Boy I love eggs. I hold the opinion that any meal can be improved by adding an egg. So what is better than an egg? Lots of eggs! That is why I was delighted to get a book entirely about cooking the humble egg for my birthday - Egg by Blanche Vaughan

This is the first recipe I cooked from it, and was on the occasion of joining a picnic where everyone brought a couple of dishes. Knowing some of the party were vegetarian I thought a tortilla would be a FatSteakClub-type contribution. I followed the recipe as in the book but used a few shortcuts and tricks of my own on the way…

Step 1 - Onions!

• Get the olive oil hot in a pan and then add the onions. Add a pinch of salt and keep stirring until they soften and then eventually caramelise (they should get golden coloured and sticky)
  Note: I stuck in an old red onion that needed using up, but I’d recommend just big white onions

• Top Tip: I did this in a separate, deep pan as the onions start big on volume and eventually collapse into the gooey sugary mess you want

Step 2 - Potatoes!

• The mandolin got a great work out in this recipe. After slicing the onions with it I then sliced the potatoes the same way (no peeling required) on the medium setting

• Rather than cook the potatoes in a pan as the recipe suggested, I went for speed and convenience and did them in my deep fat fryer in the sunflower oil

• Drain the potato slices when they are just taking colour. If you leave them too long you will get crisps

• Dry them on kitchen roll and season with salt

Step 3 - Eggs!

• To complete the dish get a deep frying pan, grease with the oil from the onions and get it on a high heat

• The recipe specified a 23cm diameter pan that is 5 cm deep. Mine was 24 cm and 4 cm deep and worked fine

• Mix the onions, potatoes and whisked eggs together with plenty of seasoning. Do it by hand as the recipe suggests. It is rather therapeutic

• Pour this mixture into the hot pan, turn down the heat and cook for a few minutes

• As the tortilla sets you need to keep turning it. This is done by placing a plate over the top, inverting the pan and sliding the upturned tortilla back into the pan. Do this several times for each side until the faces have a delicious brown colour and the whole thing feels set but not overly hard

• Top Tip: you should play Spanish guitar music during this part for perfect texture. I had some metal on in the background and it made the tortilla a tad heavy

Slice and enjoy warm, or as I did, cold the next day at a rather fine picnic.

Tortilla

• 6 tbsp olive oil

• 5 large onions (thinly sliced on a mandolin)

• 900g Charlotte potatoes (or other waxy type)

• 1 litre sunflower oil for deep frying

• 6 large eggs