Recipe A Day #26: Mote Con Huevos

Today's recipe takes everyday plain old scrambled eggs and--with a minor extra step and an extra ingredient or two--turns them into a memorable and exotic breakfast. We loved this recipe, and you're going to love it too.

Mote Con Huevos

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons butter (or oil)
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon mild chili powder
salt and black pepper to taste
1 15 ounce can white hominy/mote, drained and rinsed
⅓ cup milk
5 eggs
2 Tablespoons chives, minced
1 Tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped

Directions:
1) In a medium-sized non-stick pan, saute the onion, garlic and spices in butter on medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes, until soft. Add mote/hominy, combine well, and saute for another 2 minutes. Then, add milk and continue to saute until nearly absorbed, another 3 minutes or so.

2) Meanwhile, whisk eggs well in a separate bowl. Add eggs, chives and parsley to pan. Cook and stir occasionally as if you were going to make scrambled eggs, until eggs are done to your liking. Serve immediately.

Serves 2-3.
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Recipe Notes:
1) Use real butter*: Sure, you can use plain olive oil or some other oil in this recipe, but there's something about the flavor combination of mote, eggs and butter. With butter, this recipe simply tastes better.

* Apologies to Jen Yu for stealing the phrase.

2) Canned vs. dried mote/hominy/giant white corn: Once again, you have a choice with today's recipe: use dried giant white corn, or simply buy it in the can. With this recipe--contrary to our recent Spicy Mote and Chicken Stew--I recommend going the easier route and using basic canned hominy or canned mote, which you can find the latin aisle in most grocery stores. Barring that, today's recipe offers you a gift-wrapped reason to visit your local Latin American grocery store.

3) Spice variations: Feel free to improvise with the spices here: In place of my "cayenne, cumin and mild chile powder" version above, consider using thyme and sage, or paprika only, or a super-spicy version with extra cayenne and Tabasco, or, a simple, minimalist version with just salt and black pepper.


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