Ranch-Style Eggs with Tomato-Chile Sauce: Huevos Rancheros

I had to do something with all of that salsa. I'm not really a huge fried egg fan, but this looked like a good weekend breakfast. I apologize in advance for the blurry pictures, but there was a lot to do at once with this dish, even though there were not many ingredients. I didn't have a lot of time for photography. Maybe they can go here, along with the nude women and businessmen (whether walking exuberantly or not). Here's the mise:

As I said, pretty simple. Just some eggs, queso fresco, some old corn tortillas, and about a cup and a half of the salsa. First, I warmed the salsa in a saucepan (not even a blurry picture of that, but it looked pretty much like the last picture from the salsa post). Meanwhile, I fried the tortillas - in vegetable oil, not lard, for once - for a few seconds on each side, just to warm them up:

Next, I fried the eggs, two at a time:

I added salt and pepper to the eggs and moved them to a cookie sheet, where I held them in a low oven along with the fried tortillas to keep them warm while I fried the other eggs. For plating, I added a tortilla to the plate, topped it with two of the eggs, and spooned the salsa over the eggs. Then I sprinkled on the queso fresco and some chopped parsley:

This dish was really good. I'm not sure it converted me to fried eggs, but Katy loved it. I think this and the fish baked in cornhusks are her two favorite dishes, even with the mole. She mentions this dish to people a lot, and even people I barely know ask me about it. I call that a success.

Sources:
Queso fresco from La Vaquita
Tortillas from El Tiempo Market
Eggs from Central Market

Quick-Cooked Tomato-Chile Sauce: Salsa Cocida de Jitomate

One of the best things about this project has been the salsa. We have found some good jarred salsas that we like, but fresh salsa is far better than even our favorites. This is the first salsa I made, and I like how simple the recipes are so I can make all sorts of adaptations. I am still trying to match the salsa verde from the taco truck by our house - I know it has poblanos, so I have been making a bunch of different poblano-based salsas to try out different flavors. It's fun, and they have all been delicious (although sometimes a bit too hot).

Enough about that, on to this salsa, a red salsa. Here is the mise:

It's quite simple: just some canned tomatoes (or fresh tomatoes if you prefer and if they are in season), a few serrano chiles, and chopped onions and garlic. Because I was using diced canned tomatoes, I did not have to chop them up. All I had to do was chop the serranos:

Not much to it. Then I put everything in the blender:

I pureed everything until it was mostly thinned out, but there were still some chunks for texture:

Next, it was time to fry the salsa. I put some lard in our medium skillet, and heated it over medium-high heat:

When it was hot enough to make a drop of the salsa sizzle, I poured the entire carafe into the skillet:

Stirring constantly, I cooked the salsa until it thickened and changed to a more rusty color:

That's it! It was quick and very easy, and it made a ton of salsa (more than two cups) that we used on a bunch of different dishes. It's flavor is so much better than jarred salsa, and it is easy to make variations on the salsa (some of which are in the book) because it is so simple. We rarely eat jarred salsa anymore unless I am lazy, which is very nice.

Sources:
Tomatoes from Muir Glen
Everything else from Central Market

Cold Chicken and Avocado with Chile Chipotle: Pollo, Aguacate y Chile Chipotle en Frío

So, it’s summer. I made this quite a while ago - I just haven't gotten around to writing this post - but it already felt like summer here when I made this dish. This is a nice cold salad for summer dinner. It will definitely be entering our rotation. Here is the mise:

I had poached some chicken breasts the day before for another dish, and I had these left over. I know, it’s not a whole chicken, but we have to eat the chicken breast from our freezer at some point. The bread is not really an ingredient – we just served it alongside, but I really like my ciabatta, so I put it in the picture. The ramekin has a bit of the poaching liquid used to poach the chicken, so it was like a light chicken broth. The recipe calls for a slice of onion broken into rings for garnish, but I forgot to do that, so I just reserved some of the diced onion. The lettuce is from a friend of my sister-in-law’s mother-in-law (does that make me her fourteenth cousin, once removed?), who grew it in her garden. Thanks! You can see the cook’s glass of wine off to the side – not Gewürztraminer like Bayless suggests, but a decent white nonetheless.

First, I peeled and cut the carrots and halved the potatoes. I then boiled them for about 15 minutes:

I added the poaching liquid, a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar, oregano, salt, and some puree of canned chipotles to a measuring cup to make a dressing:

Then I added the onions (except for those that I had reserved) and took a blurry picture:

Meanwhile, I shredded the poached chicken breasts and put them in a bowl:

I also diced the boiled carrots and potatoes and added them to the bowl, along with the dressing:

I covered the bowl and let it stand for 45 minutes for the flavors to mingle. Just before serving, I sliced the lettuce, diced the avocado, and mixed them in. I added the diced onions I had reserves as a garnish and served it with some of my ciabatta. Bayless calls for French bread, but Italian was all I had around because I haven’t made baguettes in a while.

There it is! The dish is a great summer dish. First of all, it is served cold, which is key. It has a really nice amount of spice from the chipotles, but the vegetables and avocado keep it from being too spicy, which is not what you want on a hot summer day. It’s pretty easy preparation, too, especially if you have the chicken left over. I think it would be great for a picnic lunch or dinner.

Sources:
Ciabatta from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice
Lettuce from a friend’s garden
Everything else from Central Market