Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Shakshuka

This is one of those dishes that I had never heard about and then all of a sudden I started to hear about it in different places.  It's a North African egg dish - the eggs are cooked in a yummy tomato sauce with lots of spices and feta cheese.  The sauce freezes well if you want to make extra.  It's a little bit on the spicy side, but our kids don't seem to mind.

There are lots of different variations but the one we've liked and used is from David Lebovitz.



Ingredients:

 2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, peeled and diced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
12 – 1 chile pepper, stemmed, sliced in half, deseeded, and minced
112 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika, smoked or sweet
34 teaspoon ground cumin
12 teaspoon turmeric
2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cored and diced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1 cup (20g) loosely packed greens, such as radish greens, kale, Swiss chard, or spinach, coarsely chopped
4 ounces (about 1 cup, 115g) feta cheese, cut in generous, bite-sized cubes
cilantro (optional)
4 to 6 eggs

Heat the olive oil, in a large, deep skillet or sauté pan, over medium high heat. Add the onions and the garlic and cook for 5 minutes, until soft. Add the chile pepper, the salt, pepper, and spices. Cook for a minute, stirring to release their fragrance.

Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, honey, and vinegar, reduce the heat to medium, and cook for about 15 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened somewhat but is still loose enough so that when you shake the pan it moves around. Stir in the chopped greens.

Turn the heat down to medium and drop the feta into the tomato sauce. Make 6 indentations in the sauce. Crack an egg into each indentation.

Keep the sauce at a gentle simmer, and cook for about 10 minutes, taking some of the tomato sauce and basting the egg whites from time-to-time. Cover, and cook 3 to 5 minutes, until the eggs are cooked to your liking.  Top with cilantro, if using.

Serve with good bread to soak up the sauce.

Serves 4-6

Adapted from David Lebovitz

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