Chorizo con Huevos

Submitted by MichaelC The king of breakfast foods! chorizo with eggs! oh yummy yummy!

Chorizo con huevos is a popular dish in Mexico and in parts of the United States that have a heavy Mexican population. At its simplest chorizo con huevos is made by combining chorizo with scrambled eggs and blending them together.

Ingredients

 * pork chorizo
 * 2 eggs
 * milk
 * flour or corn tortillas
 * tomato
 * queso ranchero (you can use any of the varieties of crumbly Mexican cheese)

About Chorizo
Chorizo in this context is a Mexican spicy pork sausage. It's very loose and red, crumbling up when it is cooked. Mexican chorizo is made from fatty pork (though you might sometimes see beef, venison and even kosher chorizo) but traditionally the Mexican version is pork that is ground rather than chopped. Different seasonings are used in addition to chili. usually giving it a reddish color, but you might run across a green chorizo. It's often used with other foods in cooking, as with eggs scrambled and mixed up with chorizo (chorizo con huevos), or chicken stuffed with chorizo, or a common appetizer is melted cheese with chorizo (queso con chorizo aka queso fundido) served in a hot pan. I've even seen deviled eggs with chorizo. The possibilities are endless.

You can find chorizo at most grocery stores. Quailty varies from brand to brand. It's up to you to figure out which ones you prefer. Of course you can also find a Mexican market and get it there. You'll see some variety there as well, and those markets that have butchers will have chorizo in the butcher's case available. This is sold loose just like ground beef.

About the Queso (Cheese)
The cheese I like to use is the Cacique brand Ranchero or one of their other variants. The idea here is just to have a light crumbly cheese as a nice offset to the spicy quality of the chorizo.

Cooking Tools

 * A small pan or skillet
 * Splatter screen or other item that can be laid atop the skillet
 * wooden spoon
 * bowl
 * fork
 * Knife

Preparation
Squeeze out a little chorizo into a pan and mash it up as it cooks. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't look pretty. But really, it's just pork and spices. As it cooks it breaks up into smaller pieces. However, don't sit there babysitting the chorizo.

After you've dropped the chorizo into the pan and while it is heating up, start working on your eggs. Crack open an egg or two into a bowl. Pour some milk in with the eggs. The milk helps the eggs get fluffy when cooking.

Stir briskly with a fork.

The eggs should be well mixed with little or no bubbles of egg white as in the image.

Directions
While you've been working on the eggs, the chorizo should have been cooking with some helpful stirring by you. Eventually it should look something like this. As you can see, it can make a mess. Normally what I do is place a splatter screen over the pan... this can be a wire mesh screen you purchase, or a lid for the pan, or a plate, or even a sheet of foil you place atop the pan. This goes a long way to cutting down the mess. since I was taking pictures, I didn't do that and as a result, you can see how messy it can get.

Once the chorizo is cooked, pour in your eggs. You won't need anything to grease the pan, as the chorizo should supply its own. If that's too much grease and you want to drain it, or if the chorizo is especially lean and does not leave much grease, you can use a little butter or something on the pan to prevent sticking but I generally do not. Let the eggs sit a moment so they begin to cook, then start to stir.

While your eggs are cooking, you'll want to get started on warming up your tortillas. Warm them over an open flame or on a pan. Some people will stick them in the oven as well. Whatever you want to do, but you'll want to warm those tortillas.

Eventually your eggs and chorizo will mix into a nice fluffy mass.

Grab a couple slices of the crumbly cheese, chop up a little tomato, and you are good to go... I like to scoop a little of the egg and chopped tomato into a tortilla, then crumble a little cheese over it and fold or roll it up.

Notes on Serving and Eating
Sometimes I like to slice up avocado as well. People will also use any of a number of different types of salsa as well... pico de gallo, salsa roja, salsa tomatillo, jalapeno, et al... But in my opinion, the chorizo is the main flavor and provides all the spiciness needed. Anything else would be overkill.

Eat this a number of different ways.


 * Tear off pieces of tortilla, use it as a scoop. Use the fork as a backstop and secondary scoop. Sweep tomato, eggs, and break off pieces of cheese into tortilla.


 * Make a burrito. Scoop eggs, tomato and break up cheese onto tortilla, fold the ends and roll it up.


 * You can also treat each item separately, using the tortilla to sop up excesses.