mediterranean – Cannibalicious

This is one of the best breakfast foods ever. The only reason I say it’s a breakfast food is not because it’s an egg dish, but because I make the sauce and let it rest overnight. Shakshouka is so vast and is made by so many cultures that you can differentiate where the person learned it by tracing the spices and flavors it has. I learned it from an Egyptian chef in Queens but adapted it to spices my palate is adapted to from Mexico.

Ingredients
– 9 roma tomatoes
– 1 onion
– 4 garlic cloves
– 1/2 cup olive oil
– 1-3tsp smoked paprika
– 1-3tsp oregano
– 1-3tsp toasted cumin
– 1-3tsp turmeric
– 1-2 heaping tablespoons Harissa
– 4 eggs
– Feta cheese
– Handful of spinach
– Za’atar
– Salt & pepper to taste

Score the skins of the tomatoes in a cross pattern and blanch them in boiling water for 30 seconds so you can peel them easily.

In a dutch oven or deep skillet add oil and chopped onions on medium heat. Sweat the onions for 5 minutes and add crushed garlic. Saute for a couple minutes and add the peeled and rough chopped tomatoes, no need to seed them. Add all the spices without the Za’atar and let it simmer until tomatoes are broken down. Crush the tomatoes further with a masher or blend roughly with an immersion blender. There should still be pieces of tomatoes left, it’s not a sauce. Add the harissa to taste, I add two heaping tablespoons because I like it spicy. Pepper it to taste but salt it shy of how you want it.

Simmer for 30 minutes on medium-low heat where it’s bubbling but not splattering. Let cool on counter and place in fridge overnight.

The next morning, add the spinach and bring back to boil uncovered then simmer for 20 minutes. Crack the eggs carefully and cover the whites with the sauce. Cover with the lid and let simmer for 5 minutes. Turn heat off and let sit for a minute more. Uncover and serve with crumbled feta cheese and Za’atar. The feta and the reducing of the liquid should bring the saltiness up enough. The egg yolks should be runny and the whites should be barely set. Enjoy with some crusty baguette.

The base of Tunisian cuisine, harissa is a spicy, savory, sour, umami-rich flavor bomb. It’s made mainly out of different peppers so I figured it should be made with the best, Mexican peppers.

Ingredients
– 1 red bell pepper
– 1 dried ancho pepper
– 5 dried guajillo pepper
– 15 dried arbol pepper
– 4 cloves of garlic
– Half a white onion
– 1 tablespoon tomato paste
– 2 tablespoons lemon juice
– 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
– 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
– 2 teaspoons coriander seed
– 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
– 1 teaspoon black pepper
– Half cup to 1 cup olive oil
– Salt to taste

Blister the red pepper on direct flame until the skin turns black, place it a plastic bag for it to “steam”. This is done so the skin can be peeled easily. While you wait 15ish minutes for that, boil some water and pour over the dried peppers in a bowl to get hydrated. This should also take 15-20 minutes.

In a dry skillet, toast the cumin, coriander, and black pepper until fragrant. Once toasted, grind with a mortar and pestle.

Peel off the skin from the bell pepper and take seeds out of all the peppers. Add everything but the olive oil in a food processor and blend. Once incorporated, drizzle half a cup of olive oil while blending. The consistency should be smooth, not pasty. Add olive oil accordingly.

After doing this a few times, I have realized it’s easiest to seed the dried peppers before hydrating and to salt at the end.