Liam’s awesome Spanish roommate, Pablo, taught me how to make Tortilla Espanola.  Here is the recipe and some pics to help.

First Pablo had to clarify the recipe with his Mom….

This Tortilla Espanola a la Pablo recipe makes one large one, about 7 or 8 inches in diameter.  You will need:

• 3 Russet potatoes, peeled, sliced into 1/4 inch slices and quartered into little triangles
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• a handful of italian parsley, coarse chopped
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup neutral frying oil (canola, sunflower, etc.)
• 1 teaspoon salt and salt to season
• 3 or 4 eggs, beat
• around 1 tablespoon milk

The potatoes should be about 1/4 inch in thickness and then you should chop each slice into about four or six pieces.  You want the pieces to be about the size shown below.

Next, season the potatoes with salt and mix around to ensure they’re all covered with your hands.

Fry the potato slices in hot oil until they are a little soft to the touch.  As soon as you can press a fingernail into them easily, take them out.  Don’t fry them for more than 5 or 6 minutes.

Mix the egg, parsley, garlic, milk and fried potatoes together in a bowl and transfer to oiled and heated pan and cook over medium heat.

Flip once a bottom has formed by sliding it onto a plate and then sandwiching the plate over the pan and flipping.

Build up the sides of the tortilla with a spatula so that it gets a little thicker.  The goal is to make it as thick as possible.  Building up the sides is kind of cheating — you really should use a smaller pan.  Some tortillas are as thick as 4 inches… and they are cooked evenly!

Serve with TAPATIO.  Pablo loves Tapatio.

Thanks Pablo! See you soon.

In search of warmer weather, I headed to Malaga to visit a friend from college, Liam.  He works in the morning so I would wander around his hood and go to markets and buy food (for SO cheap) and come back and cook and attempt to chat with his Spanish roommate, Pablo.  We went to some incredible tapas places, the beach and walked around the touristy part of Malaga together.  Pictures after the jump!

At the market…

Later in the day:

We went to a cool little spot where each table had its own beer tap and you competed to see which table drank more.  Scores were tallied on a little digital display in the restaurant.  What a novel idea!

This was a great tapas spot…. and I can’t remember where it was or what it was called.

I guess Malaga is famous for a few things including Antonio Banderes and sweet red wine from a place called Malaga Virgen or something like that.  Doesn’t sound right but I think it is.  Anyways, the place is a fun spot and  you might just see someone famous.

Paella on the beach followed by the beach, churros and bowling, obviously, bowling.

Welcome to Amsterdam!  I took the Thalys train from Paris.  It was a quick, beautiful ride and there was free WiFi on the train, which I used to video chat with my parents as the weather outside went from nice and sunny to gloomy to torrential rain.

I went with my cousin, Tanguy from Paris and we stayed with other cousins in Amsterdam.  The weekend consisted of a lot of eating (obviously), catching up, hanging out with great aunts and uncles and exploring the weird and wonderful shops of the city.  I probably had pickled herring about 8 times, which works out to about 2-3 times a day.  We also visited the poffertjes stand a few times.  Poffertjes are like little mini pancakes slathered in butter and powdered sugar.  They are pronounced poferchers and they are incredible.  I love the language because it sounds like an alien language.  Luckily, almost everyone I needed to talk to spoke English perfectly.

I also experienced my cousin, Tanguy’s favorite Amsterdam food and dessert: croquette, which is fried mashed fish and something resembling egg cream, thick and sweet and served with sprinkles (below).

I spent a lot of time with my great-aunts and uncle, looking at pictures, asking questions about my family and catching up.  My great-aunt, (my mom’s, mom’s sister, showed me and my cousin lots of pics of the fam.

My other great-aunt fed me raw beef sausage!  It was my first time.  I will probably never eat it again.

We also walked around and went to the Dampkring to check out the scene and visit the site where a few minutes of Oceans Something was shot.

A very cool store to visit in Amsterdam is called Dom Kristian Jovan.  Some of the things that caught my eye, like a flower pot with a little miniature man holding up a little miniature woman, are below.

I went to the new Hermitage museum as well.  It was amazing – it contains just a tiny sliver of the artifacts from old royal Russia.  Definitely worth a visit.  I also though the bathroom there was very cool.

And of course, on my way out I had to have one last herring in the airport.

I stared out at the Fellini exhibit.  So worth it.  Definitely worth a visit if you’re there before February.  So many great photographs and fun facts.  Now I need to re-watch La Dolce Vida.

I had to make a quick stop at the world’s best industrial kitchen supply store, E. Dehillerin.  Didn’t buy anything but definitely cool to look and dream.

And the ferris wheel was done, with a VIP booth. Incredible.

And of course, back to Les Papilles for my last dinner with my cousins and his roomies.  The meal was amazing, again.  The same soup to start off, still incredible.  Next, veal braised carrots and onions served with rice.  The cheese was new and the dessert was also the same.  Definitely the right place to end my Paris experience.

Breakfast: Pan au chocolate and quiche with salmon and broccoli.  Must try to make this.

Activity 1: Gallery Lafayette to browse shoes.  Nothing found under 150 euro, not worth it.

