Huevos Rancheros + How to Poach an Egg

Ingredients:

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.

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

Step 1:

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 the liquid.

Step 2:

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.

Step 3:

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

Step 4:

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.

Step 5:

After the beans have cooked off a good bit of liquid add a dash of vinegar (I used lime vinegar, white or cider would be fine) and some black pepper.

Step 6:

Then take a potato masher and squish the beans. You don't want a smooth puree but rather something halfway between whole beans and baby food.

Step 7:

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.

Step 8:

Beans and sausage mixed up:

Step 9:

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 mess up twice and still be ok.

How to poach an egg
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.

Step 10:

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:

Step 11:

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.

Step 12:

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)

Step 13:

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

Step 14:

Divide your sausage and refried bean mixture between the tortillas.

Step 15:

Now place two poached eggs on top.

Step 16:

Spoon some salsa over the eggs.

Step 17:

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.

Step 18:

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.

Step 19:

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

Step 20:

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

This is a really fancy version of huevos rancheros.