Shakshouka

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Egypt I decided to look up some info on Egyptian cuisine. The dish that immediately caught my eye was shakshouka. Shakshouka seems to have originated in Tunisia but is popular throughout the Middle East, including Morocco, Egypt, and Israel. But the real reason I decided to make it was that it called for 6 eggs, allowing me to use up my egg farm share. Shakshouka = "a mixture" in Tamazight (a local language of North Africa according to Wikipedia) and is basically eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce.

Here I followed a recipe I found on the blog smitten kitchen, which has some great pictures.

Ingredients
1 onion
several cloves of garlic
2 poblano peppers
3 jalapeño peppers
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
28 oz can of whole pealed tomatoes
6 eggs
flat parsley
feta

1) Sauté the chopped onion, garlic, and peppers in olive oil until nice and soft.

2) Add the paprika and cumin and fry for about a minute longer.

3) While all this going on, put the tomatoes along with their liquid into a large bowl and squeeze until they are broken up as well as you can. This is the fun part.

4) Add the tomatoes and about half a cup of water. Simmer for about 10 until some of the liquid has reduced and everything
looks nice and ready. Salt to taste.

5) Poach the eggs in the tomato sauce. Do this by cracking the eggs and gently dropping into the tomato mixture, placing them uniformly around the pot like so:



6) Allow to simmer for a few minutes until it looks like the yolks are firming up a bit.

7) Carefully baste the egg whites with the liquid from the sauce until everything looks good.

8) Top with feta and the chopped parsley. I used quite a bit of both, and it was delicious!



9) Serve with toast or warm pita bread.