Tasty Tapas - Our Spanish Saturday Night In

Partying clearly doesn't really happen in our house! We had a sociable Saturday night in with girls from our course, and as three out of the five of us (not me) study Spanish, what better way than a tapas night? We decided we would put together a dish per person, so we each had something to make/bring.

We checked out Hannah's 'Little Tapas Book' for some ideas, and decided on patatas bravas (potatoes) and a tortilla (Spanish omelette) with aioli/allioli/garlic mayonnaise/whatever you fancy calling it. We also had garlic prawns, chorizo, queso manchego and some lovely bread. We didn't need anything else!


I felt like being fancy, and decided to brave making the aioli (I have been in France, so am sticking with its original Provencal name), and it gave me another chance to crack out my KitchenAid. The only thing wrong with it is that it tasted a bit too oily, so next time (there will be one!) I will use a milder olive oil so the flavour isn't so overpowering.

Pre-whisking

Aioli - Allioli - Garlic Mayonnaise

• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 egg yolks (use the whites for extra in your tortilla!)
• 250 mild olive oil
• Juice of 1 lemon

1. Crush (or in our case with no garlic press, chop as finely as you can) the cloves of garlic, and mix well with the egg yolks and half the lemon juice
2. While whisking continuously, very slowly pour in the olive oil - I did this at a very fine drizzle pace, and knocked the speed up on the KitchenAid so that it all combined really well and emulsifies
3. If it gets too thick, add a bit more of the lemon juice (I ended up adding all, to mask the oily taste!)
4. Season well - I just used salt and pepper, but throw in some herbs if you fancy
5. Chill before using, we thought this would help it set a bit better due to a slight overload of lemon. It worked!

Despite the taste of olive oil, it actually worked really well and I was impressed! Plus, when eaten with the patatas bravas, you didn't even notice it.

Cooking the tortilla

While the tortilla cooked away, we settled down in front of Strictly Come Dancing, cheeky G&T in hand, and let Saturday night roll in.

Enjoying the dancing

The finished tortilla

We had a really lovely night, and got even more excited as the table kept filling up as we set it and added more and more dishes to it, I think it was as much as a feast to our eyes as it was to our stomachs!

The table was set

Potatoes, bread, cheese and chorizo were added...

Prawns were cooked, wine was poured

And then we ate!

Did I mention laying the table with all the dishes was exciting?!