Epic nights under the stars are often followed by not so epic mornings. If you’ve got to get up and on the trail for more adventures, you’ll need a good breakfast to banish the hangover and set you up for a great day out. Even if everything still tastes of tequila there’s only one thing for it.
Huevos Rancheros, truly the breakfast of champions.
This recipe is gratefully received from the Wahaca restaurant founder Thomasina Miers. Thank you for all the days you saved.
Once you’ve sorted the fire and the coffee out, you will need:
6 tablespoons of lard. Yes lard. It’s the magic ingredient.
1 chopped onion
2 chopped red chillies. Or as many as you want if you know what you’re doing.
3 chopped cloves of garlic. Ditto.
2 tins of tomatoes
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon of demerara sugar
Plenty of Worcestershire sauce
A handful of chopped tarragon
4 tortillas
4 eggs
Cheese. A pale and crumbly sort works well.
How?
Heat two tablespoons of the lard in a wide saucepan and add the onion and chillis. Let them sweat down for ten minutes and add the garlic, cook for a few more minutes and add the tomatoes. Season the salsa well with the salt, pepper, sugar and Worcestershire sauce, and mash the tomatoes as they cook. Leave it on the fire for half an hour and add some water if it gets too dry. You might do all this ahead of your trip and just cook it through on the morning in question which will save some coordination challenges if you’re feeling very rough.
When that’s looking like a salsa, melt another tablespoon of lard in a frying pan and brown the tortillas a bit on both sides, then wrap them in foil and keep them warm on the fire.
Stir the tarragon into the salsa.
Melt all the lard you can spare in the frying pan and get it as hot as the fire will allow. Deep fry the eggs, spooning hot lard over them so they get good and crispy.
Serve up a tortilla with plenty of salsa and an egg and cheese on top then retire to your Tentsile to complete your recovery.
There’s a riddle in there somewhere about a getting a hangover from drinking something ‘on the rocks’, when hanging over some rocks in a hammock.
A Tentsile is a hang over cure for rocks, or anything else for that matter.
