Well before the days back in Kalispell when we as a family ran the horse operation, we’ve been aficionados of great breakfasts, and often leaned to southern-inspired breakfasts in particular – country ham and eggs, biscuits and gravy, crispy Belgian waffles with a pile of crunchy bacon, huevos rancheros, or our killer house migas.
These days we’re a lot less carb-focused, making variety at the breakfast table a bit more challenging – until chef compadre Libby in Austin stumbled across a variation of this recipe online a few weeks ago. A few days later I happened to be chatting with her and the subject of breakfast meals came up; together we tweaked the recipe a bit (Tex Mex roots are hard to venture far from).
These Fried Egg Tostadas with Cotija and Sweet Chile Sauce meet all of our key recipe checkoffs – it’s damned tasty, different from the routine (for most of us, anyway), quick, inexpensive, and incredibly easy.
For a quick and easy dinner, we’ve even recently savored a dinner version where I melted a nice Monterrey Jack cheese on crispy tostada flats under the broiler, topped with the eggs, sliced iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and the sauce/garnishes…
Damn, this one’s good.
Sweet Chile Sauce
1/4 cup sambal oelek (hot chile paste)
2 tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
2-3 tsp good honey (start with two)4 warm, fresh corn tortillas
1/2 cup crumbled cotija cheese or goat cheese1 tbsp butter
2-3 tbsp EVOO
4 large eggs
Garnish: thinly sliced green onions, cilantro
Stir together the sambal oelek, rice vinegar, and 2 tsp of the honey; add more honey if sweeter heat is your thing.
Heat two medium skillets on your stovetop, melting the butter and adding olive oil in one.
Crack the four eggs into the butter/EVOO skillet, shaking now and again, and cook until the edges begin to brown (2-3 minutes); spoon some of the butter/EVOO mixture over the egg whites as well.
Meanwhile, heat two tortillas at a time in the other dry skillet (they need to brown a bit in spots), then remove to a warmed plate and top with 1/4 of the crumbled cheese (or smear that tangy goat cheese over the hot tortilla).
Immediately top the two tortillas with eggs, drizzle the chile sauce over, garnish with the onions +/- cilantro, and go to it. Repeat quickly with the other tortillas.
Enjoy.
