LAMB SHAKSHUKA IS THE ULTIMATE BREAKFAST FOR DINNER
This bright, spicy tomato-y Lamb Shakshuka is topped with eggs and baked in the oven. Its tomato and red pepper sauce is enhanced with cumin, paprika, and a dash of cayenne. I’ve wanted to cook Shakshuka for quite a while now, mostly so that I could say “ Your Shakshuka is ready”. The ultimate breakfast for dinner except in Israel where it is breakfast food. And what a start to the day!
WE’VE USED LAMB SHAKSHUKA FOR DINNER THEN BREAKFASTED ON THE LEFTOVERS
We sopped up the sauce with pitas at dinner, and at breakfast with English muffins. It’s terribly easy to make given that the whole dish is made in one skillet. First, the sauce is put together on the top of the stove. Then squares of feta are added and eggs are nestled into the sauce. Into the oven, it goes. Ten or so minutes later, sprinkled with scallions, it comes to the table. The recipe I used offered a choice of using ground beef or ground lamb. I went with the lamb because does anyone really need more ground beef in their lives? As you can see from our key visual, you can go all fancy and cook shakshuka in au gratin bakers. I can quite promise you it will look much better on the plate than the skillet version above. Here’s a link if you’d like to add these very useful dishes to your collection https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/apilco-porcelain-oval-au-gratin-baker/?_br_psugg_q=gratin%20dish
THERE ARE ALMOST AS MANY RECIPES FOR SHAKSHUKA AS THERE ARE STORIES ABOUT WHERE IT CAME FROM
Although Israel has embraced the dish, Israel’s Shakshuka was brought to that country by Tunisian Jews following their mass exodus from their Arabic homeland. Shakshouka is its Arabic name. Specifically, a Tunisian Arabic word for ‘mixture’. Tomato-based Stews like shakshouka were common throughout Yemen, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Syria, and all the way to the Balkans. The Ottoman dish is closest to this recipe because it uses minced meat. Regardless of its origins, Shakshouka is a quintessentially Arab meal found in every Arabic-speaking country. Its pleasures have even found their way across the Mediterranean to Naples. Called Uova in Purgatorio “Eggs in Purgatory”, it was so named because the eggs play the role of souls trying to escape Purgatory. The sauce represents its flames.
HERE IS TODAY’S RECIPE FOR LAMB SHAKSHUKA FOLLOWED BY SOME OTHER RECIPES USING GROUND LAMB.
Lamb Shakshuka
Ingredients
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 pound ground lamb
- 1 onion
- 2 red finger chili peppers or 1 large jalapeno pepper
- 4 large cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon cumin seed
- 1 teaspoon caraway seed
- 1 teaspoon pimenton or paprika
- Freshly grated nutmeg, about 1/8 teaspoon
- Salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons chipotle in adobo, minced
- 14 ounces crushed or diced fire-roasted tomatoes
- 14 ounces tomato sauce
- A drizzle of honey, optional
- 4 oz brick feta in water cut into ½ inch squares
- 4 to 6 large eggs
- To Serve: Garlic naan bread
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
- Greek yogurt, optional
- 2 to 3 scallions, finely chopped
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Step 2 Gather your ingredients.
- Step 3 Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add olive oil to the pan, enough to cover the bottom. Add ground meat, crumble, and cook until the pink color goes away and the meat is lightly browned.
- Step 4 Peel and chop onion, and seed and finely chop the peppers and chop or slice the garlic. Add onions and peppers to the meat and stir to soften a few minutes. Add cumin and caraway seeds, spices, and garlic, and stir.
- Step 5 Add 2 tablespoons minced chipotle peppers in adobo to pan.
- Step 6 Add tomatoes, honey if using, feta and stir. Make 4 to 6 nests in meat sauce using the back of a wooden spoon and drop eggs into them. Transfer pan to oven for 8 to 10 minutes till eggs are set.
- Step 7 For naan, heat a griddle over high heat. Scatter a little water onto the skillet and griddle the bread to blister, then flip. Brush bread with melted butter and cut into pieces/wide strips.
- Step 8 Garnish eggs with dollops of yogurt if using, and scallions.
HERE ARE THREE OTHER GREAT RECIPES USING GROUND LAMB
Lamb Meatballs with Red Pepper and Chickpea Sauce from Nancy Silverton of Campanile in Los Angeles
Harissa-Lamb Skillet Lasagna from Mad Genius, Justin Chapple, in Food and Wine Magazine
as long as it s topped with one special ingredient: My daughter is obsessed with anything that s covered in tomato sauce, so I m always thinking about different dishes that can incorporate it, she says. As a result, she spends a great deal of time brainstorming the next spaghetti-inspired dish to satisfy the youngster s cravings. One of her tried-and-true, kid-tested recipes? A simple, yet impressive lamb shakshuka.