Kitchen Through The Lens: Patatas Bravas

Patatas Bravas

There are things I rip out of magazines knowing full well that it’s going to be rough to find time to make them because there’s no way my kids will like ’em. I realize that I tend to like a spicier sort of food than the kids do, which is why I decided to give this recipe a whirl while the girls were away.

Patatas bravas means “fierce potatoes” and the potatoes are fierce because of the red pepper. I’m guessing.

Also because you cook the potatoes in both butter AND olive oil and I read that thinking, “WHOA THERE COOKING LIGHT THIS IS HURTING MY ARTERIES A LITTLE.”

Anyway, patatas bravas is fairly easy to make if you don’t mind dirtying up EVERY FREAKING PAN IN YOUR KITCHEN.

Potahto

Start with potatoes. Baking potatoes.

potatoes

Cut ’em up. I cut them smaller than necessary. There’s a reason for this. You know what sucks? Potatoes that aren’t tender. I cut ’em up smaller, almost like some sorta potato hash thing to avoid crunchy potato syndrome.

You can follow the recipe – it’s fairly easy, you boil ’em, saute them in the butter AND OIL. Toss in some spices (FIERCE!)… and move on to the sauce.

The sauce? Also pretty easy – you’re going to dice up some onion and green pepper. Saute them in a bit of oil (Cooking Light likes oil), add salt, red pepper and tomato sauce. Toss it in the blender but make sure you vent the top or – OOF! Sauce EVERYWHERE.

Patatas Bravas

I’m not even gonna lie. I ate all those potatoes up there. And then some. I mean, shucks, this is an appetizer, really, and I called it dinner. They had a bit of a kick to them, but, fierce? Please. Carbs aren’t fierce. They’re happy and lovely and wonderful.

The sauce was pretty awesome too, and can I just say that if you’re going to eat a dinner of potatoes, the best thing you can possibly do is have a sauce made of green peppers and tomato sauce and onions because YOU ARE NOT JUST EATING CARBS NOW. No, NOW you are having VEGETABLES FOR DINNER. That’s not so bad, right?

Anyway, it was good. I used three separate pans to make this, though and that freaking sucks. None of those things go in the dishwasher. So, y’know, there’s the flaw in the plan.

But yum. SO. YUM.

About sarah

Sarah is a book nerd, a music lover, an endorphin junkie, a coffee addict. Oh, and a goof ball. She writes, she tweets, and she sings off key.

Comments

  1. This looks yum. I bet you could cut out a step though and make clean up a cinch. After cutting them up in the small pieces, I’d just toss them with a bit of olive oil and the spices in a bowl (or some melted butter too, if you’re wanting to stay true to the recipe), and then pour them onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake them at 375 for 35-45 minutes, and fall in love with them all over again, especially if the parchment did its job and you can just cool that pan and stick it back in your cabinet. 😉 (We do this for roasted potatoes when I’m making Greek, and it is perfect because it’s easy and lets me use that baking time for making the rest of the meal. The potatoes are crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. So yum.)

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