It was Saturday morning. Around 10:30. I was hungry. That gnawing hunger you get after you work and before you eat. Jess, my son, and I were on our way home from the hardware store. We had needed more lumber. More nails. Something like that.
As we drove the six-block stretch from the Home Depot to the Wendy’s, we conjured a brunch in our heads. A virtual inventory of our home fridge yielded a carton of eggs, a mess of baby mustard greens, and various nubs of cheese. I said that might make for a tortilla española, that Spanish-born omelet-meets-egg-casserole dish. Jess agreed. He thought there was a poke of sausage in a drawer, too. Problem was, we had no potatoes, which are pretty much elemental to a tortilla española.
That’s where Wendy’s came in. I thought about going to the grocery store and buying a potato, but, well, like I said, I was hungry. And I knew, even at this early hour, Wendy’s had already cranked up the fryer. A quick detour through the drive-through followed.
Back at home, I snacked on the greens as we assembled the tortilla. They were organic. And locally grown. With a spicy bite that reminded me of wasabi.
Jess snacked on the fries. They were oily on the outside, tasting of, say, canola. And they were cottony on the inside, tasting of something like Q-Tips.
Fifteen minutes after we walked through the door, I pulled our trashy tortilla out of the oven. Over platefuls of tortilla with buttered baguettes, Jess and I began scheming a soufflé made with a Frosty. Seriously, we did.
Trashy Tortilla Española
You can do this on your own; just trust your instincts. But if you want to follow our lead, here’s a guide. Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter a casserole dish or a cast-iron pan. Dump the fries in, removing any of those hard, splinter-sharp ones that collect at the bottom of the sleeve.
Beat eight eggs. Tear the greens into bite-sized pieces and submerge in the eggs. Fold in some shredded or crumbled cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Add a glug of Tabasco. If you have some sausage or bacon, fry, drain and crumble it in. If you don’t, no sweat.
Pour the egg mixture over the fries, pushing down on the fries to make sure they are submerged. Bake until the casserole poofs up and turns brown. Serve it up.
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