The label "ranchero" refers to the
rancheros or vaqueros (cowherds or cowboys), the men in charge of cattle and horses in the Mexican
haciendas; the name can be translated as “cowboy eggs”. It was typical among the rancheros to cook their dishes, such as beef, pork, turkey, and even eggs, in a
chile sauce (salsa). The original name of the dish, as it appears in 19th century Mexican cookbooks, was "huevos estrellados en chile colorado" (sunny side-up eggs in red chile sauce) or “huevos estrellados en chile verde” (sunny side-up eggs in a green chile sauce); the moniker “rancheros” was applied by people from the cities. The eggs were simply cooked in a mixture of red or green chile sauce and lard. A recipe for the dish appears in Manuel Galvan Rivera’s “El Nuevo Cocinero Mexicano en Forma de Diccionario” (1845), where it instructs the reader to use
pasilla and
ancho chiles, both toasted and deveined, and roasted tomatoes for the red salsa, or green chiles and
tomatillos for the green salsa. The salsa was then put in a pot with lard to fry, after which the eggs were cracked opened and dropped into it to cook. When ready, they were removed and served sprinkled over with “queso añejo rallado” or grated aged cheese. Another recipe, but under the name "Huevos Rancheros", appears in a
Puebla manual in 1898, and it is the same recipe as the one in Galvan Rivera’s cookbook: In her book
Mexico as I saw it (1901),
Ethel Brilliana Tweedie, while eating in a Mexico City restaurant, recounts: In all three cases, there is no mention of tortillas or any other side dish, it was simply eggs cooked in a red or green chile sauce. ==Basic dish==