Huevos a la Mexicana

This is a Ciudad de Mexico breakfast. You will find it in fondas across the country, but the central highlands is where it lives, where the jitomate is folded into the eggs not as garnish but as the dish itself. The name tells you what it is. Red jitomate, white onion, green chile serrano and cilantro. The flag, on a plate, before nine in the morning.

The trinity has to be diced fine. This is not pico de gallo dumped on top of cooked eggs. The vegetables cook into a quick salsa in the pan, the eggs go in after, and the curds come out holding the color and the flavor of all three. If you cut the vegetables too big, the eggs slide off them. If you cut them too small, they disappear. Practice on the cutting board. The knife work is the whole recipe.

My mother made these on weekday mornings when there was no time for anything else. She kept the jitomate diced in a jar in the refrigerator from the night before, so all she had to do in the morning was hit the pan with manteca and crack the eggs. Eight minutes from cold stove to plate. She used to say huevos a la mexicana is the proof that good Mexican cooking does not need hours. It needs the right ingredients, the right fat, and the right hand. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.