Tortilla de Patatas

Okay, so I will be honest and say that I am not putting full effort in this b/c it is 1:48 AM and I have to wake up early tomorrow. You'll have to deal.


Okay, so last week was my last cooking class. We had normal class on Tuesday, which is when the class normally is held, but then we met again Thursday to take our final.
First, we showed up and instead of meeting in the kitchen as usual, we met upstairs in the second dining room, where we were given the test. We previously received a copy of the test so we could study, but the copy we had received had way more questions on it than the actual test.
This fake test we got also had tons of errors. All of the questions were in Spanish, and one question asked something along the lines of "What ingredient is indispensable in ajorriero" or something like that. Ajorriero, or so I think it's called, is made with ajo, or garlic, as well as about 2 pounds of cod. There are other things too. The answer options were: garlic, cod, onions, and cream. Obviously, if something is made with 2 pounds of cod and that is the main part of the dish, other than the garlic of course, wouldn't you think that was also indispensable? Anywho, I asked Patricia before the test and she said that it was in fact an error, since obviously you couldn't make a dish without the garlic or the bacalao. She told me not to worry since it wasn't on the test, though.


We got the test. The question was the first question on this test.

I called over Patricia and told her, and she laughed and said I could put A and B since they were both technically right.

We finished the test fairly quickly. One kid in our class (Alec) didn't answer the entire back side of the exam and instead wrote: "Touching squid in the kitchen last week was MY 'A'"

They graded the tests and informed us that we the class was pass/fail and we had to get a 15/25 to pass. Two people failed. The aforementioned kid was one of them. As well as another girl. All of which was announced to the class. Then, the chef guy continued to read every single person's name and grade they got on the test. I got a 21, so of course I passed. I thought it was completely rude, though, that he read out loud everyone's grades. The girl who failed (Annette), for example, is only in Track 2 Spanish, which is like the equivalent of the Spanish level I had in high school about 5 years ago. Therefore, a class completely taught in Spanish about Basque culture would be quite hard for her to follow. Then telling the entire class she failed is just over the top. She didn't even understand him when he said she failed. Because it was in Spanish. But still, her face turned completely red when she found out and I felt angry for everyone that didn't want their grade announced, however good or bad it was.

Anyways, we moved on downstairs, where we had put our Tortillas de patatas. We had to do this in groups of three or so, where we got together and made tortilla de patatas, which is basically a type of egg omelet with potatoes. We had to just do it for a grade, and then, for fun, they had a competition to see whose was best. We were told ahead of time if we didn't follow the basic recipe (eggs, olive oil, onions, and potatoes) then we wouldn't qualify for the competition, but we'd still get a grade on it. The one I made with Cassi and Alex Ireland contained the traditional stuff as well as green peppers and chorizo. We made an extra one for ourselves to eat before class and it was DELICIOUS. So we got to taste everyone elses and some were good, some bad. One group, with a student (Alex Plotkin) who is ambitious to be a chef, put caviar and other stuff on top.

After we tasted those, we sat down for our formal dinner of some veggie stew, duck(?) and salad. In our end of the table, someone found the bladder of the duck on the platter and we all decided to be "daring" and each eat a chunk of it. It was dry and mushy.
We finished the dinner with some kind of flaming dessert that they finished off before us, where they lit some liquid on fire and poured it on top. It was very...foamy. There was fruit as well as some ice cream, but the ice cream was similar in color and texture to the foam, so it was hard to pick that out (b/c the flavor was of course different, the ice cream being WAY better). Ryan commented that the foam part was like jacuzzi foam. The flavor and texture was dead on, which was quite gross.

After coffee, our chef-teacher dude as well as another cook from the kitchen and some dude we'd never seen before came out in the dining room wearing some funny beret-like hats and gowns. They then called our names in threes and each gave us a certificate of accomplishment. Then they announced the winners of the tortilla competition. Apparently the rules of the "traditional" tortilla didn't apply since a lot of people changed the recipe to their liking. He announced third, which was Alex Plotkin's group, then second, then first. Cassi, Alex Ireland and I won first place! Cassi was so excited, you'd think she won $500. We went up and they gave us these blue aprons to wear and we posed for pictures. Then they told us it's traditional in something like this that the winners sing a Bertso, or a freestyle Basque poem. Of course we couldn't do that since we can't speak basque, nor freesyle poetry, so instead we sang the only song we knew in Basque, the Basque numbers song. The chef and them knew the lyrics too, since for them it's like some children's song like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." We sang, everyone sang along, they clapped, and we got to keep the aprons.

That's right, people, a BASQUE GASTRONOMIC SOCIETY said that our tortilla WAS THE BEST.

And if you wanted to know what song it was, I happened to make this great video for you to enjoy.



And here's the link to our Cooking class's photo album...where they have not yet posted pics of our "graduation," but still you can enjoy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35262595@N02/sets/72157613605054986/