Activity 2: Spent 3 hours in the Musée d’Orsay.  Definitely my favorite all-around museum.  I could spend a week there. In the train painting by Monet, the train station used to delay trains so he could finish his sketches and paintings. Some pieces I liked in particular:

Henri Edmond Cross - Les Isles d'Or - The Golden Isles

Monet - Le Fare Saint-Lazare

Hector Guimard - wild green chair - so Nouveau

Eugene Vallin - Mobilier de Chambra

And some things from the temporary, awesome Art Nouveau exhibit:

Art Nouveau at the Musee d'Orsay - giant fly and a green room

Art Nouveau at the Musee d'Orsa - Allen Jones chair

Art Nouveau at the Musee d'Orsa - Allen Jones table

Fantastic.  Then I met a friend, walked around and had a pâté sandwich. So heavy.

Later, the Paris Ballet in its last night. Box seats. It was actually quite good. Three acts, Ruby, Diamond, and something else.  The names don’t matter.  What matters was that I actually liked it! Wow, weird. Videos! Technology, wow. Also, the ceiling was painted by Marc Chagall. Really neat.

And after, we all watched France cheat Ireland out of a win.  Ahhh the Hand of God.

Next: Versailles for the rest of the day. Gigantic. Spectacular. Ridiculous. Gold. Complex. Cake.  I walked through the palace and gardens until the sun set.

And for dinner: Les Papilles.  This place was amazing.  The menu consisted of a zucchini puree soup with little bits of bacon or pancetta, delicious garlicky and crunchy croutons and a dollop of creme to served to the table in a big pot.  Main course, 11-hour braised beef served with onions, carrots and potatoes. Next, blue speckled cheese with a candied date followed by clementine and caramel pannacotta. For details (in French) refer to the pictures.

I think my favorite museum show ever is Monet’s Water Lilies in L’Orangerie.  Their intense and large size is balanced by their calming and euphoric subject.  Standing in each room surrounded by them feels like a dream.

I also enjoyed watching the construction of the ferris wheel progress while I was in Paris.  Here it is about halfway up:

Since I was in the neighborhood, I stopped at the new Apple Store in the Carrousel du Louvre to pick up the limited edition Louvre iPhone case.  The store is pretty sweet as well, the first in Europe.

Later I had a pretty poor excuse for a crepe at a restaurant across from the Pantheon and on our hungry walk home we passed a packed little bar with a little crepe window and decided to give it another shot.  We ordered a crepe with nutella and while we were waiting we looked inside and saw them frying up some zucchini.  I made the executive decision to go in and order some of that also.  We ate our crepe, then the zucchini and couldn’t stop.  We ordered an artichoke and once we had eaten all of the leaves, we returned it to the chef and he prepared the heart for us.  And of course more wine.  The bar is called L’Avant Comptoir (3, Carrefour de l’Odéon 75006 Paris) and it’s definitely worth a visit.

On the way over we saw this sweet shop that sells ball lights in various sizes.  The idea is okay but the presentation of the product is what’s most interesting.

Next we went to the Renoir exhibit at the Grand Palais.  The show is temporary and includes an incredible amount of his work and pictures of him in his studio and elsewhere painting.  There’s also a great video of him painting with his son.  If you’re in Paris NOW, you should definitely not miss this.

Later, Le Marais for a light salad dinner…. Nothing is ever light in France:

Next stop, the Musée du Quai Branly to see the Teotihuacán exhibit. The museum itself is exciting to look at, colorfully hovering above the ground on thick pilings and surrounded by overgrown, exotic grasses and gigantic-leafed trees.

Inside, it was equally as awesome: an inner column enclosed in glass containing the museum’s archives of masks, instruments, weapons, tools and other artifacts encircled by ramps and the exhibits.  The Teotihuacán exhibit was really interesting.  The tour took us through the ancient city and described its construction and many of the rituals that took place within it, including human sacrifice!  There was even an obsidian tool on display that was supposed to be the tool they would use to remove human hearts during sacrifice.  It also looked like it would make a great spatula.  Product idea?  We’ll talk.

The permanent shows were also very cool: lots of traditional garb, plenty of instruments, weapons and other stuff to satisfy my intense yearnings to see Asian and African cultural artifacts.

Later we went to explore the two Parisian “islands” Isle de la Cite and Isle Saint Louis.  We walked passed Notre Dame in drizzling rain to La Palette, a trendy, French celeb sighting Mecca in the 6^th, for drinks.  I introduced one of my cousins to the joy of mojitos as we waited for a break in the rain before moving on to Chez George, also in the 6^th.   Chez George is an ancient little bar with a great underground cave, dimly lit by red sconces and offering a glass of wine for two Euros.  Definitely fun, go early or wait in line for the downstairs.

Finally we made our way over to Braserie Lipp for dinner.  Lipp is a classic Paris establishment, serving rich Parisian basics.  I had duck confit and my cousin had ham with lentils.  Both delicious.  For dessert they made me eat a whole 1000 Feuilles which means a thousand leaves.  It’s basically heavy heavy cream and croissant outsides in layers.  Great but a recipe for disaster.

After quite a bit of wine the rest of the night seems like blur.  We went back to Chez George for another drink, a Mexican joint for something with tequila, and then met some friends my cousin and danced in a cave for a bit before walking what seemed miles home.

As usual, you can move your mouse over an image and let it hover for a second for more information about each picture.

We ate our little feast in Luxembourg Gardens, which after finding, was a wonderful place for a picnic. It was also sunny and nice and people were playing tennis and chess and relaxing in the sun. Or in my case, entering a food coma in the sun.