Cook: Huevo Ranchero

I’d been wanting to make sausage gravy again but didn’t want to trek to a grocery store this morning for the sausage and instead made do with what was in the fridge and from the garden, and so of course, I had to eat a huevo ranchero--in the singular rather than the plural. I chopped and sliced two small tomatoes, white onion, jalapeno which I threw into my searing hot cast iron with a bay leaf and oregano and cooked down into a salsa ranchero and topped it with chopped cilantro.                           

With the ranchero sauce done, I reheated a can of leftover refried beans but this time, I melted pork lard and refried again the refried beans and added bone broth to thin it to a more saucy consistency. And once the beans were done, I fried a corn tortilla into a tostada shell.

Once the tortilla shell was crisp, I cracked an egg into the oil left from frying the tortilla and spooned the fat atop the white to firm it.

And remembered to shred some Monterey Jack. I slathered the beans onto the crisp tortilla shell. Then spooned some of the ranchero salsa and sprinkled the cheese on top and then the fried egg. And sprinkled fresh cilantro on top of the egg.

Usually when I order huevos ranchero at Alanna's in Burlingame or Redwood City, there's a flour tortilla to sop up the eggs and beans and salsa. But with this huevo ranchero, you could pick it up and bite the crunchy breakfast tostada.

  

And like Jacques Pepin, I will cook again with leftovers.

We just ate carne asado tacos last night, and I'll integrate these leftover ingredients for this week's chile rellenos.