Chilaquiles can be as simple as corn chips with salsa, cheese and an egg on top. Take it a bit further and add more veg for sustenance and variety.There’s a few things that help keep this tasting Mexican.
Corn chips. Lots of UK tortilla products are wheat, which sucks. Look out for ‘blue corn chips’, the R.W. Garcia brand are on Amazon and are great. Or you can fry the corn tortillas from Cool Chile.
Epazote and Mexican oregano. Using these in the cooked veg makes a delicious difference.
Fresh and rested salsa.The lime cooks the salsa down overnight and rounds the taste, add or remove chilli based on your preference.
Ingredients
Fresh Salsa
3-5 large fresh tomatoes
Handful of coriander
Small red onion
Jalapeño chilli – pickled jar version
Juice of a fresh lime
Crispy Onions
½ red onion thinly sliced
½ brown onion thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, chopped big and rough
2 tbsp of oil
Cucumber Salsa
½ a cucumber roughly chopped
3 tbsp of tomatillo salsa
Chips
10-15 Blue corn taqueria tortillas
2 tbsp of cooking oil
Extras
3 tbsp of spring onion, finely chopped
100g goat cheese
1 fried egg per person
2 avocados
3-4 tbsp of chipotle salsa
Method
- Fresh Salsa. Halve and remove the pips and soft flesh. Chop finely, along with red onion, jalapeno chilli and coriander. Smaller is better. Mix together in a bowl, season to taste with salt and pepper, squeeze lime juice. This can sit in the fridge for 24 hours and will get a deeper flavour, remove 30 mins before serving to bring up to temperature.
- Crispy Onions. Thinly slice both your red and brown onions, chop garlic and add oil to a large frying pan, set above medium heat and layer thinly across the pan, season and add oregano. Let it crisp slightly, watch for browning and move around when you see edges start to turn. Take off the heat when the onion’s colour is dark golden brown.
- Cucumber Salsa. Roughly chop small chunks of cucumber, add tomatillo sauce and fridge for 24 hours allowing it to soak up flavours
- Chips. Quarter the 12” tortillas with a knife. If you don’t have corn tortillas, replace them with premade corn chips. Do not use wheat based tortillas. Add oil to the frying pan and add a few tortilla pieces, turn with a knife and fork gently, watch for golden spots to appear, once golden remove and put in a sieve. Once all are fried, add salt to them while they are cooling down
Assemble and serve. Lay down a couple of small handfuls of chips on each plate. Sprinkle the fresh salsa, cucumber and crispy onions over the chips with a spoon. Crumble the goat’s cheese over. De-stone and roughly chop the avocado, add to the dish. Fry and egg per person, try to get a crispy bottom for texture, use a quick high heat and then remove the pan once you see the whites turning. Finally, dress with a few small spoons of chipotle salsa and spring onions.