Tuesday 19 July 2011

Leftover patatas bravas


Or, to be more accurate, leftover roasties given the patatas bravas treatment ....

Here's how it came about. We roasted a chicken last night with some new potatoes, rosemary and garlic having started a meal with a green bean and tomato salad. I had two large roast tomato halves left over plus some roasted garlic cloves and enough potatoes to feed four (although I have to admit we managed to demolish them between the two of us which wasn't exactly healthy or frugal).


It suddenly occurred to me that I could make patatas bravas by reheating the potatoes (easy in the Aga but I could have dry-fried them over a low heat) and making a spicy tomato sauce based on the tomatoes and garlic.

Only I thought it needed a bit more garlic so I heated some olive oil, and fried off a large crushed clove of garlic over a gentle heat. I added a good teaspoonful of sweet pimenton, fried it for a few seconds then tipped in the tomatoes, having first removed the skins along with the roast garlic, jellied chicken juices, a squeeze of harissa paste and a good seasoning of salt. I cooled it for 5 minutes or so then blitzed it in a food processor, reheated it and poured it over the potatoes.

And that was that. It occurs to me that you could equally well use this 'brava' sauce with frozen chips or sauté potatoes or make it with tinned tomatoes if you haven't got any ready-roasted. And you could, of course, use hot pimenton, chilli sauce or cayenne pepper instead of the harissa but it does need that spicy kick.

One of those dishes that tastes much, much better than you'd expect. I'll be doing it again.

5 comments:

Robert said...

Tesco sells patatas bravas from it's tapas range for £2.49 in a small pot. It's odd really... I shall use this recipe when I have some leftover chips from the chippy. As the sauce will help to disguise the unappetising looks of reheated chips!

Fiona Beckett said...

It really doesn't work when the sauce and potatoes are heated together, does it. Potatoes must be crisp then sauce poured on top. Like ketchup.

Robert said...

I agree fiona... Tesco was a bit soggy. I've been to La Tasca which serves it up for £5 for a extra large portion. Anyway Tesco also sell jars of the sauce to pour over but it's £1.95. Hardly frugal!

Natalie said...

Hello

I love the idea of using left overs as they make the tastiest dishes. This week I wrote a post about some Patatas Bravas that I had recently made. I hope you don't mind but I put a link to your post on my site.

Thanks - Natalie.

Fiona Beckett said...

Of course, not Natalie. Thank you very much :)

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