A delicious challenge arrived right to my doorstep, to re-create a recipe shared straight from page 60 of the Toronto Taste 2018 recipe booklet: Patatas Bravas, a recipe by Chef Ramon Simarro of Madrina.
The recipe is a potato-based dish which is stacked and tightly knit. My mandolin limited me to 2mm of thickness, which led me to really only recreate the actual dish while reserving all of the delicious flavours. Once stacked and salted, into the oven it went for 30 minutes at 350°C. After cooling, I weighed the dish down with cans over a layer of parchment paper, and added additional weight with a marble cheeseboard. After 45 minutes in the fridge, I broiled the potato dish for 10 minutes on low.
Throughout the process of the potato-making, I went onto the sauces. Oh, those delicious, addictive sauces (which I will absolutely make again). The first was a wasabi mayo, simply wasabi powder mixed with mayonnaise, as it’s only a two-ingredient sauce, there was a lot of flexibility to add further wasabi to our heat tolerance and liking. The second sauce was a tomato-sriracha onion confit that required 40 minutes of attention as per recipe, but I gave it 10 minutes (10g sriracha, 10g tomato paste, 8g sugar, 50g onion sliced thinly, 10ml olive oil and 5ml white wine vinegar – mix all together on medium heat, and mash with a spatula), and this did it!
The taste test: The final dish was fantastic, and checks all of the savoury boxes, with sweet, spicy, crunchy, salty & soft all at once. And I’m SO glad that the recipe was foolproof (we narrowed the recipe down from 6 hours to 1.5 hours), especially for a time-restricted fool like me. I would absolutely make it again as a potluck option – it’d be a winner, especially with the bravas sriracha sauce!
If there’s one food event you need to have lined up this June, it’s Toronto Taste – in support of Second Harvest! In it’s 29th year, Toronto Taste is the number one culinary event to attend, as it includes a many of Canada’s top Restauranteurs (including Alo, Bacchanal & La Banane!), and attendance contributes to a fantastic cause! This year’s Toronto Taste is on Sunday, June 9 and will be hosted at Evergreen Brick Works, unlimited access curated event, with a lineup of 50 of Toronto’s Chef and Restaurants, as well as 15 beverage purveyors.
Proceeds of the event go towards Second Harvest, Canada’s largest food rescue organization. The impressive organization works across the supply chain to re-funnel surplus produce, by ‘rescuing’ surplus food from food waste, and providing over 34,000 meals a day in Ontario. Learn more about Second Harvest here!
Interested in attending? Get your tickets to Toronto Taste 2019! Admission includes an all-inclusive food & beverage experience, with a $150 tax charity receipt.
