Huevos Rancheros

For anyone that enjoys a good weekend brunch, this dish is for you. Huevos Rancheros is the perfect Mexican breakfast - flavourful, spicy and filling, it'll keep you going through all your Sunday activities (watching movies, napping, waiting for more food). It's also relatively healthy - packed full of protein and veg, you won't have to feel guilty on Monday morning like most of us do.

Ingredients

• 1 x medium or 2 small onions - cubed
• 2 x cloves of garlic - sliced
• 2 x small chorizo sausages - cubed
• 1 x red pepper - finely chopped
• 8 x cherry tomatoes - halved
• 1 x 400g tinned tomatoes or passata 
• 1 x tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 x chilli 
• 1 x teaspoon of chilli flakes
• 4 x hen's eggs 
• salt and pepper

Method

This is a really simple dish to put together and is relatively quick to make. Pop a large frying pan on a medium heat and allow the olive oil to heat up. Once the pan is ready, throw in the onions, garlic, chorizo, red peppers, chilli and chilli flakes and sauté for a good 10 minutes - making sure the onions are softening rather than caramelising and allowing the chorizo to release all its delicious paprika ladened juices. When this is done, add the tinned tomatoes or passata and fresh tomatoes and stir thoroughly - now, you'll need to let this simmer for about 5-10 minutes, allowing the sauce to thicken before adding the eggs (otherwise the white of the eggs will just disperse throughout the pan). Once it is clear that the sauce is thicker than an uncooked egg, season well, and then you're ready for the next step. 

With a wooden spoon, make four equally dispersed egg-sized divots in the thickening sauce and quickly crack open your eggs into them. You want to make sure to do it as quickly as possible so that each egg cooks in a similar time. The cooking time for this is down to personal preference - if you enjoy a runny egg (like me), it should take about 5 minutes. A harder egg should take between 8-10 minutes and you'll get some delicious caramelisation on the bottom of the pan. 

Now it's ready to serve, carefully slip a spatula under the eggs and pop onto a warmed up plate. Sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper over the eggs and grate some parmesan cheese over the whole dish. Serve with some crusty bread and eat immediately! 

So there we have it, a delicious, smoky tomato base topped with eggs that have slowly poached and sucked in all the flavour surrounding them. Try this recipe and you'll be eating Huevos Rancheros every Sunday! Let me know if you give it a go.