Recently I got back from a trip to Spain. It is a beautiful country, and you know while I was there I had to check out the food scene!
One dish I fell in love with (I think I had it at least once a day for the 9 days I was there), was patatas bravas. Think of it like a Spanish version of loaded fries. The potatoes are diced up and roasted, similar to home fries, and they come with two sauces. One is a slightly spicy red sauce that tastes of tomatoes and paprika, the other is a garlicky aioli (aka fancy mayonnaise).
The dish varies across Spain; sometimes the sauces are served on top of the potatoes, sometimes they are blended together, other times you dip the potatoes into the sauces. No matter which way you eat them, they are delicious.
I wanted to try to recreate the dish at home, so I looked for a recipe from the Catalonia region of Spain since I spent a lot of my time in Barcelona. I found this recipe here on Serious Eats from the “Barcelona Cookbook.” Pretty perfect, right?
Many of the ingredients it calls for are pretty easy to find, but some were not. For one, it calls for Spanish onions, which are fairly easy to find, but if not, you can use yellow onions as a substitute. Sherry Vinegar is another special ingredient straight from Spain. I could only find one bottle of this in the store, and it was not the cheapest. If you don’t want to shell out the extra dollars you can use rice wine/rice vinegar; according to the internet that is the best dupe. It also called for 35oz. of plum tomatoes. I used Italian tomatoes that were basically a San Marzano tomato knock off, which are a type of plum tomato (so close enough).
The one ingredient I couldn’t find, despite going to two rather bougie grocery stores, was the Spanish paprikas - Pimentón de la Vera Picante and Pimentón de la Vera Dulce. So I just substituted regular paprika, and a little bit more cayenne pepper, but I think this was a game-changer.
The final dish was delicious. The potatoes turned out great, the sauces were the right consistency, and the general flavors were all there, but something was a little off. It just wasn’t quite the same flavor I remembered. My guess is it was because I didn’t have the right paprika. So next time I plan to pay Bezos and order it off of Amazon.
To see my full cooking experience and my advice for if you are going to try this recipe, watch the video above. If you want to try the dish without all the hassle of making it, they make an excellent version at La Feria in Detroit.