chipotle chilaquiles w/eggs (almost vegetarian)
Only four blog posts in and I’ve already fallen behind in my initial goal – to post a new recipe once a week. Trips to San Francisco for the Fancy Food Show, my real job and experiments with my new Sous Vide Supreme have gotten in the way, but that’s no excuse – I’ll try to remain vigilant in the future.
I haven’t been feeling so great this week, and was craving comfort food tonight and a recipe that was fairly straight-forward. Maybe soup? Maybe a hotdish from my childhood? I’m not one to follow tradition very well, so I opted for chilaquiles, a dish usually served in Mexico for breakfast or brunch to use up leftover tortillas from the previous night’s dinner. You know those bags of 36 corn tortillas you can never use up? This is a perfect dish to use those up. Cut them in quarters, fry them in a little oil, season with salt and you’re ready to go. Since I didn’t have any, I used leftover tortillas chips that I had on hand, and made a tomato / chipotle sauce adapted from a Rick Bayless recipe. You think Rick Bayless is Mexican? Well, he’s not, so this kid from MN doesn’t feel too bad about modifying his recipe.
* TIP: if you’re anything like me, you’ll start cranking away on the recipe w/o reading all the directions. Near the end of the recipe, I blend the sauce in a blender while it’s still hot. This can be dangerous if you’ve never done it – the sauce will have a tendency to explode if you add it all in and turn it on. What you need to do is add one spoonful of sauce, and turn on the blender with the lid just covering it, not completely on tight, and blend. Add the rest of the sauce, two spoonfuls at a time, and blend each time until it is all incorporated. I use the lowest setting on my blender, and I’ve never had a problem with exploding sauces.
Here’s what you need:
- 14.5 oz can of whole tomatoes, sauce reserved
- 1 chipotle in adobo
- ½ white onion, thinly sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- ¾ C chicken broth (you could use vegetable stock or water to make this recipe vegetarian)
- ½ tsp cumin
- 1/8 tsp ground clove
- Vegetable oil
- Handful of tortilla chips
- Salt
- Eggs
Garnish:
- Finely chopped white onion
- Chopped cilantro
- Sour cream
Add the can of tomatoes and half of the reserved sauce in the blender along with the chipotle in adobo; if you like things a bit milder, you might want to remove the seeds with a knife before adding the chipotle. Blend for a minute or so until it is pureed. Meanwhile, sauté the onion over medium heat in a couple tbsps of vegetable oil for about 5-6 mins, until there is some color on the edges of the onions. Add the garlic and sauté another minute until it is fragrant and light brown, but not burned. Add the puree from the blender to the pan, along with the cumin and ground clove, until it is slightly reduced and the onions are a bit dryer, about five minutes. Add the stock, and reduce until it looks like a thin sauce, about 2-3 minutes; season with salt to taste. At this point, return the sauce to the blender and blend per instructions above.*
At this point, you might be saying, “It looks like a lot of sauce. I thought you only cooked for one?” Well, my friends, I wasn’t going to tell you to use half a can of whole tomatoes, because they’re like $1. So you’ll have a bit more sauce than you need, and it’s about enough for two servings. So add half of the sauce back to the pan, add the handful of chips, and simmer over med-low heat until the chips are well covered with the sauce and begin to soften, maybe 3-4 minutes. Set aside.
Cook the eggs to your liking – scrambled, as I did, fried, overeasy, however you want.
Add the chilaquiles to a shallow bowl or plate, add the eggs next to it, top with a scoop of sour cream and the finely chopped onion and cilantro.
This goes great with a margarita, or perhaps a Dos Equis served michelada-style. Or in my case, with a TheraFlu chaser. Anyway you do it, I think you’ll enjoy this recipe.
