Sunday Brunch: Cisco's Huevos Rancheros
My friend Robb Walsh adapted this recipe from Cisco's Bakery in Austin, Texas, in his very fine Tex-Mex Cookbook. Serve these with plenty of bacon and steamed flour tortillas. I actually find this combo good for a simple, quick, and seriously delicious meal any time of day.
Cisco's Huevos Rancheros
- serves 4 -
Ingredients
1 fourteen-and-a-half-ounce can peeled tomatoes
1 medium garlic clove, minced
3 medium serrano chilies, stems removed
8 eggs
Procedure
1. Bring the tomatoes plus 1/2 can water to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat and add the garlic and chilies.
2. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the ranchero sauce to cool.
3. Puree the mixture in a blender for 2 to 3 minutes. When ready to use, warm the sauce in a small pan.
4. Fry the eggs to the desired doneness and ladle a generous amount of sauce over the top.
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10 Comments:
Mmm. Huevos Rancheros is one of the best meals on the planet. However- steamed tortillas? Steamed is a thing of the past, toasted are the wave of the future! Toasted over a fire- even better.
ErikaWaz at 8:58AM on 12/14/08
Mom use to do that but with Rotel it is seriously good
Markbb at 9:55AM on 12/14/08
Actually toasted, or grilled tortillas is very old school, I grew up eating this in N.M., never had I seen a steamed tortilla until we got a taco bell in town....as far as I'm concerned steaming is a no-no, as for the rest of the recipe, where i come from it may also include cheese, corn or flour (sometimes both) tortillas, fried potatoes, meat of choice ,beans,and lots of green chile, man o man i wish i could get the green chile here in Fl.
jword2001 at 10:14AM on 12/14/08
And as long as we're talking tortillas here, why flour ones and not corn?
lemons at 10:58AM on 12/14/08
Where's my friend Robb Walsh when serious eaters need him?
Ed Levine at 11:30AM on 12/14/08
In my mind, corn tortillas are more Mexican and flour are Tex-Mex or Mexican-American. Since this is a Tex-Mex dish, the flour tortillas make sense to me.
Also, while either a good corn or flour tortilla can be sublime, in my experience a bad corn tortilla is an order of magnitude worse than a bad flour tortilla. So if you aren't sure about the quality of the tortillas, the flour can be a safer bet.
dbcurrie at 2:12PM on 12/14/08
Cisco's is a Tex-Mex restaurant, and a lot of Tex-Mex is served with flour tortillas. Corn are used to make enchiladas and tacos and available as well, but the flour tortillas are better to soak up chile' sauces and cheese and scoop with. Just an idea. I like them both, depends on the dish like dbcurrie noted.
I loved Cisco's. I have had many many wonderful breakfasts there.
My favorite dish (ages 16-25 or so, when I could actually still conceive eating this much for breakfast) was huevos rancheros with 1/4 pound fajita, served on a plate with hot ranchera sauce and refried beans. Instead of 2 tortillas, I always got one tortilla and one biscuit, exceptionally light and fluffy and great with the honey in a squeeze bottle on the table.
The steam makes the fresh made flour tortillas (these are not tortillas from a grocery store. See Homesick Texan's posts about flour tortillas) exceptionally tender, chewy and light at the same time.
Got to get back there, haven't been in 4 years or so.
Any current Austinites know if it is still open?
intheyearofthepig at 3:24PM on 12/14/08
Cisco's is amazing! I went there for breakfast this past week (twice) so I can vouch that it's still open.
nichole at 4:48PM on 12/14/08
Cisco's is a bakery, hence the flour tortillas. The restaurant business was a sideline and they didn't take it very seriously in the old days. In the secluded rear dining room there used to be a self-serve crockpot full of pinto beans with a little sign that said: "Tex-Mex Salad Bar."
Cisco's became famous for breakfast thanks to LBJ. When LBJ told Rudy Cisneros to make him a Bloody Mary one morning in the 1960s, Rudy said, "But I don't have a liquor license."
LBJ wrote "liquor license" on a napkin, signed it, and told Rudy to go get the damn tomato juice and vodka. From then on, Cisco's started serving free Bloody Marys starting at 7 am--the earliest place to get a drink in Austin for many years. (You can't sell liquor without a liquor license, but you can give it away.)
You had to buy breakfast to get a drink--hence the enormous popularity of Cisco's huevos rancheros. The place has a liquor license now, but I still get the runny huevos rancheros and flour tortillas for breakfast when I visit.
Robb Walsh at 4:50PM on 12/14/08
thanks for the history! i lived in austin for three years and never went there, but you can be sure next time i am up there (hopefully next weekend), i'll be going!
carriebwc at 8:58AM on 12/15/08