Huevos Ahogados En Salsa Verde - "Drowned Eggs" - Recipe

Huevos Ahogados

This simple Mexican egg dish has a picturesque name: Huevos Ahogados, which means the eggs have been drowned. The reality isn't so violent, they have actually just been poached directly in a thin salsa. 

Let me go ahead and state the obvious: this is great hangover food.

I'm pretty much a sucker for anything involving poached eggs, especially if there is something good to sop up the runny yolk. In this case it mixes in with the sauce and you wipe it all up with a stack of soft corn tortillas.

I first learned of Huevos Ahogados from my beloved Senor Moose, which I don't get to visit nearly enough because it is all the way across town in Ballard. To my surprise it wasn't in any of the Diana Kennedy or Rick Bayless cookbooks I have. Senor Moose uses a tomato broth, but I had tomatillo salsa left from the Swiss chard enchiladas of my previous post, so I used that. I think either version is delicious. You could also use a jarred salsa. Puree it if is chunky.

(By the way, the reason my tomatillo salsa isn't green is I used pinto bean cooking broth to thin it, and it turned it brown. Not so pretty, but it tastes great.)

One nice bonus about this dish: if you have ever had trouble poaching eggs, it won't be a problem here. The salsa has enough body to keep the whites in a compact ball around the yolks.

Hmm, that makes me wonder... maybe I could invent an easy egg poaching technique using xanthan gum! To the kitchen, batman.... but first:

Huevos Ahogados En Salsa Verde
Serves 2
Vegetarian and gluten-free; not vegan

• 3 cups tomatillo salsa, either from this recipe or a jar, pureed and slightly thinned if needed - it should be about the consistency of typical tomato soup
• 4 eggs
• 6 soft corn tortillas
• cilantro
• salt

1. In a small saucepan with a lid, bring the salsa to a simmer.
2. Wrap the corn tortillas in a clean, damp dishtowel and microwave for a minute or so to soften.
3. Carefully crack each egg, and working right above the sauce, pull the halves apart and allow the egg to nestle in.
4. Cover the pot and cook for 3 minutes. Remove the lid and check to see if the whites are completely cooked. If not, return the lid and check every minute until you don't see any more transparent white
5. Divide the sauce and eggs between two bowls. Hit them with a bit of sea salt and a few sprigs of cilantro. Serve with the warm tortillas to wipe your bowl clean.