They offer hints from Lewis Carroll, Ernest Hemingway, and John Keats, among others, and they've come up with a pretty nifty little geography quiz excerpt here. See how well you do on these ten questions.
Disclaimer: I scored nine.
(Hat tip: LewRockwell.com)
I've had this cookbook for a long time, and for some reason I had never seen it: now, with Cinco de Mayo upon us, it's time to reveal one of my greatest culinary creations, the fried egg taco.
Apparently, the fried egg taco is a central-southern Mexico creation. And the book has not so much a recipe but a discussion of them. Still, I managed to come up with something, and boy oh boy, are they delicious. A bit labor-intensive, but easily worth the effort.
Lightly crisp a few tortillas. Many of you probably know how to do this better than I do, but I'll tell you how I do it.
Using a cast iron frying pan, start with about a little bit less than a tablespoon full of oil. I generally use canola. Warm it up and put a corn tortilla in the pan, in the oil. Spin it around a bit, and turn it over. Pay attention as it crisps. When it's about the way you want it, remove it with a spatula and put it on a paper towel. Repeat with the next tortillas.
Now you have to turn the heat up high. Drop a small pat of butter onto the surface of the pan. When it melts, crack an egg into the pan. Quickly drizzle some water (or beer) around the egg to contain it. This is a small amount: I generally use about a half-full shot glass. Now take some shredded cheese: cheddar, jack cheese, or any of those "Mexican" mixes you can get in a grocery store. Spread it atop the frying egg. After about a minute, turn the heat down to simmer or low, cover the pan, and let the egg set for about three minutes.
Remove the egg and cheese with a spatula and place it in the center of one of your tacos. Some shredded lettuce or spinach, a bit of salsa, and you're done. Eat it like a soft taco, and enjoy!
There are a lot of "abouts" in my recipe/directions. Don't worry about that: the procedure is pretty forgiving and anyway, it was an experiment from the beginning and I've never messed it up. Well, in one sense I did: going back and rereading the discussion of the fried egg taco in The Well Filled Tortilla brought me to realize that I had screwed up on the tortillas: apparently the authentic version down Mexico way uses flour tortillas, whereas mine uses the corn variety.
Trust me: don't ruin your Cinco de Mayo celebrations. Do it my way, and experiment later.
Do experiment, though, as you get a bit more confident with what you're doing. All manner of lettuce and spinach can be used in these things, and all sorts of salsas. All sorts of cheeses. Just be sure to use the best eggs and the best tortillas you can get, and go from there.
As I'm sure they say (somewhere in) Mexico: Bon appetit!