Name: Patatas Bravas
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Spanish
Ingredients: 4 Potatoes; 4 tbsp Olive oil; 1 tsp Salt; 2 tbsp Olive oil; 2 cloves Minced garlic; 1 tbsp Flour; 1 tbsp Paprika; 0.5 tsp Cayenne pepper; 1 tbsp Tomato paste; 1 cup Vegetable stock; Salt; 0.5 cup Mayonnaise; 1 clove Minced garlic; 1 tsp Lemon juice

Ingredients

4servings

Potatoes · about 600g4
Olive oil · for roasting/frying, generous4 tbsp
Salt1 tsp
Brava sauce
Olive oil2 tbsp
Minced garlic2 cloves
Flour1 tbsp
Paprika · pimenton, smoked is better1 tbsp
Cayenne pepper · for heat0.5 tsp
Tomato paste1 tbsp
Vegetable stock · or water1 cup
Salt · to taste
Aioli (optional)
Mayonnaise0.5 cup
Minced garlic1 clove
Lemon juice1 tsp

Steps

Peel the potatoes, cut into 2-3cm cubes, rinse in cold water to remove starch, and pat dry.
⏲ 5 min
Toss with olive oil and salt, then roast at 200C (oven or air fryer) until crisp outside and tender within, or deep-fry.
⏲ 25 min
Brava sauce: fry the garlic in olive oil, then add the flour, paprika, and cayenne and cook 30 seconds.
⏲ 1 min 30 sec
Stir in the tomato paste and stock, simmer until thickened, and season with salt.
⏲ 5 min
Make the aioli by mixing the mayonnaise with garlic and lemon juice.
⏲ 1 min
Pile the potatoes on a plate and drizzle with the brava sauce and aioli in zigzags.
⏲ 1 min
Dust with a little more paprika and serve hot.

Variations

Air fryer: Crisp at 200C for 20 minutes with little oil.
Adjust the heat: Dial the brava sauce with cayenne or hot sauce.
Without aioli: The brava sauce alone is traditional too.
Smoked paprika: Use smoked pimenton for a deeper aroma.

Tips

Rinse the potatoes to wash off starch for a crisper exterior.
Pat them dry before cooking so they don't turn soggy.
Drizzling both sauces — spicy brava and garlicky aioli — is the classic way.
Cook in plenty of oil at high heat so they're crisp outside, fluffy within.

More detail and the reasons why (4)

Why rinsing works. Surface starch gelatinises in the heat into a gummy film, and that film holds water against the potato — while water is there the surface stays pinned at 100°C and cannot brown or crisp (browning). Rinsed and patted dry, the oil drives the last moisture off at once. Gratin dauphinois is the dish that reverses it: with no flour, egg or cheese in it, the starch off the slices is the only thing holding the cream, so rinsing them ruins it. Papas arrugadas does not disturb the surface either, because there the skin is the finished surface.
The flour in the brava sauce is protecting the paprika. Pimentón scorches in seconds in hot oil and turns bitter (blooming spices), which is why polbo á feira never heats its oil at all and scatters the paprika raw at the end. Here it does go into hot fat — but with a tablespoon of flour soaking that fat up, and the tomato paste and stock arriving within thirty seconds. One spice, cooked in one dish and kept raw in the other.
The aioli in this recipe is a shortcut, and it is worth knowing what it stands in for. A Catalan allioli is garlic and olive oil and nothing else: why sauces split lists grated garlic among the weak but genuinely effective emulsifiers, and pounded to a paste it will hold the oil on its own. Mayonnaise brings egg yolk, the strongest emulsifier there is, so it cannot split — at the cost of tasting of egg rather than of garlic.
Do not stir the two sauces together, and add them last. One is water-based and hot, the other fat-based and cold; mixed they become a single pink sauce and the point of having two goes. And anything wet sitting on a crisp surface softens it within minutes, so both go on at the table (serving temperature).

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