Huevos de Cuatro Maneras
Four takes on eggs with a distinctly regional accent BY MICHAEL A. GARDINER
tortillas, one with green salsa and the other with red salsa (the separate sauces accounting for the name—divorced eggs). Bent’s version features an egg cookery technique that might make the French scoff but offers a bigger hit of flavor. Like Bent, Lety McKenzie (chef at Mujeres Brew House), offers her take on the classic Mexican egg dish huevos rancheros. Her version (recipe on page 18) uses two salsas, each flavored with a different herb. The red salsa features pipicha, an ancient Mexican herb similar to cilantro but with pronounced citrusy notes. And her green salsa showcases epazote, with its complex, pungent flavor profile. But the Mexican egg tradition stretches further back than those popular classics. Papadzules—essentially egg-filled tortillas with two sauces—is a pre-Columbian dish of Mayan origin that was the forerunner of today’s enchiladas. The key to the dish is the intriguing combination of hard-boiled eggs, a pumpkin seed sauce, and a tomato-based sauce with a touch of habanero. Roberto Alcocer, chef of the newly minted Valle Restaurant, which features the modern Mexican cuisine of Baja’s Valle de Guadalupe, offers a distinctly Mexican take on a breakfast classic: Eggs Benedict. Alcocer swaps in sopes for English muffins, uses smoked pork chops instead of Canadian bacon, and spikes the Hollandaise with guajillo peppers and a hit of lime juice (recipe on page 17). There could hardly be a better one-dish breakfast summary of the cuisine of our region. And you don’t have to wear a hat with 100 pleats to cook any of these dishes.
Find the recipes for Michael Gardiner’s Egg Enchiladas with Pepita and Tomato-Lime Sauces (Papadzules) and Drew Bent’s Huevos Divorciados online at ediblesandiego.com.
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ediblesandiego.com
BHADRI KUBENDRAN
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t is a bit of culinary mythology that the reason there are 100 folds in a chef ’s toque—that tall, pleated, and very dated-looking hat—is that each pleat represents one of the hundred ways to cook an egg. Eggs, it seems, are foundational. As famed cookbook author, trained chef, and food TV personality Michael Ruhlman put it, “Understand completely this amazing and beautiful oblong orb—and you can enter new realms of cooking.” In other words, learn to cook eggs and you can cook just about anything. In addition to being foundational, eggs are international. From the omelets of France, Japan’s tamago and omurice, Scotch eggs, Italy’s frittatas, India’s egg bhurji, Korean gyeran jjim, and Spanish tortilla de patatas, few cuisines lack their own approach to the egg. There are also egg dishes that seem to magically cross borders. Huevos ahogados is similar to North African shakshuka with a Mexican accent (or vice versa). Both are eggs poached in a spicy, tomato-based sauce. Mexico may indeed have more takes on egg dishes than most cuisines. From the aforementioned huevos ahogados to huevos rancheros, huevos divorciados, huevos migas, and many others, the Mexican egg tradition is an old one and a rich one. Perhaps that tradition is one reason our regional chefs and home cooks seem drawn to eggs. Our region, after all, is international: one part American, one part Mexican with many separate cuisines composing each. And many of those influences inform our chefs’ approaches to the simple, noble egg. Drew Bent, chef-owner of the East Village’s Michelinrecognized Lola 55 offers a unique take on huevos divorciados, a classic dish in which two sunny-side-up fried eggs sit atop
