Huevos Rancheros

Hello! Today is a good day. Why? Because we got a new cookbook! And it's our favorite, Rick Bayless, second Mexican cookbook, More Mexican Everyday. (You know the ONE I SCREAM at you to buy all the time!) *updated with new photo on 3/13

So we made this a couple weeks ago when we had no food in the house. Somehow we realized that we had the ingredients for this and we had been dying to make it. Fast forward to last weekend, we made it for a second time.

It's been a SOLID home freaking run both times. It's so good. SO GOOD. And to make it even easier, we use a can of fire roasted tomatoes for the salsa, not fresh tomatoes. Try it! 

Rick Bayless’ Huevos Rancheros

Tomato salsa:

1 pound ripe tomatoes (about 2 medium-to-large tomatoes or 4 to 5 plum tomatoes)

3 garlic cloves, unpeeled

1 to 2 small fresh jalapeño chiles, stemmed

1/2 small white onion, sliced 1/2-inch thick

1/4 cup water, or as needed

3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Huevos:

8 corn tortillas, preferably from a local tortilla factory

Vegetable or olive oil

8 eggs

1/4 cup water

2 cups roasted tomato salsa

1/4 cup crumbled Mexican queso fresco or other fresh cheese, such as feta or goat cheese

1 handful cilantro leaves

1. Heat the oven broiler, adjusting the rack as high as it will go. Spread the tomatoes, garlic, jalapeños and onions on a rimmed baking sheet. Slide onto oven rack and broil until tomatoes are softening, blackened and blistered on one side, about 6 minutes, then turn everything and roast the other side. The tomatoes, garlic and chiles should be soft to create the best texture and flavor in the salsa.

2. When cooled, roughly chop the chiles (no need to remove the seeds), slip off and discard the papery skin of the garlic and peel off most of the skin from the tomatoes. In a 3-cup capacity mortar or molcajete, crush the garlic and chiles to a paste, then one by one, add the tomatoes and crush them into a coarse paste, adding any juices from the baking sheet. (Or pulse the garlic and chiles in a food processor until finely chopped, then add the tomatoes with any juices from the baking sheet and pulse a few times until you have a coarse puree.)

3. Scrape the salsa into a bowl. Chop the roasted onion into 1/4-inch dice; stir into the salsa. You may need to stir in about 1/4 cup water to give it an easily spoonable consistency. Taste the salsa and season with salt.

4. Spray or lightly brush both sides of each tortilla with a little oil. Stack them, place them in a plastic bag, fold it over and microwave the tortillas at 100 percent for 1 minute. Let stand for a minute to uniformly absorb the heat.

5. In a 12-inch heavy skillet (preferably nonstick), add enough oil to coat the bottom, and heat over medium heat. When the skillet is quite warm but not smoking, crack in 8 eggs. Sprinkle eggs generously with salt and let them cook slowly, lowering the heat if necessary, until the whites are set but the yolks are still bright yellow and runny, about 6 minutes.

6. When the eggs are ready, open the bag of hot, soft tortillas. Place 2 tortillas, overlapping, on each of 4 warm plates. Top each plate with 2 eggs. Immediately return the skillet to high heat and add the roasted tomato salsa. When it comes to a boil, stir in a little water, if necessary, to give it a saucy consistency, then spoon the sauce over the eggs, leaving the yolks exposed. Sprinkle with crumbled cheese and cilantro leaves.

Don't worry, Kate just had plain, cooked through eggs. :) 

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