Stuology

Recipe: Hogao

Aug 13th, 2010By: Mellystu Comments 1

This, to me, falls more into the category of a condiment. It’s like a mix between pico de gallo and salsa, but not quite. I made it to put into a soup, but had extra that I stored in the fridge for other uses. I found the absolute best use for it. Eggs. I don’t have a history of loving eggs. The only ones that I used to eat without an “ewww” were deviled eggs. Eating simple fried eggs or plain scrambled eggs? No thank-you. Then I switched from eating grains, and surprisingly I found myself going for egg scrambles above all others because I found that when I add a lot of things to scrambled eggs, then they are quite tasty^*. Mixing scrambled eggs with hogao is wonderful. While looking into this recipe I discovered that there are slightly different ways that people make it. This is what I used, based on two recipes by people who make it in Columbia.

Hogao
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped scallions, white and green
2 cups fresh chopped tomatoes
2 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro — I used a generously heaping 1/4 cup
a good sized pinch chopped saffron threads
salt and ground pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the tomatoes, scallions, garlic, ground cumin and cook gently for 10 minutes, stirring until softened.

2. Reduce the heat to low, add the saffron, salt, pepper and cilantro, cook for 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally until the sauce has thickened. Check and adjust the seasoning.

3. If you don’t want to pay for saffron–it is expensive–leave it out.

I found that this tasted better if you let it sit in the fridge for a day before you used it. I also liked this in my scrambled eggs warm, and found that scrambling first and adding a heaping spoonful of this at the end of cooking worked best. You could heap it on cold too, I suppose, like people do with salsa.

I, personally, would avoid piling in more cumin. The small hint of cumin gives it that unique taste over salsa without it tasting like chili or tacos.

*And because my ability to make an omelette without obliterating it is weak.