A Childhood Meal Revised

It was getting close to lunch time and the aroma of food cooking was making us hungry. Our mother was cooking one of our favorites; Potatoes, Eggs and Hot Dogs. My brothers and I would top this meal with ketchup. It was delicious. When I got married, I made this for lunch for my husband. He was not too sure how the combination would taste. Well, it became one of our favorite lunches; sometimes dinner, too. As time went on, we stopped eating hot dogs and of course stopped having this meal.

Recently at a local Mexican restaurant, I had Chicken/Chorizo Fajitas with peppers and onions. The combination was out of this world. We love to cook Mexican cuisine at home and figured we can duplicate this meal. Success! The meat market where we buy our chicken makes their own Chorizo. They use chicken instead of pork. We also buy Italian Sausage made from chicken. We decided to buy the Chorizo. The chicken and chorizo were grilled and the peppers and onions fried. When the chicken and chorizo were cooked and cut up, they were added to the pepper/onion mixture. Needless to say it was delicious.

There was a problem. The chorizo was packaged with 3 links. We cooked all 3 but couldn't decide what to do with the 3rd link. Then I remembered that favorite meal of years ago. I figured why not, why not use the chorizo in place of the hot dogs.

I started the preparation of the potatoes. I cut up a couple of good sized red potatoes and put them in a pot of cold water. The potatoes came to boil and I set the timer for 7 minutes. After the time, I drained the pot and ran cold water over the potatoes. I laid a cotton cloth in a bowl and placed the potatoes in the bowl. After a couple minutes, I put the bowl of potatoes in the refrigerator. After about 1/2 hour, I put oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. You need the oil hot so when the potatoes are added to the pan, they don't absorb the oil but instead brown and crisp. To check if the oil is hot enough, I place one potato in the pan. If it starts to sizzle, the oil is hot and the potatoes are ready for frying.

The potatoes are carefully put into the pan and not touched. Let them fry. The less you touch the potatoes, the crisper they get and hold their shape. I add a bit of salt and pepper.

Since the chorizo was cooked ahead of time, I let the potatoes fry until just about done. I then added the chorizo and a bit of chopped onion.

The chorizo browned nicely and the onion softened. I added a bit more salt and pepper. I then decided to sprinkle some Cajun spice over this delicious mixture. Chorizo already has some spice but I wanted everything to blend better.

I then added eggs. I used 10 eggs but only 5 yolks. I cooked the eggs like scrambled eggs. Added a bit more salt, pepper and parsley.

Just like that childhood lunch of years ago, we topped our revised meal with ketchup and had toast on the side. So next time you have a left-over ingredient, think of a childhood meal and revise it to an adult version. Enjoy!