Sort of Shakshuka

Have you heard of shakshuka? I hadn't until I read this post over at Smitten Kitchen, after which I went and read a bit about it over at Wikipedia. Seriously though, what did we do before that endless font of dubious information? It's priceless, if somewhat unreliable.

Anyway, shakshuka is like the Italian eggs in purgatory, eggs poached in tomato sauce (Michele at My Italian Grandmother has a recipe for that that looks wicked good), but spicy and with a more Mid-East/Northern Africa kind of thing to it.

I didn't have all the stuff that Deb had, like fresh anaheims or jalapenos, but I did have some of those jarred roasted green chilies that I've been enjoying so much lately. So I decided to Mexicanize it. I didn't take a single measurement I'm afraid, but if anyone wants I can try to figure it out. It's really a to taste thing anyway. Yeah, that's what we'll go with this time.

Anyway, I started by sauteing up some chopped onion. I had thought I had fresh garlic, but I didn't and wasn't about to run out to get some. This caused me some angst, but then I got over it and just used garlic powder. It was fine, but fresh would clearly be better. You would add it after the onions were lightly browned and saute it for around thirty seconds. Then I added the green chilies and the spices. That's garlic powder, chili powder, dried cilantro, cayenne, cumin and black pepper. It was wicked spicy. Anyway then I just tossed in one of those little cans of tomato sauce, since this was a single serving, and let it simmer over very low heat for about fifteen minutes or so.

While that was going I realized I needed something to eat this with. And since I've just gotta be me, I crisped up some leftover steak fries in the oven and plated them up. Then I cracked an egg in in sauce and forgot to take a picture. Sorry about that. Anyway, since I was being true to myself already I put some cheese on there to melt after the egg was mostly done. And that's it kids, other than plating. Mexicanized shakshuka. It was wicked good. I was a little leery of eggs and red sauce, but the creamy richness of the eggs balanced out the spicy and fairly acidic sauce really well. And the steak fries were perfect as the bottom layer, they soaked up juices but stayed crispy around the edges. I will definitely be making this again.

Oh and I had some of the cheesy sauce leftover the next day. So I heated it up and dipped some store-bought taquitos in it for lunch. Also wicked good.