Photo: Calliopejen1 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Shakshuka (Eggs in Spiced Tomato Sauce)
A one-pan North African dish of eggs poached in a spiced tomato-and-pepper sauce. It began in Tunisia and is now a beloved brunch across the Middle East and Israel. Mop up the sauce and runny yolk with bread — done in one pan in about 25 minutes.
Ingredients
- Eggs4 each
- Tomatoes · or 1 can chopped tomatoes4 each
- Onion · chopped1 each
- Red bell pepper · sliced1 each
- Garlic · minced3 clove
- Olive oil2 tbsp
- Paprika1 tsp
- Ground cumin1 tsp
- Chili flakes or harissa · for heat0.5 tsp
- Salt & pepper1 to taste
- Cilantro or parsley · to finish1 handful
- Bread1 to serve
Steps
- ⏲ 7 min
Sauté the onion and pepper in olive oil until soft.
- ⏲ 30 sec
Add the garlic, paprika, cumin, and chili (or harissa) and cook 30 seconds until fragrant.
- ⏲ 15 min
Add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and simmer 10-15 minutes until thickened.
- ⏲ 2 min
Make wells in the sauce with a spoon and crack an egg into each.
- ⏲ 8 min
Cover and cook on low 5-8 minutes until the whites are set but the yolks still runny.
Scatter with cilantro or parsley and serve from the pan, dipping bread into the sauce and yolk.
Variations
- Extra harissa: Tunisian-style with plenty of harissa for heat.
- Cheese shakshuka: Add feta or mozzarella for creaminess.
- Green shakshuka: Spinach and herbs instead of tomato for a green version.
- With merguez: Add spicy lamb sausage to make it hearty.
Tips
- Reduce the sauce well before adding eggs so it's thick, not watery.
- Make wells for the eggs and cover the pan so the whites set while the yolks stay runny.
- Cook low and watch closely — the eggs go from runny to hard fast.
- Bloom the spices in oil for 30 seconds to deepen the flavor.
- Serve straight from the pan with crusty bread for dipping.
More detail and the reasons why (4)
- This dish keeps the egg whole and separate, and the hard part is what that costs. It cracks the eggs in whole and poaches them in the sauce, menemen stirs them through so egg and tomato become one thing, and tomato and egg stir-fry cooks the egg apart and folds it back in. Keeping them separate is the only one of the three that leaves a white and a yolk still attached to each other, and a white sets at around 62°C (eggs) while a yolk has to stay under 68 — two targets a centimetre apart that cannot be staggered in time, because it is one egg in one pan with the heat already under it.
- So the well and the lid are one instruction, and they stagger it in space instead. The well holds the white down in the hot sauce where it will set, and holds the yolk above that line; spread flat, the yolk sits in the same heat as the white and there is nothing left to keep runny. The lid then finishes the top of the white, which is exposed to air, without having to raise the heat under the pan — and the heat is what has to stay low: above 80°C the proteins contract hard and squeeze water out, which in a pan that has just been reduced is the last thing wanted.
- "Reduce the sauce well" is structural before it is a matter of flavour. Heat makes egg protein contract and push water out, so eggs on a wet tomato base end up sitting in a puddle of tomato water that will not go back in, and reducing first removes the liquid that would otherwise separate out in the pan. This dish adds a second demand on the same step: a sauce that runs cannot hold the shape a spoon made in it. The wells are only possible at a thickness the reduction has to reach first.
- It goes to the table in the pan, so the cooking does not stop when you stop. A pan of eggs and tomato holds about a minute more cooking after the burner is off, and serving in the pan means it goes on at the table. Which is why "watch closely" is really an instruction to pull it earlier than looks right.
The basics behind this dish
- Browning and the Maillard ReactionMeat fails to brown for one of three reasons: it is wet, the pan is cool, or you put too much in at once. Plus how the brown film stuck to the pan becomes your sauce.
- Cooking Meat: Temperature, Resting, and Cutting Against the GrainDoneness is a core temperature, not a number of minutes. What resting actually does, how to handle a thick cut, and why the direction you slice changes the texture.
- Knife Skills: Grip, Cuts, and Why Size MattersHow you hold the knife matters more than how fast you cut. The pinch grip, the claw hand, and why uniform size is a cooking decision rather than a cosmetic one.
More of the same kind
More from this country
Tunisian →
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