This morning I cooked my first home made shakshuka – a delicious middle eastern breakfast recipe (which can also be turned into a vegan version if you leave out the eggs). Yesterday my new kitchen stools arrived so I really enjoyed celebrating by eating at the breakfast bar.

I only had one egg in the fridge but I think two eggs per person is standard. I used a Burford Brown egg – my favourite eggs at the moment – they have beautiful, rich orange yolks and taste fantastic. As I don’t own a small cast iron or oven proof dish I used a Victoria sponge cake tin to finish baking the shakshuka in the oven. The oven was warm after baking soda bread (so it made economic sense to use the residual heat) although I made the sauce up first on the stove. If you want to cook everything on the stove, poach the egg slowly in the mixture until the whites are cooked.

Shakshuka is one of those recipes where you don’t need to be too strict about the ingredients – use up what you have in the fridge like courgettes, aubergines or in my case some kale.

I realised I didn’t have any bread – essential for dipping into the runny egg and mopping up the rich sauce. So (domestic goddess that I am) I made some soda bread – a quick and easy recipe with no need for yeast, kneading or proving. I had to improvise with some of the ingredients but it turned out good enough.

These quantities are for one person, so increase the quantity as required.

Ingredients

• Eggs – one or two per person
• 1 large spring onion (or 2 small), chopped
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• Half a tin of tomatoes
• Half a red pepper, diced
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• Pinch of chilli flakes
• Half teaspoon of cumin
• Half teaspoon of smoked paprika
• Large handful of chopped kale which needed using up
• Olive oil for cooking
• Salt and pepper for seasoning

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Heat the oil in a pan and gently cook the onion,  pepper and garlic until soft. Add the chill flakes, cumin, paprika and kale and cook while stirring for a few minutes.
3. Add the fresh and tinned tomatoes, salt and pepper and cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes.
4. If using a separate oven proof pan, transfer the mixture to that pan. Make an indentation in the mixture and crack in the eggs.
5. Cook in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the egg whites are cooked.

Do you have a cheap, fresh and easy recipe I can try? Let me know and I’ll feature it on the site and link back to you.

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