'Patatas Bravas' free-style :: Patatas bravas al estilo libre

There are so many places in Barcelona where you can eat great 'patatas bravas' (fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce). Bar Tomás is one of the most popular bars in the city to find this delicious dish. Actually people say it's the best tapas bars (sorry but if you want to eat proper great spanish tapas go to La Bombeta )

Anyways! What we want is to make our homemade patatas bravas and here I'm explaining the way I cook them and why I call them free-style.

Ingredients

•  250 gr of potatoes 
  
• 150 gr fried tomato sauce
• 1 garlic clove
• 40 gr of sugar
• 35 cl of olive oil 
• 15 ml of apple vinegar
• 5 gr of salt
• 5 gr of black pepper
• tabasco
• coarse salt   

Elaboration
First of all let's peel the potatoes and cut into pieces as you can see in the picture (about 5 cm long and 1,5 cm width). Take a pot, add water on it and boil the potatoes for 15-20' minutes approx. Strain the potatoes and cool them down a little bit while we make the easy 'brava' (spicy) sauce.
Choose a small pan and heat 5 ml of olive oil. Smash the garlic clove (I used 2 because mine where too small) and fried it for 1 minute. Right away add the fried tomato. Here you find the first ingredient that makes these patatas bravas free-style: I use fried tomato instead of natural one because it has got less water which means that it is more consistent and that you save time cooking it (because you don't need to wait till the water evaporates). 
And because you don't have to wait until it fries, keep adding the ingredients left. Add the sugar and mix it all together.

Then add my second free-style ingredient: the apple vinegar. The real recipe is made with sherry vinegar ( Vinagre de Jerez ) but, honestly, I barely use this flavoring so it's a waste of money buying it. However I found the perfect substitute which is the apple vinegar that you can daily use in your salads.
Then add the black pepper and the tabasco. I always use the same brand (I wonder if there are some other ones!) I can't tell you how many drops of tabasco you should add because it depends on how much you like spicy food. I suggest adding 2-3 drops, taste it, and keep adding if necessary. I added at least 6.

Mix all together and you are done with the sauce! (remember to take out the garlic cloves ;) 
Now get the potatoes and fry them with the rest of the olive oil at high power (because we want the sides to be crunchy)

And there you go! The final touch is adding some coarse salt directly on the potatoes. Serve the potatoes with the sauce on and you are ready to savor one of the most popular tapas in Spain!

Enjoy!!