What a busy and frantic evening! I decided I wanted to try and get a post in on something I’ve been wanting to try for quite awhile. Even though it’s a breakfast item, and realistically that meant that I’d be eating it for dinner, I was feeling that I should try and add another post to the blog before the weekend. I figured that’s what a food blogger would have to do from time to time. To try and make deadlines that you set for yourself, and to eat breakfast for dinner, or dinner for lunch! I ended up giving the extras to our next-door neighbor in the building, so thanks, R. He seemed really grateful, but I’m just glad I was able to find someone willing and able to eat it so it wouldn’t go to waste.

I chose to do a version on Epicurious’ Chile and Chorizo Cornbread, but to make them as muffins. That meant that I would have to brave the crowds at the any grocery store in downtown Seattle likely to have chorizo. Realistically, the place most likely to have it would be Whole Foods. So I literally went the extra mile after work to go to WF and buy some chorizo. I’m not a big fan of that particular Whole Foods store, because it’s always so darn crowded, and I always feel their stuff is overpriced. Also, halfway home I realized that I bought chicken chorizo by mistake, but decided that going back to make the exchange to pork chorizo would take too much time, and they’d probably not allow me to make the exchange, anyway. So this time, it’s going to have to be chicken chorizo. Oh well. It’s probably better for me, anyway.

 

Tommy from his blog, Egg Me On has inspired me to try more eggy and savory things. So I decided that I wanted to make a cornbread muffin that was more like a meal. With some egg on top, and chorizo. I chose the epicurious recipe, which is originally from a book called, The Complete Sausage Book, (from 1977!) because I felt it would be easy enough to interrupt the baking process to crack an egg on top of each muffin and have it baked on top. I think it worked! I’m egg-cited with the results! (h/t to Tommy).

Chile And Chorizo Cornbread muffin with Egg on Top (adapted from Chile and Chorizo Cornbread)

ingredients:

• 8 ounces Chorizo, removed from casing (I used chicken chorizo)
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (my addition)
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar (my addition)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten (plus one additional egg per muffin you want to top)
• 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt (I used plain greek yogurt)
• 1/2 cup frozen corn ( I found a bag of fire-roasted corn)
• 1/2 cup milk (I added this for moistness)
• 1 red jalapeño, finely chopped (WF didn’t have any Anaheim chiles :-/)
• 1/2 (4-ounce) can green chiles chopped
• 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

method:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Crumble and fry the chorizo in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat for 5 minutes to render some of the fat. Reserve about a cup of the cooked chorizo that you will use to top each muffin later, putting the rest in a medium bowl that will be used for the batter. Use some of the fat to grease 6 jumbo muffin molds, or whatever container you might want to use. (Since I used chicken chorizo, there wasn’t a lot of fat rendered, so I used about 2 Tablespoons of melted butter mixed with about a teaspoon of the rendered fat to grease the muffin molds. )You can also make it into a loaf pan, or double the recipe and use a 9 by 9 inch square pan. A Jumbo sizeed muffin is the size larger than the standard cupcake size, and is exactly the volume of one cup. Typically you can buy trays of 4 or 6 jumbo muffin molds per tray. I used 6 jumbo muffin mold tray. Does that make sense?

Whisk the cornmeal, flour baking powder, and salt, and set aside. In a medium to large bowl, beat together with hand-held mixer or whisk, the eggs, sugar, yogurt, corn, chiles, milk, and half the cheese. Reserve other half of cheese for topping. Fold in chorizo, except for the cup of chorizo you will use for topping. Sift the flour mixture over the egg mixture and fold in the flour until just combined.

Spoon in the cornbread batter into whatever containers you decide to use. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until the cornbread turns golden. If you so desire to bake an egg on it, remove the muffin tin from the oven after about 20 minutes, and use the bottom of a spoon to press down on the muffin to make sort of an indentation or shallow pool on one side of the tops of each muffin. If the muffin seems to have risen and there isn’t much space to crack an egg on top without the egg spilling over, remove about a tablespoon or so of the batter. (I haven’t figured out yet how to avoid this. Sorry.) Crack an egg on that indented space and top each muffin with some of the 1 cup chorizo, divided evenly among the six muffins. Place back in the oven to bake the egg. Watch the egg starting after about 12-15 minutes for desired doneness. I did mine at about 18 minutes, but ovens vary, so I don’t want to get in trouble by setting exact times for baking eggs on top of muffins. If it looks runny/not runny enough for you, take it out. You want the translucent parts of the egg to not be translucent! How’s that for vague? What can I say, some people like their eggs all runny. I like mine runny, but viscous and oozy, especially when accompanied by chorizo, chiles, and cheese!

Gently use a small-sized offset spatula or a small knife to loosen each muffin from the mold, and after tracing around the sides of each muffin, use a large cutting board placed on top and gently flip over and lift muffin tray, then slowly lift and flip each muffin and flip back right side up on a serving dish. Top with cheese and perhaps some cilantro or even a dollop of sour cream or crema. I also made some pickled red onions, but haven’t decided if it really goes with this or not.

 

I hope you enjoy!