I love Sunday breakfast at home, especially when I have nowhere to go. It can be relaxed. I can read Saturday’s papers and I can then move seamlessly into whatever other activity I have or haven’t planned for the day. I’m an early riser so, on the Sundays when it’s my turn to get the breakfast, I usually have quite a lot of time to myself before I bring Christine hers in bed (Brownie points acquisition strategy).
I had been talking about making Huevos Rancheros for ages, probably since the Irish Board’s office assistant Vicky bought me Rick Stein’s Mexico, a lovely thick recipe book with the most beautifully vibrant photographs. Given the advent of thebreakfastblog, Christine suggested that I make them and blog about it. So that’s what I’m doing.
Huevos Rancheros is not the sort of dish that you can rustle up in five minutes. It takes a bit of planning, firstly to assemble the ingredients and then, to make each of the components.
A portion of Huevos Rancheros comprises two corn tortillas, refried beans, Rancheros salsa, two fried eggs and a garnish of feta cheese and fresh coriander. I added a small side of guacamole, just because.
On Saturday I got the ingredients. Most were easily available but I went out of my way to get Jalapeno chillies from Evergreen on Wexford Street and corn tortillas from Picado, a delightful Mexican food shop on South Richmond Street. I had planned to make my own tortillas but, in the end, I decided I had enough to be doing putting the rest of it together.
Here’s most of the ingredients:
So, today, I started with the refried beans, chopping an onion, garlic and chilli, sweating the onion, throwing in the garlic and chilli and, finally, a small tin of pinto beans that I had roughly mashed.
While that was heating up, I turned to the salsa: another onion, four cloves of garlic, two Jalapeno chillies, a tin of tomatoes and a pinch of ground cumin. I blitzed them all in a blender and then poured the mix into a saucepan in which I had heated some oil, to reduce it a bit and concentrate the flavours.
Next I made the guacamole. I remember Rick Stein in his TV programme saying that there was no definitive recipe for guacamole and that it is often made simply from about three ingredients. His book, surprisingly, has a recipe with a long list of items, so I ignored that and simply mashed up a lovely ripe avocado with the juice of half a lime and a tiny bit of salt. Perfect.
Then I heated up my tortillas in a dry pan and popped them in the oven to keep warm; crumbled some feta and chopped some coriander for the garnish; and got the pan ready for the eggs. In went the eggs and, while they were frying, I made coffee.
And, voila – Huevos Rancheros.
A bit fiddly to make but more than satisfying to eat. Filling, with the beans and tortillas providing the bulk. Interestingly tingly, with the chillies in the beans and salsa. Unctuous, with the eggs. And the guacamole with lime juice provided a welcome sharpish freshness. Pleasing.
Lots of Brownie points from the Missus. And she got out of bed for this great breakfast!
Referring to Mrs, M comment, my Mrs. M would probably do the the same for such a wonderful breakfast……well done David…..keep them coming…..v
Thats brilliant. Always wanted to do these for breakfast
Mouth-watering!
Any suggestions about tortillas regularly available? And where did you get the refried beans (maybe you mentioned this so apologies if this is my oversight). And finally, quibble quibble, I reckon tinned cherry tomatoes give a much better flavour (SuperValu do a reasonably priced tin).
Picado (there’s a link in the post) has a mail order service and they do corn tortillas. Corn tortillas aren’t difficult to make. Maize tortilla flour and water. You don’t need a tortilla press just a bit of time to experiment with the consistency of the dough and the optimum thickness of the tortilla. As a bread maker you won’t need long to sort that out. The refried beans comprise a tin of pinto beans, onions, garlic and chilli. Method described in the post.