Breakfast Mexican Torta

I was watching an episode of Rick Bayless' "Mexico: One Plate at a Time" recently. He was making a torta, a Mexican dish that is served on a bun. What struck me the most about it was its versatility: There are so many things you can do with it.

So we decided to nearly replicate the first one he made in the episode, a Breakfast Mexican Torta.

We began by making the mashed black bean spread on the bottom bun. We soaked some dried black beans and then cooked them and mashed them. (Bayless used canned black beans.)

Then we made the other layer by cooking about 1/2 cup of salsa in some olive oil and then putting in some scrambled eggs seasoned with chives.


To build the sandwich, we carved out some of the bread from each end of the bun, then put some raw red onion below the mashed black beans. We topped with the salsa-egg mixture and ended with some shredded pepperjack cheese on top.


The sandwich was quite filling. But it was a bit underwhelming as we put in too much salsa and our rehydrating and cooking of the black beans was not sufficient. In other words, this was an execution issue, not a flavor issue.

We needed to add less salsa and the black beans were not mashed consistently because the outer skin was not fully cooked and our masher was not the appropriate one for the job.

We certainly have other plans for torta using other ingredients, and maybe we'll try to make the breakfast one again with better execution.