Cookalong with Nigella.com 2

It's a breakfast. I shouldn't have expected to be blown away by flavour. I did though, I expected something extraordinary from the first mouthful, and I found myself underwhelmed. This is a breakfast dish from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express. It was my turn to select a recipe for the Cookalong, and I hadn't made this, thought it was quite cheap and something that many people would be able to try or retry. Nigella seems to love eggs as much as I do, and has a myriad options for how to cook with them. Possibly my most favourite egg dish is Nigella's Masala Omelette from Nigella Bites. I thought that this recipe would be the Sombrero wearing version as it's called Mexican Scrambled Eggs.

Anyway back to my first indifferent taste of this recipe. I reminded myself this was scrambled eggs, and so it should taste predominantly of eggs after all. I wasn't so disappointed with the flavour that I'd consider not eating it! Anyway, as I ate mouthful after mouthful, I found the flavours growing on me. The crunch of the corn tortillas is particularly enjoyable. Part of the problem I see now is me. Of course. I wasn't able to find a small green chilli, so had chosen a larger green one which had next to no bang for my buck. This was mild enough for even the youngest family member, a mere 15 months of age, to eat. HE loves it. So next time, a genuinely hot chilli will help. By the end of it I had decided that I thought it was scrumptious and I shouldn't have expected the eggs to be overpowered by the addition of spring onion, tomato and tortilla. It's really yummy, very quick to pull together, and I admit, the addition of a little coriander to the dish was one I will duplicate, though it is not included in Nigella's recipe. Mind you, I would add fresh coriander leaves to almost any dish.

If you are not fortunate enough to own a copy of Nigella Express, then you can find the recipe on Nigella.com.


Mexican Scrambled Eggs

2 x 15ml tablespoons vegetable oil
2 soft corn tortillas
1 tomato, deseeded and roughly chopped
1 spring onion, roughly chopped
1 small green chilli, deseeded and chopped
4 eggs, beaten
1/4 teaspoon of Maldon salt or pinch of table salt
(My own addition would suggest a tablespoon or so of fresh coriander roughly chopped or torn)

Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy-based frying pan. Roll up the corn tortillas in a sausage shape and then snip them into strips with a pair of scissors straight into the hot oil.

Fry the tortilla strips for a few minutes until crisp and golden, and then remove to a bowl.

Add the chopped tomato and spring onion to the hot oily pan along with the chopped chilli, turning everything about for a moment with a wooden spoon, they colour up quite quickly I found.

Put the corn tortilla strips back in the pan, and add the beaten eggs and salt. Using the same spoon, move everything about the pan as you do when scrambling eggs.

Once the eggs are setting, remove the pan from the heat, and continue stirring the eggs until they are done to your liking. I had a high heat here, and found with a heavy pan as suggested the heat could be turned off almost immediately after the eggs are added.

Serves 2


This was a delicious dish which, with my error in judgement on the chilli was more than fine for my two youngest children to share with me. I suspect they will want this again, so it will come to me to make two batches, one with the milder chilli, and a second batch for the grown ups being hit for six with a chilli that really means business!

I shouldn't have been so quick to judge. I managed to mislead myself as to what the flavour of these eggs would be, once I let that go, I was able to enjoy them for what they are. A delicious variation on scrambled eggs.