Classic Shakshuka
Classic Shakshuka
This is a Middle Eastern recipe for basically "use what you have in your fridge and throw in a pan." Basically this is an onion, bell pepper, and tomato dish with eggs on top. Sounds delightful indeed! I made this on 14 Sep 2016, and it is a keeper! On the regular rotation, my comments below.
Ingredients
- 5-6 eggs
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 4 cups tomatoes, diced
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- pinch red chili flakes, optional, to taste
- pinch cayenne pepper, optional, to taste
- pinch sugar, optional, to taste
- salt and black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Cook the onion and garlic in a deep large pan until translucent. Then add the bell pepper and cook for another 5 minutes or so until the bell pepper is soft, then add the tomatoes and stir. You can at this point add in other items if you like, such as green chilies, parsley, mushrooms, spinach, etc.
- Reduce heat to a low simmer, add the tomato paste and stir until thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste, then add in chili flakes and/or paprika and/or cayenne for as much spice as you like.
- Once the mixture is thick to your liking, crack in eggs, making sure they are spread out from one another, then cover the pan and allow the mixture to cook and the eggs to set, about 8-10 minutes, depending on how you like your eggs.
- The egg on the left, broken yoke so it just sort of disappeared into the sauce. Other eggs are set but yolks are still runny, perfect.
- Serve with some toast on the side or like me, I served this with 2 Porcupine Meatballs I made another day, excellent meal.
Notes
Nothing expensive here, you might be looking at 30 cents per serving.
Adapted from an internet recipe.
I made this on 14 Sep 2016, and it is amazingly good! Simple dish, and the onion, bell pepper, tomato and spices are a great combination and base for the eggs. The spices are excellent but not over powering. This is a use what you have recipe, I did not have fresh tomatoes so I used a can of whole tomatoes, drained and chopped, and I also for the tomato paste, no impact really on the thickening as you can tell from the photo. Just use a spatula and scoop up an entire section with an egg on, the whites settle down into the peppers and tomatoes to hold everything together. Highly recommended, this is added to my Go-to list!