Chilaquiles Rojos
Fried tortilla chips simmered briefly in a roasted chilli tomato sauce and topped with eggs. Breakfast built out of yesterday's tortillas.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
- 640
- Calories
- 22g
- Protein
- 36g
- Fat
- 58g
- Carbs
Ingredients
- 12 corn tortillas, ideally a day or two old
- 4 dried guajillo chillies
- 2 dried ancho chillies
- 400 g tomatoes
- 1 onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 500 ml chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 4 eggs
- 150 ml neutral oil, for frying
- 100 g queso fresco or feta
- 1 avocado
- Soured cream and coriander, to serve
- Salt
Instructions
- 1Cut the tortillas into six wedges each and spread them out for 20 minutes to dry — the drier they are, the crisper they fry and the longer they hold up in the sauce.
- 2Pull the stems off the dried chillies and shake out most of the seeds. Toast them in a dry pan over medium heat for 30 seconds a side, until they smell fragrant and darken slightly. Do not let them blacken; burnt chillies turn the whole sauce bitter.
- 3Cover the toasted chillies with boiling water and leave to soak for 15 minutes.
- 4Meanwhile, halve the tomatoes and quarter the onion. Char them with the unpeeled garlic in a dry pan over high heat for about 8 minutes, turning, until blackened in patches.
- 5Peel the garlic and blend it with the tomatoes, onion, drained chillies, oregano, cumin, 200 ml of the stock and 1 tsp salt until completely smooth.
- 6Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a wide pan and pour in the blended sauce — it will spit. Fry it for 5 minutes, stirring, until it darkens and thickens. Frying a blended salsa rather than simply heating it is standard in Mexican cooking and it changes the flavour completely.
- 7Add the remaining stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste for salt.
- 8Heat the rest of the oil in a separate frying pan and fry the tortilla wedges in batches for about 2 minutes, turning, until golden and rigid. Drain on a rack.
- 9Fry the eggs in a little of the same oil, sunny side up.
- 10Just before serving, tip the chips into the simmering sauce and fold for no more than 60 seconds — long enough to coat, short enough that they still have a spine. Chilaquiles are meant to be part soft, part crisp.
- 11Divide between plates, top each with an egg, and finish with crumbled cheese, sliced avocado, soured cream and coriander.
Chilaquiles were invented to use up stale tortillas, and like most dishes with that origin they turned out better than the thing they were rescuing.
Toast the chillies, briefly
Dried guajillo and ancho chillies are not especially hot. Guajillo is bright and slightly tart; ancho is the dried poblano, dark and raisiny. Together they give the sauce its colour and most of its character.
Thirty seconds a side in a dry pan wakes up the oils. Any longer and they scorch, and a burnt dried chilli will make an entire litre of sauce bitter in a way sugar cannot cover. If one goes black, throw it out.
Char the tomatoes and onion
Blackening the vegetables in a dry pan before blending is the difference between a fresh-tasting salsa and one with depth. The char adds smokiness and slight bitterness that balances the sweetness of the tomato.
Leaving the garlic in its skin protects it from burning while it softens.
Fry the blended sauce
This step surprises people. You blend everything smooth, then pour it into hot oil and fry it for five minutes, and it spits.
What happens is that the sauce reduces, the raw edge cooks off, and the flavours concentrate and marry. It goes from bright red to a deeper brick colour and thickens noticeably. A salsa that has only been simmered tastes thinner and more acidic every time.
Sixty seconds, no more
The whole point of chilaquiles is the texture gradient: some chips soaked and soft, some still crunching. That window is short.
Fold the chips into the sauce at the last possible moment, count to sixty, and serve. Left to sit they become a uniform mush, which is a perfectly edible dish but not this one.
For the same reason, do not make this ahead. The sauce can be made two days early; the assembly happens at the table.
Rojos, verdes and the difference
Rojos uses dried red chillies and tomatoes. Verdes uses tomatillos and fresh green chillies, and is sharper and more acidic. Both are traditional, both are breakfast, and the argument about which is better is not settled anywhere.
Nutrition
Around 640 calories a serving with the egg, cheese and avocado. Frying the tortillas is where most of the fat comes from — baking the wedges at 200C for 12 minutes with a light spray of oil cuts it substantially and works well, though the chips are less sturdy.
Dried chillies are a genuinely dense source of vitamin A, and the avocado and eggs make this a more balanced breakfast than it looks.
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