Mexican Cuisine - Main Course

This week we'll be sharing with you some typical Mexican recipes. For the main course part of the meal, i've chosen a dish that is typically eaten at breakfast, Huevos Rancheros. For those of you that don't know what it is, it typically has tortillas with eggs and chili sauce on top. Apart from that, it is usually served with beans, and avocado or guacamole. The english translation would be 'Rancher's eggs'.

I found a pretty simple recipe for Huevos Rancheros that doesn't take long to make.

Ingredients:
- Olive Oil
- 1/2 Medium Onion, Chopped
- 15 ounce can of Tomatoes
- 3 ounce can of diced green Anaheim Chiles
-  Chipotle Chili Powder
- 4 Corn Tortillas
- Butter
- 4 eggs
- 2 TBSP Cilantro

Directions:

1. Make the sauce first. In a large skillet, soften the onions in olive oil. Once they are translucent, put in the tomatoes and the juice of tomatoes. Add chopped green chilies. Add some more chili to taste, either chipotle powder, regular chili powder, or a similar subsitute. Be sure to let it simmer, reduce the heat to low and keep it on while you start cooking the other parts of this dish. After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to medium or warm.

2. Now it's time to make the tortillas. Heat the oven to 150 Degrees F. Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and make sure to coat the pan with oil. One by one, heat the tortillas in the pan, keeping each one on for just a minute or two on each side. After this, remove them and put them aside on plates while you finish off making the eggs.

3. Fry the eggs. Add some butter to a pan, about a teaspoon or two for 4 eggs. Heat the pan on medium heat and crack frour eggs into the pan and cook for 4 minutes to get runny yolks, and a minute or so more for firmer eggs.

To serve this dish, put a little sauce and a fried egg on top with a tortilla. Top it off with some cilantro if you want.

Adding some avocadoes and refried beans to the dish is completely optional, but I included a recipe for refried beans in case you were interested.

Refried Beans Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups of dry pinto beans (about 1 lb or 450gm)
- 3 quarts of water
- 1/2 cup chopped onion (optional)
- 2 Tbsp (or more to taste) pork lard, bacon fat, or olive oil (for vegetarian option)
- 1/4 cup water

Directions:
1. Put the beans in water and remove any small stones or dirt.

2. Cook the beans in water. Put beans into a pot and cover beans with at least 3 inches of water - about 3 quarts for 2 1/2 cups of dry beans. Make sure to get the pot boiling and then lower heat to simmer, covered, for about 2 1/2 hours. Depending on what beans you have, the cooking time will vary. They are done when they are tender.

3.Strain the beans from the cooking water.


4. Add the onions and lard to a big frying pan on medium high heat. Cook onions until they are translucent and then add the strianed beans and 1/4 cup of water to the pan. . Mash the beans while you are cooking them until they don't resemble whole beans anymore. If you feel you need to, add more water to keep them from drying up. 

I found both these recipes from Simply Recipes, and hope you enjoy making and eating them.

- Ariana