Shakshouka-another great way to eat your vegetables (and eggs)

It has been at least a week since I have mentioned my favorite book by Mimi Sheraton called “1000 Foods to Eat Before you Die”.  One of the items listed there is Shakshouka. I will admit, prior to reading Mimi’s note of it, I hadn’t heard of Shakshouka but once I knew the word, I realized it is everywhere. Google and see how many recipes come up. About the same time, my brother kept telling me that he has this great breakfast recipe with eggs and tomatoes.  I finally asked the name and it was, of course, shakshouka.  A few weeks ago two of my friends from Utah came to visit, Michelle and Kirsten and Michelle wanted to make this green egg dish. It was, of course, a green version of Shakshouka. Elena came back from Jerusalem and I told her I wanted to make the green

shakshouka and she groaned and said they fed that to her every day she was in Jerusalem.  When I was there we only got cut up cucumbers and tuna fish salad, not one offered us shakshouka but we also had to walk 5 miles in the snow uphill so this is not surprising.  All of this sudden shakshouka creeping into my consciousness led me to finally google the word to figure out where and what it really is. Google says that while this dish has been eaten in much of the Middle East, it is the Tunisian version that has recently gained such popularity. Since this is now one of my favorite things to eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner, I have to thank the good people of Tunisia for sharing their dish with the word.

So back to Elena. She really didn’t seem super thrilled to have me make shakshouka since she just came off of two weeks of eating it but regardless of Elena’s eye rolling, I did make both the green version of Shakshouka from bon appetite.  I won’t include it here but you can find it on their website. I will say that I modified the recipe slightly in that I omitted the dill and I also choose to puree two of the three bunches of Swiss chard. What really makes this recipe is the cut up Swiss chart stems. Don’t omit that. That gives this dish a nice crunch.

So in making my brother’s shakshouka which recipe I can include (thanks, Jay) what I found is that his version has added spinach and upped the spice, both things I admire in food. I like it with flavor and any time I can stick in another vegetable-particularly green-I am happy.  I really didn’t deviate from Jay’s dish except to use frozen spinach which I had instead of fresh which I didn’t have.  Obviously, fresh would have been a better option but it worked great with the frozen version as well.  Once last little tip for both of these recopies. I found that I had extra sauce after I ran out of eggs. I just plopped more eggs in, put the dish back into the oven for another 10 minutes and ate round two of the dish. Works great…

Ingredients

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced

1 large red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1-2 teaspoon ground cumin

1-2 teaspoon sweet paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste

1 (28-ounce) can whole plum tomatoes with juices, coarsely chopped

¾ teaspoon salt, more as needed

¼ teaspoon black pepper, more as needed

5 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 1 1/4 cups)

6 large eggs

Chopped cilantro, for serving

Hot sauce, for serving

5 oz, Chopped, fresh spinach

Preparation:

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and bell pepper. Cook gently until very soft, about 20 minutes. Add garlic and spinach and cook until tender, 1 to 2 minutes; stir in cumin, paprika and cayenne, and cook 1 minute. Pour in tomatoes and season with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper; simmer until tomatoes have thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in crumbled feta.

Make depressions for eggs.  Gently crack eggs into skillet over tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer skillet to oven and bake until eggs are just set, 7 to 10 minutes. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve with hot sauce. [/recipe]