Simplicity is a great thing. All three people who may have been checking my page have probably noticed that, while tasty, the recipes I post aren’t exactly complicated. I like simple cooking, specially when it’s really really tasty. Not to put down more creative foods – specially from better cooks than myself -, but good simple recipes are very satisfying.

So, in that spirit, one of the simplest recipes I know, and one of the most popular and successful when I cook it for friends. Onion Tortilla, as in Spanish Tortilla – omelette -, and not the mexican one for making fajitas. What will we need?

What do we need?

• Onions.
• Eggs.
• Salt.
• Cooking oil.

That’s it.

No, seriously, that’s it. And what we don’t have in exciting ingredients, we make up in cooking! Chop up the onions in the following way: Remove the roots and top, cut across the onion – if the onion was the world, the roots would be Antarctica and you want to cut across the Equator. Then just slice the halves top to bottom. This is because the onion cells run lengthwise from the roots to the top, so slicing this way maximizes the cell surface you expose to the heat. You get more juices out, and the result is a better cooking!

Now, put a bit of oil in a deep pot – two or three spoonfuls -, medium heat, and in the onions go. Now, pay attention, you’re going to cook them slowly. And I mean it, slowly. You start at medium heat, then lower it to low. To know how low I mean, use your ear. You want not the typical sizzle of frying, but almost like the bubbling of boiling.

At first you have to stir and stir constantly, because you don’t want the onions at the bottom to burn while the ones at the top stay raw. Soon, they’ll start softening up and losing juices (see? Cutting lengthwise following my instructions pays off!) At this point you still want to stir, but doesn’t have to be constant. Cover the pot with a lid when not stirring. This is when you can lower the heat to the point you want it, with all the juice the noise will be more descriptive.

Keep stirring until the juices are mostly gone – we’re talking between half an hour and an hour here , or more if you have more onions -, you’ll be down to frying again. Keep the heat low, and stir more often, because at this point the onions may burn, and we don’t want that! You’ll be ready when your onions look like this.

Don’t overdo it, the onions are nice and soft and slightly brown, but not crunchy or burned. Now, get them on a strainer and drain all the oil and juice left. After they are drained, you mix them with enough beaten eggs (in my example, I used about 2 kg of onions and 6 eggs), add some salt if you want, then into a pan with a little oil and heated enough.

Now, to cook the tortilla, I recommend the following procedure. First off, you have heated the pan and a bit of oil – good heat this time. When you add the egg/onion mix, start by pushing the egg to the center from the bottom, and flip the bottom of the center so that it doesn’t burn. You want to solidify the egg a bit at first. After that, let it sit a bit, and with a plate, flip it!

So flip it! And flip it, and flip it, and flip it again. The more you flip it, the better, because that way you get the whole tortilla to heat up, and the inside cooks properly without burning the outside. Flipping often improves the tortilla! Also, give the pan a circular motion so that the egg won’t stick. Even with a teflon non-sticky pan this helps.

The result? A beautiful, and surprisingly, impressively tasty Tortilla! Seriously, this is delicious, just a lot of work.

Let it cool a little before serving, so that the egg will set well. Goes well with just about anything!

Have a wonderful meal, trust me, you’ll love it.