Thursday, December 18, 2008

Huevos Con Longaniza (Eggs with "Longaniza"?)

This is a very simple Mexican egg scramble with "longaniza", onion, garlic, and chili pepper seasoned with salt and pepper to taste.

Mexican pork longaniza is simply called "Longaniza de Puerco" is a type of sausage that is fresh, and can be removed from casing and crumbled I am not sure what it is seasoned with but I believe it has dried "Chile California" maybe cumin, allspice, pepper, etc. not so sure. My aunt who is from Mexico knows how to make this type of sausage from scratch. I'll have to ask to her and make some., she makes the filling and just uses it as needed in certain dishes.

The Mexican "Longaniza" is not the same as the "Mexican Chorizo", the Longaniza is more heavely seasoned, the chorizo is a more pale color and is very very fresh (if you get it at the right places and are observant of what you get) it is also more greasy.

Mexican Chorizo get's a bad reputation for being "overly" greasy, I must say it really depends what brand you buy, and where you buy it, the one I buy is from "Vallarta" (a chain of of stores that sells mostly Latin, Central, and South American products, it cater's mostly to Mexicans) at that store I can find the chorizo fresh, it's not branded I don't know if they make it on site but they have these huge ropes they cut off of when you ask for Chorizo at the deli & creamerie within the store.

A lot of the pre-packaged brands are kinda gross to me, they are toooo greasy, runny, fall apart easily etc. and overly salted, if you are using a pre-packaged one that is like that, be sure that when you fry it in the oil to drain some of the fat.

Ingredients:
-6 eggs
-1 Mexican Pork Longaniza
-1/2 onion minced
-2 cloves garlic minced (optional)
-1 green chili pepper, serrano or jalapeño pepper is what we use (optional)
-salt to taste
-black pepper to taste
-oil for cooking

Directions:
(1)Beat eggs with some salt and pepper (if you wish you can add a small splash of whole milk),

(2)Heat a little bit of oil on medium high heat, remove casing from chorizo and sautee until lightly browned and it renders a bit of fat. (the one I used was pretty lean), now add onion, chili pepper, until onions are a bit translucent (maybe 5 minutes?), when they are add garlic, stir until fragrant (1 minute or so) then add beaten eggs and slide with a spatula, kind of like making a tortilla when it curdles and get's firmer flip in sections until cooked and your done.

(3)Serve with whatever sides you want (like I said typically refried beans, cream or fresh cheese, some type of salsa, and corn tortillas) or you can use it as a filling for corn tortillas to make "Tacos" also you can make a "breakfast burrito" by using it as a filling for a Burrito (made with a big flour tortilla)

PLEASE NOTE:
-This can be made using Mexican chorizo in place of "longaniza" you can prepare refried beans with Mexican chorizo or longaniza, just use lard in place of oil, skip the garlic, chili pepper, and black pepper and fry the chorizo or longaniza and add onion then mash in the beans.

-Here is the basic refried bean recipe:

http://nathanscomida.blogspot.com/2008/12/frijoles-pintos-fritos-refried-pinto.html