into the eggs so that the lovely warm yellow yolks dribble into them.

Enjoy!




Market Day Salad Nicoise

12 Tuesday Oct 2021

Posted by in Fish, Main Courses, salads, Shopping, Vegetable Dishes

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Sometimes when food shopping most of the elements of a great recipe just happen to appear before you. In this case, picked this morning french beans, bright green little gem lettuce and fresh from underneath the hen free range eggs. A salad Nicoise is asking to be made. There is no fresh tuna, which I would normally use, but lovely big prawns will do nicely for the fish element. Southern Spain is the land of the tomato, so super tasty tomatoes are always plentiful.

I prefer poached eggs to boiled, I like warm yolks to dribble over the salad, and a vinaigrette dressing to mayonnaise, so here is my version of Salade Nicoise.

Per person

lettuce leaves

1 or 2 tomatoes – chopped

French beans – top and tail them and cut them into about 3cm lengths, then blanch them in boiling water for two or three minutes. Drain and leave to cool.

1 tablespoon corn kernels

1 clove of garlic – chopped

olive oil

7 large prawns – peeled

2 large free range eggs

For the dressing

1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon white wine/cider vinegar

pinch of sugar

Firstly mix all the dressing ingredients together thoroughly. You can put them all in a little jar and give it a good shake. Put to one side while you assemble the salad.

Lay the lettuce leaves on a dinner plate to make a bed for the rest of the ingredients. Strew over the tomatoes, beans and corn.

Heat water in a small pan for poaching the eggs.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a small frying pan and add the chopped garlic, fry for a minute then add the prawns. Fry gently until just cooked through. Add to the salad with the cooking juices and garlic.

Poach the eggs, drain and lay on the salad.

Spoon over the dressing, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve with fresh crunchy bread.

……….More Cheek!

04 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by in Main Courses, Techniques

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Following on from the previous post, when you serve the Pork Cheek Stewed in White Wine with Wild Mushrooms remember to leave yourself a bit in the pan so that you can behave like a proper Bourgoine and treat yourself to Oeuf Murette or Baked Egg with Pork and Mushroom Gravy.

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During the lunch where I served the Cheeky casserole, we were discussing the merits of this cut of meat, and my friend Jane recounted how she not eaten the cheek stewed before, but had been served it in a local restaurant, butterflied open and grilled. So I thought I would give it a try.IMG_0881

I slice the meat across to be able to open it like a book, and then gave each piece a good hammering with the smooth side of the meat tenderiser.

I then made a salt marinade by crushing a clove of garlic in the mortar with half a teaspoon of salt and a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper. Coat the meat in this and leave to further tenderise for several hours.

Grill and enjoy. It was super succulent and tasty.

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Eggs Baked with Tomato, Ham, Asparagus & Chorizo

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses

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Some of the most memorable dishes that I have tasted in Spain have been found in unprepossessing little restaurants in small villages while touring around the country. In Alicante province, crisply roasted tender artichokes seasoned with garlic. In Murcia province, freshly boiled ham cut into thick slices and dressed with freshly ground black pepper, lemon juice and generous amounts of fruity olive oil, crusty chewy country bread on the side. Near Guadix, a heap of braised tiny wild mushrooms  that were such a taste explosion that I can’t recall the rest of the meal. En route to Cordoba, a delicate cold soup of garlic and creamed almonds.

And north of Seville, this starter of Huevos a La Flamenca. A base of freshly made garlicy tomato sauce, with strips of ham, chorizo, peppers and asparagus into which an egg is broken, then the dish is baked to cook the egg, or the pan can be covered on the stove and the eggs steamed to set them. It is served in individual earthen ware dishes. For those of us not out toiling in the fields all day, this is maybe too substantial a dish for a starter, and I like to serve it as a light lunch or supper dish with a green salad and warm bread for dipping in.IMG_0142

This is a perfect time of the year to be cooking this dish as the asparagus is just starting to come up, but there is not enough of it to make a dish on its own. On this occasion I have added some oyster mushrooms to the dish, just because they were in the fridge.

This looks best cooked and served in individual oven proof dishes, but if you don’t have them, you can cook it in one large dish and then serve it out.

For 4

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic finely chopped

Half a kilo peeled fresh tomatoes, chopped roughly / large tin peeled plum tomatoes / 400 ml passata

4 slices Serrano ham

6 slices chorizo cut in half

8 spears asparagus

4 large eggs or 8 small

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and add the garlic. Fry a few minutes until translucent.

Add the chorizo and continue frying until it is lightly browned.

Add the tomatoes and continue cooking on a low heat for ten minutes. If you are using passata then cook for five minutes only.

Blanch the asparagus by putting it in a bowl and pouring boiling water over it. Leave it for one minute and then drain.

Divide the tomato sauce and chorizo pieces between the four oven proof dishes.

Cut each slice of ham into three and lay in the dishes leaving the centre uncovered.

Lay two asparagus spears in each dish.

Break an egg or two into the centre of each dish, and put the dishes to cook in a hot oven, 180 C, for ten minutes or so until the whites of the eggs are just opaque and set. Bear in mind that the eggs will continue to cook in the dish.

Put a paper serviette onto each of your plates and top with the hot dishes of eggs.

Serve with a green salad and hot bread.