Patatas Bravas

[ludja]

The Wall Street Journal has an article posted on Patatas Bravas which discusses the classic and some new versions of the dish that higher end restaurants are expermeinting with. Here's the link to the article: click

(It doesn't appear to need registration but I don't know how long it will be available...

t's one of the country's most popular dishes, and it doesn't seem like much more than glorified French fries. The dish, patatas bravas, is cubes of fried potato served with two sauces -- one red and spicy and the other white and infused with garlic.

But patatas bravas, which roughly translates as wild potatoes, holds a high place in Spanish gastronomic lore. In a country whose national cuisine includes hundreds of varieties of finger food known as tapas, bravas is becoming the gourmand's benchmark.

Also they list some good places to have the dish in Spain:

Bar Tomás; Calle Major de Sarrià 49, Barcelona

Possibly the best in Barcelona -- and even Spain -- with great tapas and quick-witted waiters.

Mussel Bar; Navarrería 12, Pamplona

Large plates of spicy potatoes are washed down with half-gallon jugs of beer.

El Museo de las Patatas; Calle Ferrocarril 21, Madrid

A museum in name only, where the featured exhibit is not a Picasso but a potato.

Bar La Manchega; Calle Diamante and Av. Doctor Fedriani, Seville

Waiters take orders then yell from the bar when the garlic-heavy bravas are ready.

Artajo; Calle del Músico Ledesma 7, Bilbao

Situated in San Sebastian's neighboring Basque city, the bar is known for spicy bravas and stuffed spicy mussels.

Also mentioned in the article is this website devoted to the dish! click

The website is in Spanish (which I don't speak) but it looks like it is a site for people to report on their patatas bravas discoveries around all of Spain.

I've only had patatas bravas stateside, but they are a favored tapas dish for me. I've usually just had it with the hot, spicy "red" sauce. The article mentions that in Spain it is often (always?) served with a white garlic sauce as well.

Edited January 22, 2008 by ludja (log)

[joancassell]

When I had it in Barcelona last June, it usually came with a red spicy sauce and allioli, which is the Spanish version of aoilli. Yum! If anyone's interested, I have a lovely, easy-to-make blender recipe for the alloili from Catalan Country Cooking, which I bought at the Torres winery (one of their daughters, who wrote the book, runs a Torres winery in California).

I'd much rather eat these local specialties than go out of my way to eat famous haute cuisine foam dishes. As they used to say in New England: Each to his own taste, said the old lady as she kissed the cow.

[Rogelio]

It's weird that they don't even mention Las Bravas, the bar where the sauce was invented, they even have the patent pictured in the wall, and is still the best place to sample them. There are three or four branches nowadays in the very centre of Madrid.

Also the article writes about the catalan version, including aiolly sauce to the traditional brava sauce. This are called patatas mixtas, not the proper bravas.

Also worth trying the ones at La tierruca, a funky spot in the wall in the Salamanca district in Madrid.

[pax]

When I had it in Barcelona last June, it usually came with a red spicy sauce and allioli, which is the Spanish version of aoilli.  Yum!  If anyone's interested, I have a lovely, easy-to-make blender recipe for the alloili from Catalan Country Cooking, which I bought at the Torres winery

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I would be grateful if you'd share it. I am flat on my back in bed eating bland foods, mostly, and this thread is making me eager to get the "all clear" from my surgeon.

[drosendorf]

In trying to find the appropiate place to post some of my comments from my recent Spain trip I came across this post. I didn't realize that Las Bravas in Madrid were not only specialists in bravas but the supposed inventors of the sauce. I did indeed like their sauce quite a bit, though I prefer my potatoes a bit crispier than theirs were. I did also quite like this painting on the wall there.

[vserna]

"In a country whose national cuisine includes hundreds of varieties of finger food known as tapas, bravas is becoming the gourmand's benchmark."

The WSJ is a great newspaper, but when it comes to food and wine it often lapses into sheer foolishness.

This is one of those instances.

Also, they used to pride themselves on their solid reporting. The fact they didn't even mention Las Bravas won't enhance their journalistic reputation (but I reckon it won't hurt it much either - food and wine aren't hallmarks of WSJ coverage, as I mentioned...) By the way, there's a gimmick in the Las Bravas 'patent' - what this bar did, back in 1960, is register its name, so that no other Spanish bar may call itself 'Las Bravas'. But it certainly didn't obtain a patent for its recipe.

Bravas potatoes are a Madrid invention, and traditional 'bravas' are often found here. The addition of all i oli, popular in Barcelona, makes the result something else - but not 'bravas'.

There's an 'inventor' in Spain who has unsuccessfully attempted to patent a recipe. It's a pretty good one, though, so here it goes (large amount, of course - for bar use!):

Five liters mayonnaise, 100 grams garlic cloves, 100 grams hot 'pimentón' (paprika power), 0.2 liters tomato ketchup, two liters water. Blend together for two minutes.

[drosendorf]

By the way, there's a gimmick in the Las Bravas 'patent' - what this bar did, back in 1960, is register its name, so that no other Spanish bar may call itself 'Las Bravas'. But it certainly didn't obtain a patent for its recipe.

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I was curious about that - in the U.S., a recipe is generally not something which can be patented.

Five liters mayonnaise, 100 grams garlic cloves, 100 grams hot 'pimentón' (paprika power), 0.2 liters tomato ketchup, two liters water. Blend together for two minutes.

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That will indeed make an industrial size batch. Is tomato ketchup customary?

[vserna]

As you can see, it's a mere 200 grams in a seven-liter batch. My guess is that it's there basically for color.