I'm becoming increasingly enamoured with the concept of eating chillies at breakfast time. Both their vibrant hue and warm kick of flavour serve to wake me up in the morning and make me feel generally happy. Huevos rancheros is one of my favourite breakfasts, not only because it incorporates a good amount of chilli, but because it is sunny, warm and happy, and it tastes amazing.
This recipe is based on the one from Valentine Warner's The Good Table. I love looking at the recipes in this bright and appealing book, and this is the first recipe I tried. Valentine blended his tomato sauce, but I liked the idea of keeping it a bit chunky, mainly for texture (but also because blending things in the morning gives me a headache). His recipe includes refried beans and mine doesn't, just because I thought it didn't particularly need them.
Ingredients (serves 2):
2 tablespoons sunflower or vegetable oil, plus a bit more
1 small red onion, finely chopped
A good handful of fresh coriander stalks
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin (I used cumin seeds which I roughly bashed)
Can of chopped tomatoes
100ml water
1 small red chilli, finely chopped
Juice of 1/2 lime
Salt and pepper
4 corn tortillas
4 free range eggs
Handful of grated Lancashire cheese
A pinch of chopped fresh coriander leaves
Method:
1) Heat a tablespoon of the oil in a saucepan and on a medium heat add the onion, coriander stalks and cumin, and stir.
2) When the onions are softened and translucent, add the tomatoes, water, chilli, and salt and pepper to taste.
3) Bring to the boil and simmer for about 12 minutes until the sauce is no longer watery. Add the lime juice.
4) Heat a dash of oil in a large frying pan and put in all four of the tortillas. They should go quite floppy in the heat, then once they're at that stage, keep turning them so they all directly touch the pan and begin to crisp up. Use your judgement as to how crisp you'd like your tortillas.
5. Once crisp, remove the tortillas from the pan and set aside. Heat up a tablespoon of oil in the same pan and fry the eggs. I like mine "sunny side up" with a nice soft yoke.
6. When your eggs are done, place them on the tortillas. Spoon over the tomato sauce and add cheese and coriander.
I can't tell you how amazing this breakfast is, especially with a Mexican lager. I know it sounds awful to drink beer with breakfast, but one nice cold beer won't hurt on the weekend once every now and then. And besides, posh people have champagne breakfasts, don't they?!
