The Weekender: Huevos rancheros with chorizo

Time for the fifth and final dish in our `The Weekender' series: Huevos rancheros with chorizo. Perfect for a lazy Sunday brunch, or a rustle-up tea on Saturday night.

A brief intro to ‘The Weekender’

It’s simple: every week we pick a recipe from our database and not only cook it, but cost it too. Team lovefood will make the recipe at the weekend, and post photos of our progress on Facebook for you all to laugh at. But sometimes we get lonely, and we’d love it if you, our cherished readers, would cook-a-long with us too. Tell us if you enjoyed it, share your snaps, and rustle up a fantastic meal!

The recipe

This week’s ‘Weekender’ comes from Nichola Fletcher’s book on one thing and one thing only: sausages. She is a leading authority on meat and has written several subjects on the matter, including Ultimate Vension Cookery, and Game for All. She also leads tutored meat-tastings from her home in Scotland, so we can certainly trust her meaty recipes.    

Here Nichola transforms everyday items – chopped tomatoes, eggs, fresh herbs, potatoes and the like – into a Mexican main, based on the concept of ranch-style eggs. It’s got a great fiery kick, thanks to the smoked paprika and dried chillies, and can even be partly prepared (up to step three) the night before, so that on the day it’s ready in five minutes.

Chorizo

What exactly is chorizo? Well, pronounced 'chor-eetho', it is a spicy sausage made from coarsely chopped pork and pork fat. The Spanish make it using smoked pork, while the Mexicans use fresh pork; but both season their chorizo with paprika, salt and (sometimes) red pepper. 

Of course, you can get chorizo – both fresh, dried, and semi-dried – at all supermarkets, but we’d recommend going to a Spanish shop or deli to pick it up, to ensure that it’s the real McCoy. And remember: the outer wrapper or ‘skin’ should be peeled off before cooking.

The shopping

It’s all pretty basic stuff, so you won’t have to deal with a hefty shopping bill. The recipe serves four, and is easily adjusted if you’re feeding more or less people. We’d obviously recommend that you buy free-range eggs (one per person), and if you’ve got a lot of fresh herbs leftover, remember to freeze them for another day.

This week we’ve done our shopping at Sainsbury’s.

15p for the onion
30p for a bulb of garlic (with plenty leftover)
58p for the fresh chillies
£1.86 for a jar of smoked paprika (with plenty leftover)
99p for a good quality can of chopped tomatoes
£1 for the flat leaf parsley
£1.40 for the waxy potatoes (with plenty leftover)
£2.50 for the chorizo
£1.68 for the eggs (with two leftover)
80p for the coriander

…so that’s £11.26 in total, or £2.81 per person. We’ve assumed that you’ve already got olive oil and caster sugar. 

Nice ‘n filling

Eggs and chorizo for protein, potatoes for carbohydrate, tomatoes for a fruit and veg kick… huevos rancheros is a pretty filling main, despite appearances. But if you want to bulk it out even further, serve with crusty white bread and a garden side salad.

And to enjoy it authentically, eat your huevos for breakfast – it’s a classic Mexican breakfast dish popular throughout much of the Americas. Although serving it on top of lightly fried tortillas, and topping with a tomato-chilli sauce would be even more authentic. 

Did you enjoy our 'Weekender' series? We'll be back very shortly with something similar, but even better... so watch this space.

Chorizo image courtesy of Asturnut.

You might also like

The Weekender: Roast loin of lamb

The Weekender: Seasonal vegetable and parmesan tart

The Weekender: Caramelised French onion soup