Growing up, we had some of the standard American foods for breakfast – cream o’ wheat, oatmeal, waffles, fried eggs, pancakes (no sugar coated cereals in this household!) – and a couple things I never saw in any of my friends’ homes –huevos, and my favorite chorizo with eggs. My mother is hispanic by ancestry and looks, and even though she doesn’t speak a drop of Spanish she still cooks what she was taught by her mother, grandmother and relatives, growing up in Tucson, Arizona. Thus we alone on our block had chorizo, or Mexican sausage scrambled up with eggs. I didn’t even know that chorizo was the name of the sausage and not the dish until I was in my twenties. What is chorizo? A spicy pork sausage. While the Spanish version is usually spiced with paprika and garlic, Mexican chorizo is spiced with chile peppers. I’ve seen chorizo served in Mexican restaurants most often as a side sausage, like bacon. We cook ours up with the eggs and add some raisins as well, the sweetness of which provides some balance to the spicy chile in the chorizo.
Chorizo and Eggs Recipe
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INGREDIENTS
- Olive oil or bacon fat
- 1/3 cup chopped onions (green, red, or yellow onions) optional
- 1/4 lb of Mexican chorizo sausage, removed from sausage casing
- 3 Tbsp raisins - soaked in hot water for 15 minutes and drained
- 5 to 6 eggs
- Salt
- Tortillas - optional
- Cilantro - optional
Chorizo sausage from Whole Foods. Whole Foods has a standard recipe and spices for making chorizo sausage and may make some up for you upon request if you don't see it displayed.
METHOD
1 Heat a large skillet on medium high heat. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil or bacon fat in the pan. Add the chopped onions (optional) and cook until softened. Once softened, move to the side of the pan and add break up bits of chorizo into the pan. Use a wooden spatula to break up the pieces of sausage. Add the raisins. Stir until the sausage is cooked through, though not necessarily browned. If you are not using lean chorizo, drain the excess fat from the pan before proceeding. If you are not using lean chorizo, you may want to cook the chorizo first, draining the excess fat, then remove to a plate while you cook the onions in the remaining fat. We usually cook with lean chorizo, so excess fat isn't an issue.
2 Crack the eggs one at a time, into the pan. Break the yolks and stir the eggs into the sausage. Add a light sprinkling of salt. Stir constantly until the eggs begin to set, but are still moist. Remove from heat.
Serve immediately with a side of warmed corn tortillas and cilantro as a garnish.