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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.
