Fancy Huevos Rancheros

Submitted by Lawen, Uploaded by kywai

I had planned to do authentic to the core Huevos Rancheros for my entry; slow-simmering my beans and venturing to the hispanic part of town to buy real chorizo sausage and masa harina and lard for corn tortillas. Then I realized that between working full-time and going to school full-time I could either cook or sleep, but not both. So I went to Whole Foods, made do with what I could find, and ended up with same fancy-pants huevos rancheros that you'd expect to pay $9.95 for at Sunday brunch. This recipe would easily feed four as a breakfast or brunch portion. I made it for dinner, so I made two huge portions. It was delicious.

Ingredients

• 1 19oz Can Black Beans
• 12oz Chicken Chorizo Sausage (Or Turkey, or the real stuff)
• 1 Med. White or Yellow Onion
• 2-3 Cloves Garlic
• 1/2 Dozen Large Eggs
• 1/2 Cup purchased tomato salsa
• 1 Ripe Haas Avocado
• 1/2 Cup crumbled goat cheese (or jack, feta, queso fresco, etc.)
• Olive Oil
• Vinegar (White/Cider/Anything clear)
• Several Corn or Flour Tortillas

Method

• First off we're going to make refried black beans. Peel and mince a couple cloves of garlic. Halve your onion and chop. Open your beans and drain, reserving liquid.

• Heat a couple tablespoons of oil over med-high heat in a skillet or saute pan. Add onions and a pinch of salt, stirring until the onions begin to turn translucent. Add garlic and continue to saute for another minute or so, until the garlic is turning golden.

• Add the beans and about a quarter of the reserved liquid. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer.

• While the beans simmer, remove the casings from the chorizo. If you use real chorizo you can just crumble it into the pan. If you use chicken or turkey sausage you'll need to roughly chop the sausage. Toss the sausage in a large pan over med-high heat and brown.

• After the beans have cooked off a good bit of liquid (first picture) add a dash of vinegar (I used lime vinegar, white or cider would be fine) and some black pepper. Then take a potato masher and squish the beans (second picture). You don't want a smooth puree but rather something halfway between whole beans and baby food.

• Now add the refried beans to the sausage and stir to combine. Put a lid over the pan and stick it on a back burner over no heat. It'll stay warm from the ambient heat.

• Now comes the trickiest part of the recipe: poaching the eggs. If you've never tried it before, don't be intimidated. I said to get a half dozen eggs and we only need four, so you can fuck up twice and still be ok.

Get a deep pan and put four or five inches of water in it. Add a healthy pinch of salt and a splash of white wine vinegar. Put it over medium heat and watch it pretty closely, you want a bare simmer (small bubbles breaking the water no more than a couple times a second). While the water gets to the right temperature very carefully crack an egg into a ramekin or shallow bowl. If the yolk breaks, start over.

• When the water gets to the right temperature, lower your ramekin into the pot and gently drop the egg into the water. You want the lip of the ramekin as close as possible to the surface of the water, you're basically trying to keep the egg from dispersing as much as possible. You'll see the white begin to set, like this:

• Don't touch it, let the white continue to set like a fluffy egg pillow around the yolk. The egg will float to the top. This picture is from my third or fourth egg, hence the scum in the water. It's normal.

• When the white is set but before the yolk starts to set use a slotted spoon to scoop the egg out of the water. Gently put it on a paper towel to absorb the water, then transfer to a plate. When you've got four, you're ready to put it all together.

• (The one on top is a little haggard but the other three look just about perfect)

• While I poached the eggs I put a cast iron skillet over high heat and toasted my tortillas on it very quickly.

• Divide your sausage and refried bean mixture between the tortillas.

• Now place two poached eggs on top.

• Spoon some salsa over the eggs.

• Crumble your goat cheese over the eggs. You could also stick it under the broiler for a minute here to soften/brown the cheese, just make sure you don't overcook the egg.

• Halve, pit, and peel your avocado. Make several vertical cuts in it, leaving it connected at the top. Spread it out into a fan and put that on top.

• Spoon a bit more salsa over it and garnish with cilantro if you have any (which I didn't).

• When you cut into it the egg yolk oozes out and coats everything and it is delicious.

((Uploader's note: Several pictures are missing from the original link: http://stopfuckingposting.com/www.gbsfood.com/1721714/ ))