huevos rancheros

i’m bringing you an egg recipe! a quick, delicious dinner, super-fresh tasting and good for ya.

eggs are the best, right?

eggs and i have a special relationship. a relationship in which i absolutely adore them, and they love me back. little nutritional gold-and-white nuggets of heaven that are beautiful, so tasty, and can become just about anything, take on any form.

i’ve sort of eaten more than my fair share of eggs in life. which has made me love them more fiercely. when i was 8, our family got our first 25 Wyandotte chicks (my sister and i named every single one); they grew into enthusiastic layers, and my mom has been an egg-pusher ever since. we ate so. many. eggs. poached, scrambled, eggs fried in the hole cut from a piece of toast, omelets, dutch baby pancakes, frittatas, puddings, angel food cakes… at times, our egg-eating family of six couldn’t keep up with supply and my mom would send me around the neighborhood laden with cartons to see who else would eat some. now, “sophie, do you need some eggs?” is one of my favorite things to hear Mom ask. her hens’ brown-shelled eggs frankly taste better than supermarket whites, and i love them. not that i dont buy the white ones, as well. i do.

i need a constant supply.

i am not above sloppy, short-order diner eggs and i don’t require skewered quail eggs from Ping to be happy (such a wonderful place on this earth), although they do make me happy — very. a slow-poached egg with a soft, chopstickable yolk like a warm hug adorning a huge bowl of ramen may be my favorite… but it’s really tough to beat a sunny-side up egg from one’s own stove.

–ok, recipe! my mom makes this dish sometimes when my husband and i go to my parents’  to eat, and i die of happiness whenever she does. she is an amazing cook, and her 3,597th crew of hens are still doing their thing out on the farm to contribute to dinner. huevos rancheros is a Mexican breakfast that rocks at being dinner. it showcases beautiful, luscious sunny-side up eggs served on crisp tortillas and piping-hot tomato salsa. like a breakfast taco, but more elegant. i listed this under Quick Dinners… because it is, but acting as breakfast, it also kills a hangover (not that i would know).

recipe from the late, great Gourmet Magazine

serves 4

 

*this recipe is dairy-free and gluten-free

• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 8 (5-inch) corn tortillas
• 28 ounce can whole tomatoes in juice*
• 1/2 cup chopped white onion
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro plus additional for sprinkling
• 1 tablespoon chopped canned chipotle chiles in adobo
• 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 8 large eggs

In a food processor, get the blade running and toss the garlic cloves through the shoot. This helps avoid any major chunks. Take the lid off, add the tomatoes and their juice, the onion, cilantro, chiles and salt. Run the machine until everything is smoothly combined. Pour into a skillet and heat on medium while you prepare the tortillas. Stir occasionally with a heat-proof spatula, scraping the bottom of the pan.

In a large skillet, drop a tablespoon of oil and heat on medium-high heat. Add two tortillas side by side and swirl them around the pan to coat with oil. Let them just barely turn light brown on one side, then flip. When the other side is light brown, remove the tortillas to a plate before they get solidly crisp. You want them flexible, but toasty-tasting. Repeat with remaining tortillas and keep warm in a 200-degree oven until serving time. Let your dinner plates take a short turn in the warm oven, too (nothing worse than a hot egg on a cold plate, right?).

In the tortilla’s skillet (heat should still be on medium-high), add 1 tablespoon oil and then crack four eggs — carefully, to avoid breaking the yolks. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and immediately cover with a tight-fitting lid. Turn the heat down to medium and let them cook until whites are just set and yolks are runny and jiggly… around 5 minutes. Keep these eggs warm on a plate covered with tin foil while you cook the last 4 eggs in the same manner.

Spoon a bit of the hot salsa onto a warmed plate. Top with two tortillas, about another 1/3 cup of salsa and two eggs. Sprinkle with cilantro, if desired.

*Ingredient note: canned whole tomatoes vs canned diced tomatoes. since everything is going to be pureed anyway, couldn’t we just use canned diced tomatoes? sure, absolutely. i think the reason recipes call for whole canned tomatoes — even if they will eventually be broken up or pureed — is an issue of quality. whole tomatoes are of better quality than the odds-and-ends tomatoes that get made into Canned Diced.

leftovers rating: A+

This is a make-to-order dinner, so for the two of us we only made four tortillas and four eggs total. The salsa, however, stored beautifully in the fridge and made a magnificent round two almost a week later, reheated and topped with freshly cooked tortillas and eggs. Yum! I also wouldn’t rule out dipping some tortilla chips in the chilled salsa…

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