For 10 days of the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school, I was invited to join a group of 35 kids and 16 adults to France and Spain. It was a fantastic trip, despite the fact that I was such as crazily picky eater. To be honest, I don’t remember a ton about the trip (though I’ll never forget the time that one of the parents got really angry when we were all told that we had to move to the next site and their kids weren’t done getting their caricatures drawn), and I don’t remember a lot about the food.

But I do remember this really, really good potato dish we had in Spain. It was warm and comforting, and I sort of remember that we were in what seemed like a basement area of a restaurant, with dark wood tables, and jugs of water on the table. All I know is that it was the single best meal I remember having during that trip.

Every so often I’d think about finding the recipe for it, but I had no idea what it was called, or how I’d be able to find it. And besides, how could anything I make take the place of that unicorn meal I had way back then.

And then it happened – I went looking for Spanish recipes for the stay-cation, I found something called a Tortilla Española, an egg and potato omelette.

Of course, OF COURSE, I had to try it. And the aioli that was suggested.

Holy cow, was it good!

A couple of notes:

• It uses a lot of oil – A LOT. It doesn’t all stay in the dish, but it’s going to be a little disconcerting.
• It’s remarkably easy to shape while it’s cooking – easier than I expected. The problem is it getting too brown, as you can see. It didn’t taste burnt, but it was definitely a little over browned on the bottom.
• Doing the flip from the skillet to a plate took way more coordination than I had in me, so DH had to take over a bit there.
• The tortilla was good on its own, but the aioli really enhanced it! We’ll have to try that again, especially since it only took about 4 minutes.

The first bite sent me right back to that teenage summer – it was exactly what I remembered!