A simple but delicious Spanish dish that can be enjoyed at any time of day and that everyone will succeed with on the first try.
Spanish cuisine often stands out for its simplicity. This straightforward but delicious dish is a good example of that.
In Madrid, the restaurant “Casa Lucio” is famous for its “Huevos rotos”, which translated means “broken eggs”. With this short TV report you can get an idea of it.
Our version uses much less olive oil and should be a bit healthier overall. The central ingredients are potatoes and eggs, to which we would recommend onions (or as we do today: shallots). Everything else can be added or omitted to taste. For us, peppers and scallions are a perfect complement, plus this time we process a little leftover spicy chorizo.
We peel what needs to be peeled and cut not too fine pieces. Large potatoes are first cut in half and then into slices, which should not be thicker than 3 mm. By the way, how best to cut a bell pepper, we have explained here.
Then the potato slices and the onions are cooked slowly and for a long time over medium heat in a slightly larger but still reasonable portion of olive oil. Of course, since the potatoes are not precooked, this takes a while. You can speed up the process a bit with medium-high heat, but for optimal flavor we don’t recommend it. Too high heat would be a very bad thing, because the potatoes and onions would brown and burn before the potatoes are really cooked through and enjoyable.
The vegetables only need to be lightly turned every five minutes or so. It’s best to do it this way.
After about 15 minutes (on medium heat, on medium-high heat more like 10 minutes) add the chorizo and paprika. Now we also season for the first time with a few pinches of salt. If you use chorizo or ham, you will need less than if you cook with vegetables only.
After another 10 minutes or so, during which the pan is occasionally tossed, the potatoes are perfectly cooked and slightly crispy, while the other ingredients have developed their individual flavors. Now we also season with black pepper from the mill.
Then we take everything out of the pan, in which we sweat the garlic for less than a minute. In our version today, the spring onion was also added at this point.
Then everything is added back together and mixed.
Now comes what gives the dish the name “estrellados”: Crack one egg at a time – you should always do this on a surface and not on the edge of a dish, for example, because otherwise egg shell can get inside the egg, which neither tastes good nor makes hygienic sense. Then open the egg high above the pan, preferably 40 cm above, so that it partially breaks when it hits the vegetables. Those who speak Spanish and are interested in semantics will find more information here.
Now the eggs are also delicately salted. Finally, the whole thing is stirred with a wooden spoon just a tiny bit, so that egg whites and yolks and the other ingredients remain well distinguishable and each bite tastes a little different.
So simple. So delicious. For brunch, lunch or dinner.
Enjoy.
And may the taste be with you.
Ingredients (for 2 people):
Depending on appetite, approx. 300 – 350 g potatoes (waxy)
1 – 2 onions
4 – 5 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
4 eggs
Salt and pepper
Optional:
Bell pepper
Scallions
Chorizo or Serrano ham
