Easter Shakshouka

Shakshouka....what? Shakshouka...shake what?

How can you not already love Shakshouka even if you never ever heard of it before? The name already implies that it's something fun, exotic, spicy and interesting and the word itself already makes you want to do a little dance.
Shakshouka is a one pan dish of eggs cooked in a tomato sauce, packed with spices originating, from North Africa and is also very popular in the Middle East. It's usually made with tomato sauce, red chili peppers, onions, cumin and other spices. I like to add Ras el Hanout which is a spice blend (usually containing cumin, cardamom, clove, ginger, cayenne, coriander, paprika etc.) made in these countries and is perfect for this.
The first time I had Shakshouka was in Tel Aviv, Israel, which is also the first place I got hooked on Ras el Hanout.

Normally the Shakshoukas are made with a red tomato sauce, but as Easter is coming up I thought of making my own version using yellow tomatoes, yellow and orange bell peppers and of course yellow chillies.
I love how this dish turned out and I'm sure you will love it too. It can be served as breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or midnight snack....so t's just perfect and it's also so easy to make (especially if you were to use canned tomato sauce).

Ingredients:

3-5 eggs (depending on the size of your pan and how many people you are. I only used 3)
1 yellow bell pepper (200g when whole)
1 orange bell pepper (200g)
200g mixed yellow tomatoes
3 yellow chillies (30g)
1-2 garlic cloves
2 spring onions (20g)
1 tsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp Ras el Hanout
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp flake salt
20g Kale (optional)
cilantro
flatleaf parsley

Take a few tomatoes and a slice of pepper aside for garnish and to get a bit of texture. I also saved one of the chillies for later. This step is completely optional as you could just chuck everything in the pan at once and pop in the blender to make the sauce, but I really like to chop some fresh peppers, tomatoes and chillies on top not only for texture but because it just looks prettier too.

Chop the bell peppers, chilies, tomatoes, onion and garlic roughly. In a pan with olive oil sautée the ingredients until a bit soft. Add the spices and place into a blender.

While the blender is doing its work, Finely slice the kale and sautée until a bit soft. Even some of these I saved for later and fried them as a crunchy topping only because I love the variety of texture and love a bit of crispiness and crunch.

Season with salt. To balance off the spiciness and bitterness add the maple syrup (can be replaced with sugar).

Once you are happy with the taste, pour the mixture back into the pan.  Add the sautéed kale. Let the mixture simmer a bit.
Using a spoon make som wells into the sauce to crack the eggs into.
Carefully cover the whites with the sauce. This will make the whites cook faster. Cook the eggs in the sauce on low heat. Add the rest of the finely chopped bell peppers and halved cherry tomatoes.
Once the egg whites are cooked and the egg yolks are still runny turn off the heat.
Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and flatleaf parsley.
If you saved some of the kale add this too.
To add a bit more kick...add the rest of the chili.
Serve the shakshouka from the pan.
A bit of bread can be a nice condiment to scoop up all the goodness.

You could mix all the ingredients together to make it easier but as I said I really like mine with a bit of texture. The Kale is completely optional and if you like you can use some spinach instead to add some greens.

Happy Shakshouka Easter!