richard Sadly Dolores has joined the chicken choir invisible and is no longer with us. She failed to return to the coup one evening and was subsequently found lying repose and bereft of life under my sister’s hedge. On the plus side she* has been replaced by not one, but three brand new (secondhand actually) chickens – Willoughby, Babs and Geraldine. All three have turned out to be enthusiastic layers and as a result there is a glut of exceptionally good free-range eggs. This weekend yumblog were the grateful recipients of 15 of the beauties, along with a handful of fiery homegrown chillies. Eggs and chillies? Had to be Huevos Rancheros.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2
Ingredients
- 1 courgette – finely chopped
- 1 red pepper – finely chopped
- 1 green pepper – finely chopped
- 1 onion – finely chopped
- 1 large chilli – finely chopped
- 1 fat clove of garlic – finely chopped
- passata (or liquidised tinned tomatoes) – roughly 200ml
- butter – some
- oil – for cooking
- 4 free-range eggs
- parsley or coriander for garnishing
- s & p
No picture of the chickens, so instead a chicken’s eye view of the dog
Place all the vegetables including chilli and garlic into a bowl and pour in enough of the passata to coat everything without making the mixture too wet. Season to taste.
Heat some oil in a frying pan (with a lid) over a medium heat and add the vegetables. Heat through without cooking.
Make four small wells in the vegetable mixture and dot each with butter. When the butter has melted, break in the eggs.
Put on the lid and cook until the white of the egg is solid and the yolk still soft – this should take 3-5 minutes.
Serve with a sprinkle of chopped parsley or coriander, some hot chilli sauce and tortillas.
Verdict: Simple, tasty and spicy. A perfect midweek dinner or weekend brunch
Drink: We are in a state of post-holiday temperance.
Entertainment: ‘Masterchef’ followed by ‘The Shield’ – season 2, episode 3. An evening’s viewing dominated by bald aggressive men. In a recent email I questioned Blogger-D on who would win a fight between Gregg Wallace and Michael Chiklis. She correctly pointed out ‘The question is how quickly would Chiklis kill Wallace, not if. He has a way with a hotplate**.’ Sorry Gregg, she’s right. You’d be a battered bloody heap on the floor before you could say ‘Beefy beefy mushrooms’
* Dolores, not my sister.
** Season 2, episode 2.
