Español!

I have to say that Spain is absolutely one of my favorite places to go to in Europe! I've been to Barcelona twice and it gets harder each time when I have to fly back home. People over there are super friendly and the restaurants and cafes are just cozy that you fit right in. 

I just LOVE food and one thing I make sure I do when I travel is of course indulge myself in local cuisine. As many of you know, Spain's most known dish is the paella (it's not really their national dish though); it's mainly rice with lots of different sea food tossed in like shrimps and mussels, sometimes beef and vegetables too. It may not look all that enticing to some of you but it tastes A LOT better than it looks so you have to give it a try if you ever get the chance. 

Also, they're very known for tapas, which basically are appetizers. They put a lot of thought into their tapas and some bars even serve them with your drink, and there are restaurants just for tapas. One of my absolute favorites was patates bravas (Spanish for fierce potatoes); it's basically boiled potatoes covered in spicy tomato sauce. And I've been craving them ever since! So I found this little recipe that can help me (and you) to have patates bravas anytime! This definitely trumps fries and ketchup!

I love this restaurant! It was really warm and cozy and we felt right at home. 

Patatas Bravas ingredients:

(for approximately 6 tapas portions)

1½kg of peeled potatoes
Olive oil to fry the potatoes in

Bravas sauce:

1 onion finely chopped
1 clove of garlic also finely chopped
6 ripe tomatoes chopped - about 600g
1 teaspoon of sugar (optional)
3 dried chillis
1 or 2 teaspoon of hot paprika - depends on how spicy you like your food
1 level soup spoon of plain flour
approx. 200ml of water
1 teaspoon of sherry vinegar or wine vinegar
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

Peel the potatoes, chop them into smallish chunks and boil them for about 5-10 minutes in salt water.  Then leave them to cool.

For the bravas sauce fry the onion, garlic and the dried chillis gently in some olive oil until the onions turn transparent - this should take about 10 minutes.  Then remove from the heat, add the paprika and stir this in.  Add the chopped tomatoes and the sugar, return the mix to the heat and simmer gently for about 5 minutes.  The sugar is added to take any bitterness out of the tomatoes - this is optional as you may find it too sweet with the sugar.

Mix the flour with some water and then stir this into the sauce, add the 200 ml of water and leave to simmer for about 15 minutes to reduce the sauce.

Now you should blend the mix either in a food blender or using a hand held blender.  Once you've done this pass the mix through a sieve to remove the tomato skin and seeds.  You should then end up with a nice thick bravas sauce.

Enjoy!