Poached Egg w\ Chorizo and Mexican Rice Cake, Fried Potatoes, and Chorizo Cream Sauce
Working with Chefs' in school, Chefs' always drilled into our minds the no waste mindset. Chefs' always have cool ideas to repurpose leftover food from the night before. I'm from Southeast Texas, along the beautiful Gulf Coast. So having leftover Mexican Rice, Arroz a la Mexicana, is a common occurrence. I grasped this mindset and food item to make a breakfast dish that I hope will help you repurpose this food item.
I woke up one morning, not knowing what to cook for breakfast. I felt like eating something different from the normal eggs, bacon, and sausage. I had a big bowl of leftover Mexican Rice. I started thinking, how do I make this dinner side into something that I can have for breakfast...? I look in the fridge, first thing i see is... chorizo! My immutable love for chorizo is unparalleled by any other food item. Chorizo is ground pork seasoned with paprika and other spices to make a flavorful bomb of fatty goodness. What if I made a rice and chorizo cake? That's exactly what I did. Now, I need a sauce. A chorizo cream sauce popped into my mind. I've never heard of or seen anybody make a chorizo cream sauce before, and so I thought this was an interesting sauce to make. I like small cut potatoes fried in oil, commonly known as "papas", for breakfast. The potatoes had to be added, of course. Out of the numerous ways to cook an egg, I went with a poached egg. Alright, enough with the yip-yap, lets get to cooking.
Ingredients Needed:
Russet/Idaho Potatoes
Mexican Rice
Chorizo
Eggs
All Purpose Flour
Heavy Cream
White Distilled Vinegar (just a splash)
Salt (i like Kosher Salt)
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
Start with the potatoes, as they take the longest in this preparation. Get a pan that you like to deep fry in or grab your deep fryer. Add enough oil to the pan, so that the potatoes won't hit the bottom. Heat to 350 degrees F/176 degrees C. While oil is heating, peel, rinse, and dry your potatoes, and cut into chunks/cubes of your liking. Fry your potatoes til golden brown on all sides. Put the potatoes in a strainer and season with salt and pepper immediately. Keep in a warm place.
While the potatoes are cooking, start browning the chorizo in a Sautior, a straight sided sauce pan. Remove the chorizo from the pan and set aside in a bowl. Let the chorizo cool down for a few minutes before adding it to your cold leftover Mexican Rice. Set the Sautior aside with the Fond and some of the fat left at the bottom of the pan. After cooling the chorizo for a few minutes, add the chorizo to your mexican rice in a bowl. Add a whisked raw egg to the rice and chorizo and mix. Add your all purpose flour little by little, until you can grab a nice handful and press it into a patty that will hold its shape and not fall apart. Heat about a quarter inch of oil in a frying pan. Canoloa oil or Vegetable oil will do, due to higher burn temperatures. Fry your chorizo and rice cakes until golden brown on both sides. Remove cakes to a plate lined with paper towels to drain and season with salt and pepper immediately. Keep in a warm place.
Now to poach the eggs. Before adding the cakes to the oil, grab a pot and fill it with water, until you know the egg wont hit the bottom of the pot. Bring the water up til steam starts coming off the water. Remember, we are poaching. Poaching is a delicate and soft way to cook. We don't want boiling. Boiling is violent and aggressive. When the water starts steaming, add the splash of white distilled vinegar. The white distilled vinegar will help the egg whites stick to the yolk better when submerging in the water. Crack your egg into a small bowl and pour into the water. Poach until you see the white cooked around the yolk but you can still see the yellow of the yolk. Keep in mind, that the egg will still cook a little after removing the egg from the water. After removing your egg from the water, place on a plate lined with paper towel to drain the water off. Salt and Pepper your eggs, and keep in a warm place. Remember that poaching is a difficult skill to master. So if your mess up, don't give up and keep trying.
Now for the sauce. Grab the sauce pan you browned the chorizo in and place on a medium heat. Deglaze the pan with your heavy cream. The cold from the cream will create a slight boiling with the heat from the bottom of the pan. This will allow you to scrape the bottom of the pan with a spatula to get the fond from the pan and into the heavy cream. This technique will allow you to get the chorizo flavor into the cream to create your sauce. Bring your sauce to a boil, reduce heat to low, and reduce down for a few minutes removing water from the cream. You will be able to visually see the small bubbles at the beginning from the water, as it boils. When the water is removed, you will be able to see larger thicker bubbles. Turn heat off and set aside. Add salt at this point and taste til your liking. The salt will counter balance all the fat from the chorizo and heavy cream. The sauce will thicken as it cools.
Now to assemble the plate. You may not believe it but picking the plate is serious business. Here, I went with a white circular plate. Using a black circular plate would've worked just fine also, due to the color contrast. I used a circular plate, because of the circular pattern from the egg and rice cake. First, we start with the sauce at the bottom of the plate in the center. Then place your potatoes on top of the sauce. Then place your chorizo rice cake on top of the potatoes. Then place your poached egg on the top, like a jewel on a diamond ring. Ideally, when you cut into the egg, your want a yolk that is thick but still runny. If you got that, then you have a perfectly poached egg.
I hope this blog post helps you repurpose your leftover mexican rice. More importantly, I hope this blog post sparked some ideas in your mind to be creative and innovative with your leftovers. I hope you comeback and read more of my blog posts. See ya next time. Yep-Yep
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