Fusion Patatas Bravas is a spicy, tasty Spanish dish of potatoes, garlic, chilies, and tomatoes, Indianized in this recipe with the addition of cumin.
Ingredients:
- 20 or so baby potatoes (about 400g)
- 8 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ an onion, minced
- 2-3 dry red chilies, broken in half
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon red chili, ground
- 1 teaspoon paprika, preferably Spanish or Hungarian
- ½ teaspoon cumin, ground
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes (or 4 red juicy tomatoes chopped fine)
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 small bunch flat parsley, chopped, about 5 tablespoons
Instructions:
- Boil potatoes uncovered in a saucepan for about 16-20 minutes, or until soft. Cool and peel.
- Heat olive oil in a 10” frying pan on medium heat until hot and add garlic. Stir for about ½ minute. Add onions and whole dry red chili, and fry for another minute until onions turn translucent.
- Add potatoes, salt, ground chili, paprika, cumin, and sugar and fry for 2 minutes until potatoes are coated with spices.
- Add canned tomatoes and cook another 3-4 minutes, stirring. (If using fresh tomatoes, use juicy, ripe tomatoes and allow to cook 2-3 minutes longer until you get a thick sauce.)
- Remove from heat. Mix in parsley and serve immediately.
Critical Ingredients:
Patatas Bravas need potatoes! Traditionally, in Spain, the potatoes are fried, but I prefer to go easy on the oil, so mine is boiled. If you don’t have paprika, you can substitute in ground Kashmiri chili, which has slightly more heat. The sugar can be omitted. Olive oil can be replaced with any alternate flavour-less oil. Garlic, chilies, onions, and tomatoes are critical to the dish. Cumin is just my personal preference, perhaps a result of my Indianized taste buds! Flat parsley is so much prettier, but really no bias against curly!
