Socca Huevos Rancheros

For those of you who aren’t obsessed like I am, huevos rancheros is a Mexican breakfast dish that consists of fried eggs served on corn tortillas and topped with a tomato-chilli sauce.

I love the classic dish, but here in the UK it can be find to find corn tortillas (ones without wheat flour as well anyway) and replacing them with wraps from the Free From aisle can be prohibitively expensive, so I came up with this purse-friendly solution.

I was inspired by Hemsley+Hemsley’s use of socca, a pancake made from chickpea flour, as the base for a pizza and I thought the same thing could work in this dish. Chickpea flour (or besan) is cheap as chips and a bag goes a long way. You can find it in the World Foods section of supermarkets or in Middle Eastern or Asian grocery stores.

Serves 4-6

INGREDIENTS

Socca Base

• ½ cup/50g chickpea flour
• salt and pepper
• oil for frying

Tomato-Chilli Sauce

• 1 Tbsp oil of choice
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tin/400g chopped tomatoes
• 1 red jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
• ½ Tbsp cumin
• ½ Tbsp paprika
• 1 tin/400g (drained weight 240g) mixed beans, drained and rinsed
• salt and pepper to taste

Topping

• 4 eggs
• 1 avocado, chopped
• handful of coriander, roughly chopped

METHOD

1. First make the socca batter. Whisk together the chickpea flour with ½ cup of water and add a liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper. Set aside for 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, make the sauce. Put the oil in a large frying pan on a low heat and gently cook the onion for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a minute more. Pour in the tomatoes along with the jalapeno, cumin, paprika, beans, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer while you prepare the rest of the meal. You can add a little water if it starts to dry out.
3. When the batter is ready, whisk again and add oil to a frying pan on a medium-high heat. Use the batter to make two pancakes, pouring in ½ cup at a time and flipping it after a few minutes. Cover and keep pancakes warm as you finish cooking.
4. Cook your eggs. I decided to poach them for a slightly healthier option (and because I wanted to try out my new poach pods!) but the classic way is fried. They are both delicious although fried is a bit prettier.
5. Place a pancake on each plate and add two eggs to each. Surround with the tomato sauce and garnish with avocado and coriander.
6. Serve!