Stuff Catalans Do: Tombatruites

Tombatruites

Making a truita (trooEETeh) de patates (Spanish omelette) is dead easy.  You fry the diced potatoes in olive oil till soft. You beat the eggs in a bowl, with salt. You add the eggs to the pan and cook the mixture on one side. And then you flip it over – and end up with a half-cooked mess splattered all over the hob,  the floor, and your shoes, and hot oil dripping down your arm.

You need a tombatruites.

The tombatruites (literally omelette-flipper) is a large glazed earthenware plate, with a large knob on the underside specifically designed to grasp while you deftly turn over those huge six-egg jobs that are too big and heavy for any of your normal plates.  And it doubles as a nice platter for serving tapas, canapes, cakes and so on.

Truita

In my early days in Catalonia I was completely bamboozled by a conversation between friends about ‘truites de riu.’  I knew that truita meant omelette (Castilian tortilla), but what the hell was a river omelette? Only much later did I find out that una truita de riu is a trout.