Plenty of Plenty: Shakshuka

With the freezing cold temperatures this weekend (I was not the only one in a giant puffy jacket for once), I think it is safe to say that winter has edged out fall and as a girl born and raised in California, I have already tired of wearing sweaters and boots (I’ve been wearing them since it was 60°) and am ready for summer to return, or at the very least spring. It was with this longing for my favorite season that led me to decide to tackle shakshuka, a dish that I had discovered this summer on birthright; I might not have fallen in love with an Israeli soldier (what I was not-so-secretly hoping for) but I did fall for the egg dish that is just as fun to say as it is to eat. Justifying to myself that the tomato, pepper and onion sauce the eggs are cooked in is almost stew-like and thus perfectly acceptable to eat for dinner (shakshuka, to some narrow-minded people, is usually served for brunch), I endeavored to bring my summer travels in Israel, a happier, midterm-free time, back to Penn (although some might argue that going to school at Penn is like being on birthright forever, as they both tend to attract the same demographic).

Compared to the other recipes, the ingredients Ottolenghi listed for his shakshuka seemed almost pedestrian, so pedestrian, in fact, that even I, who had never truly cooked a meal other than mac and cheese prior to embarking on this adventure, was able to recognize almost all of them (damn you, saffron threads, you strange-sounding and obscure spice). Despite the fact that I’ve never so much as scrambled an egg, I was feeling fairly confident in my abilities to, if not replicate, then at least approximate the shakshukas I had gorged myself on in the holy land. Eager as I was to begin cooking (because the faster you cook the sooner you eat), I did not stop to consider that before heating the oil and beginning to “dry-roast” (still haven’t quite figured out what dry-roasting actually does) the cumin seeds, I might want to chop the two onions, four bell peppers and six tomatoes the recipe called for. I didn’t even read through the recipe entirely before turning on the stove, and once again realized that “beginner” doesn’t begin to describe my cooking abilities, for immediately after the seeds were done roasting, the recipe called for the onions to be sautéed, followed immediately by the peppers and herbs, who in turn were to be quickly pursued by the tomatoes and the rest of the spices. Having done no prep whatsoever, I was racing to keep up with the recipe, the sound of the oil sizzling sounded to me like the background music they play on Jeopardy and by the time everything was safely in the pan my heart was beating so loudly that I was sure the neighbors could hear.

Once everything was in the pan, however, the recipe slowed down considerably, which you think would have relieved me but instead only served to make me impatient. Despite telling myself to leave the pan alone, allowing the mixture to thicken and stew, I could not resist hopping out of my seat every two seconds to stir, adding just a bit more water, and wondering what exactly a “pasta-sauce like consistency” looks like. After twenty minutes I decided that the mixture looked like something I would happily eat atop spaghetti (although there aren’t very many things that aren’t improved by pasta in my mind), and so I carefully cracked the eggs into the mixture, praying that the yolks wouldn’t break (they didn’t). Ottolenghi, vague as ever, instructed to cook the eggs on a “gentle (!)” heat, and turning the stove down as low as I dared, I finally allowed myself to relax, having safely finished almost everything fairly successfully. However, when I removed the lid of the pan ten minutes later (the amount of time specified by Ottolenghi) the eggs were completely cooked through. While inside my heart sank, the smell of the onions, tomatoes and peppers was enough to make me forget the large discrepancies between my shakshuka and the one pictured in Plenty. Even with the notable absence of a crucial part of the dish, the runny yolk, I was still able to eat two “generous” portions of my shakshuka, and were it not for the hail outside, I might even have been able to imagine I was back in Jerusalem. Maybe.

The recipe:
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon cumin seeds, ¾ cup light olive oil (or vegetable oil), 2 large onions, sliced, 2 red bell peppers, cut into ¾-inch strips, 2 yellow bell peppers, cut into ¾-inc strips, 4 teaspoons muscovado sugar, 2 bay leaves, 6 thyme sprigs, leaves picked and chopped, 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, plus extra to garnish, 6 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped, ½ teaspoon saffron threads, pinch of cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper, up to 1 1/8 cups water, 8 eggs
In a very large pan, dry-roast the cumin seeds on high heat for 2 minutes. Add the oil and onions, sauté for 5 minutes. Add the peppers, sugar and herbs and continue cooking on high heat for 5 to 10 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, saffron, cayenne and some salt and pepper. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Keep adding water so that the mix has a pasta sauce consistency. Feel free to taste and adjust the seasoning, it should be potent.
Remove the bay leaves, then divide the pepper mix among four deep frying pans. Place them on medium heat to warm up, then make two gaps in the pepper mix in each pan and carefully break an egg into each gap. Sprinkle with salt and cover pans with lids. Cook on a very (!) gentle heat for 10 to 12 minutes. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

-Emily Waxman