Huevos Rancheros

Last week the kids and I ate breakfast at a local place in my hometown. I don’t generally order Huevos Rancheros, but the extended Ramsey family is not into heat as a flavor and I was missing some excitement on the palate. I enjoyed the breakfast immensely and started poking around for a recipe to try at home. Thanks to the recent snow, wind and miserable temperatures, I found some time to give the dish a try this morning and was pretty pleased with the results. Here goes:

Sauce:

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• Three small onions, chopped
• Two bell peppers, chopped (I picked red and yellow)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 14 oz cans of diced tomatoes
• 1 12 oz can tomato juice
• ¼ cup water
• fresh cilantro

The fixings:

• 2 eggs
• 2 small tortillas
• refried beans
• sour cream
• guacamole
• pepper jack cheese

In an 11-inch sauté pan, I warmed a couple teaspoons of vegetable oil while chopping the onions and peppers. They went in the hot skillet and softened for about 8 minutes. The cumin, salt, cayenne, jalapeno, and garlic went in next and I stirred to mix for about 30 seconds. Then I added the tomatoes and cooked for about 2 minutes before adding the tomato juice and water. Finally I brought the whole pan to a simmer and reduced for 20 minutes or so.

Once the sauce reached my desired consistency, I transferred to a dish and stirred in a handful of chopped, fresh cilantro.

Then I warmed the beans and tortillas while frying a couple eggs. To assemble, I placed a warmed tortilla on a plate and spread with beans, adding a layer of the ranchero sauce and then the eggs. To garnish I added a dollop of both sour cream and guacamole and served with a second tortilla and a bit of shredded pepper jack cheese.

A good breakfast for a cold morning…well, perhaps a good breakfast for a cold noontime meal. There is quite a bit of the sauce, enough to serve 8 or so. Tonight I plan to smoother a pork chop with the spicy sauce. In the future, I’d like to roast the vegetables for a deeper flavor. I’ll report back with significant improvements. Eat on.