Breakfast with MexiGeek: Quesadilla enchilada

I had some leftover "en-chillied" tortillas: tortillas which had ancho-chile paste worked into the dough.

I decided to make a quick quesadilla.

First I spread some chipotle paste over one tortilla.

Then I added the cheese. Ideally it would be queso fresco, something crumbly like feta, or maybe ricotta, but all I had left was white cheddar.

I topped it with some surprisingly good pickled red jalapenos.

Then I put another tortilla over it (instead of folding the tortilla over, which is the usual method).

I fried the quesadilla in butter, just to make it more healthy.

Typically you would fry your quesadilla in pork lard, but any oil would do. A flavourless one like sunflower or rapeseed works perfectly.

The chipotle and jalapenos really "made" this dish in terms of the filling. Both brought a beautiful mix of chile heat and sweetness to contrast the saltiness of the cheese.

But I also love these "en-chillied" tortillas. Ancho is the classic flavour of enchiladas, and it's running all through the tortilla dough.

Quite a faff to make, but so delicious!

(Traditional enchiladas are much easier.)

Breakfast with MexiGeek: egg over easy in homemade salsa verde

I was actually trying to make a coriander (cilantro) vinaigrette, but it ended up more like a salsa.

I took a bunch of coriander (stems and all), a couple cloves of garlic, half a white onion, and a teaspoon of habanero chile paste.

For the acidity I was going use lime juice, but I had a lot of pink citrusy pickling liquid from my pink pickled onions, so I used that instead.

Into the blender it all goes, then check for seasoning.

It doesn't need any lime! And it's really more of a salsa verde! And it's hot as hell from the habanero!

Yay!

The cool thing is you usually need tomatillos in salsa verde to give it some tartness, but the pickled onions replaced it beautifully.

I LOVE salsa verde!

Now for the rest of my breakfast:

Because I'm out of tortillas, I used a bagel.

And because I was using a bagel, I decided to go for a fried egg rather than scrambled.

I always fry eggs over easy because I don't like "sunny side up".

I'm not actually a very "sunny" guy.

I seasoned the egg with salt, pepper, Mexican oregano, and some surprisingly hot Spanish chile powder I used to make patatas bravas once.

(They were pretty fucking "brav"!)

The egg goes onto a toasted bagel.

Then I fried the salsa a bit, because frying salsa is how you get it to reduce, thicken, and concentrate its flavours in Mexican cooking.

Cover the egg in salsa y provecho: a Mexican-American-Jewish fusion breakfast!

Breakfast with MexiGeek: spicy egg over easy on toast with leftover pibil sauce

I could have mexed this up more but I'm savings the leftover tortillas dobladas and refried beans for lunch.

The toast it's just toast, and they really do eat toast for desayunos in Mexico.

To add a Mexican touch to the otherwise American egg over easy, I fried it in pork lard I rendered myself.

Before you get grossed out, I needed the lard to make the refried beans authentic, and I'd rather use lard I made myself than but a block of that Tesco value lard, which is probably 29% horse anyway.

Before I flipped the egg I seasoned it with some powdered chile and Mexican oregano. Then I carefully placed it on top of the slice of (buttered) toast.

Then in the same pan I dropped about 1/4 tsp cumin seeds into the hot fat.

After a few seconds I added my leftover sauce from the pollo pibil I made last night (post to follow). This included some onion and tomato.

When it was good and hot I poured it over the egg y provecho!

The best thing about cooking Mexican food for dinner is you get leftovers for breakfast.