Shakshuka — eggs poached in a pepper and tomato sauce

pareve Tunisian Jewish · easy · 45 min, including 25 hands-on

Peppers and onion cooked until soft and sweet, a red base of tomato purée, harissa, cumin and paprika, and four eggs gently cooked under a lid in the sauce. Mop up every last drop with pita.

Ingredients for two

Method

1. Peel the onion and slice into thin half-moons. Open the peppers, remove the seeds and white membranes and cut into 1 cm strips. Peel and thinly slice the garlic. Tip the tomatoes into a bowl and crush by hand into rough pieces.
2. Heat the olive oil over a medium heat in a 24–26 cm sauté pan with a lid. Add the onion, peppers and half the salt. Cover and sweat over a medium-low heat for 6 minutes until the peppers release their juices and soften. Uncover and cook for another 9 minutes, stirring every 3 minutes: the water should evaporate, the peppers become soft and sweet, and the onion translucent with golden edges. This patience makes the shakshuka. If the vegetables stick, lower the heat rather than adding water.
3. Add the garlic and stir for 1 minute. Add the tomato purée, harissa, cumin, paprika and chilli if using, then stir over a medium heat for 1 minute until darker and fragrant. Add the crushed tomatoes with their juice, the remaining salt, reserving a pinch for the eggs, the pepper and the sugar if the tomatoes are acidic. Simmer uncovered over a medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thick enough that a spoon leaves a trail that slowly closes. If too liquid, the eggs would float; cook for another 2 minutes.
4. Reduce the heat to low. Make 4 wells in the sauce with the back of a spoon. Crack each egg into a ramekin first, checking for blood spots and avoiding shell in the sauce, then slide into a well and add a pinch of salt to the yolk. Cover and cook for 6–8 minutes until the whites are set and opaque right up to the yolks, which should stay runny and wobble when you gently shake the pan. Check after 6 minutes, as cooking continues off the heat.
5. Meanwhile, warm the pitas in a dry frying pan over a high heat for 1 minute per side, or for 3 minutes in an oven preheated to 180°C, switching it on at the start of step 3. Scatter chopped parsley over the shakshuka and bring the pan to the table. Each person takes 2 eggs and some sauce, with pita for mopping up.

On your plate

Cooking tips

Make the sauce, steps 1–3, the day before or in the morning; it keeps in the fridge for 3 days. In the evening, reheat for 5 minutes and poach the eggs for dinner in 12 minutes. Leftover sauce without eggs is good cold the next day as kemia on bread, as in Tunisia; Moroccans call this cooked salad matbucha. In summer, replace the tin with 500 g very ripe tomatoes, halved and coarsely grated flesh-side down so the skin remains in your hand, with no need to peel. Simmer for 5 minutes longer. For larger appetites, use 3 eggs each, 330 g total, with the same sauce and timing in a 28 cm pan. For a dairy variation, crumble 100 g feta over the sauce before adding the eggs.

Equipment : 24–26 cm sauté pan or frying pan with a lid; a 28 cm pan also works, but the sauce layer will be thinner, so stop reducing once it coats a spoon, frying pan for the pitas, or oven, bowl and ramekin

The chakchouka of Tunisian and Libyan Jewish homes, now an everyday dish in Israel; this version uses softened peppers and harissa in the red sauce.