Mexican-Style Eggs in Purgatory

One of my friends raises chickens and over the weekend she was generous enough to give me some of their eggs. I have often thought about making eggs in purgatory (sometimes known as eggs in hell) and decided this was the perfect time. However, eggs in purgatory is often made as an Italian dish and I wanted to go Mexican since the avocados in my CSA box are ready to eat.

Here's the ingredients for the eggs



















1 bell pepper, sliced
1 onion, sliced
2 clove garlic, minced
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup of your favorite salsa
several dashes of hot sauce
1 avocado, sliced

I started by sauteing the bell pepper and onion, adding the garlic towards the end of the cooking. I added my canned tomatoes, salsa and some hot sauce. I brought this to a soft simmer and then made four indentations in the sauce and broke one egg into each of the indentations. I wanted soft egg yolks so I basically just let the eggs poach until them were down how I like them (it took about 10 minutes). If I wanted firmer yolks, I would have spooned some of the sauce over the eggs as they cooked.

















I would have served this with warm corn tortillas but I didn't have any of those and I'm swimming in potatoes so I made some crispy fried potato cakes.

Here's the ingredients for the potato cakes
2 russet potatoes
1/2 cup or so cream or milk
1 cup leeks (any onion would work but I had some leftover leeks that I wanted to use)
flour for dredging
salt and pepper

Basically I made (lumpy) mashed potatoes with the potatoes and cream, sauteed the leeks and then stirred them into the potatoes. Once they cooled a little I used a medium scoop to portion out the potatoes and then squashed them into patties about 2 inches in diameter and 1/2 inch thick.


















I dredged them in flour and fried them in the oil until they were crispy and delicious. Once everything was ready I put a few of potato cakes on each plate, added the cooked eggs and some sauce and them topped it with sliced avocado.


















How was it? Really good. In fact it was better than I expected. I'm actually glad that I didn't have tortillas because the potatoes were so good with the dish. I would make this again in a heart beat (and the husband liked it so he would eat it again too).