hey everyone welcome to Pai's kitchen today I am making a dish that I have been falling
in love with so much it's a dish called shakshuka which is super fun to say also it is so delicious
it's a dish that originated in northern Africa although today it's eaten in the Middle East and
it's becoming really popular in North America it's tomato sauce with eggs cooked right in the
tomato sauce and in North America at least it's a very popular breakfast brunch dish now but as I
understand it people eat this for dinner or lunch or any time of day it's super easy super delicious
let's get started so let's start out with the tomato sauce okay so I've got in this pot here
it's just some olive oil and I'm gonna turn it on and right away I'm gonna add my chopped onion
now when you're cooking with olive oil it's a low smoking point oil you don't want to get it too hot
to help the onions cook I'm gonna add some salt and the salt will draw out liquid from the onions
and it will help the onions soften even faster okay so shakshuka is not just good old tomato
sauce its tomato sauce with lots of spices and so I've got here some cumin seeds which is the most
important thing I've toasted this ahead of time so I don't have to worry about toasting it in the pot
and I've also got some coriander seeds you don't have to do this but I love coriander seeds so
why not right I'm gonna grind these fresh oh no so good already alright so that's done we'll give the
onion to stir every once in a while so the onions will take quite a bit of time so you don't have
to be here constantly looking at it alright so the onion is soft and translucent now I'm going to add
some chopped garlic and I'm adding the garlic after because I find garlic tends to burn more
easily if you add it at the same time some green bell peppers who I don't use green bell peppers
very much I feel like this is the first time I've ever used it on the show but I think it adds some
nice color and also flavor to this if you want to go red that's cool too so now we're gonna cook
that for a few more minutes all right so that to me looks perfect The Onion's super soft and
translucent I'm getting a little bit of browning around the edges of the pot to the spices are
gonna go in so the ground cumin and coriander must must have some paprika so this is not just regular
paprika but smoked paprika mmm some cayenne pepper for some heat get that stirred up because you want
the spices to really get into the oil the oil is your vehicle to infusing the rest of the dishes
that looks wonderful it smells even better going in with tomatoes so I've got here some canned
diced tomatoes if you've got whole that's totally fine too you just have to break it up with a spoon
and make sure it's unsalted so important look at that yes sound good shower it with tons and tons
of black pepper this is the consistency that you want it to be at the end but this is not
the end yet cuz it's got a simmer for 20 minutes at least so that the flavors can mingle and marry
so you need to add more water so you don't dry it out in the process so just a splash of water if
you're pouring directly from the can make sure you rinse your tomato can with this water to
get every last bit out yeah so it should be right now a little thinner than you want it to be don't
rush this step okay I know it looks like Oh looks completely done that simmering time really brings
all the flavors together oh that's so good and you can really smell the smoked paprika coming
through and by the way if you don't like smoked flavor you can just stick with regular paprika
as well it's not an absolute must now you've got to taste this this is definitely gonna still be a
little under salted but we want to see what we're at oh it's good already but yes definitely needs
a little more seasoning and do you know what I'm gonna do that's right I'm gonna do exactly what
do you think I am going to do I'm going to add some fish sauce yes before you freak out this
is anything but traditional they don't with fish sauce insects trigger but I mean I want to show
you the fish sauce is really a useful ingredient beyond Thai cuisine I mean it's just salt with a
lot of umami flavor and why would you not want to add that into something like this I could really
benefit from it right now I'm not using fish sauce that's the only seasoning as you saw I added salt
in the beginning because here I don't necessarily want the fish sauce flavor to be prominent but I
have found that when I make anything tomato Ian Stewie even lasagna like meat sauce just a dash
of fish sauce it's just like mmm it just makes it so much more there's there's more oomph in
it I am also going to add just a touch of sugar at this point what I would normally do is brown
sugar which I forgot to bring some gonna add some palm sugar regular sugar will be fine just a touch
and you may not need to do this it just kind of depends on how sweet your tomatoes and your
onions are but when you taste it and it feels just a little bit sharp like just a little bit mmm Hank
too tangy not well-balanced a touch of sugar is all you need and that is it so you can make a big
pan of shakshuka if you want that's more common I believe but as you know I love all things tiny
and meaning so I'm going to make a personal size one with this little pan this is the same pan that
I use for my type annex recipe if you haven't seen that it's a great recipe or the link right
up here but I have a similar thing listed in my kit so if you're interested in buying it online
I'll put a link right in the description below or what you can do is use one of these cast-iron
pans same size it's six inches the reason why I don't prefer this over the tapas pan is because
this retains heat really well and so there's quite a bit of carryover cooking even after you
turn off the heat so you know your eggs sometimes become overcooked so if you like your eggs runny
this can be a little risky all right let's get started so in here I'm gonna put in some of my
tomato sauce and I find just about a cup is enough turn the heat on hmm just on low if your sauce
is refrigerated you want to make sure that you get this hot and bubbly before you put the eggs
in make a little hole drop one in and notice I cracked it into a bowl ahead of time so that if I
get shells or if I have a broken yolk I don't have to deal with it in this sizzling bowl or bubbling
bowl at this point what I like to do see how the egg white is kind of on top I like to just go and
push the tomato sauce so that the egg white is on the bottom I find that helps the egg white cook
faster just push the tomato sauce out of the way allowed the egg whites to like slip under cover so
you will need some sort of a lid that fits and you can cook this for as long as you want depending on
how runny or how firm you like your eggs I find that five minutes at like a slow put-put-put kind
of bubbles work perfectly for me but if you want harder firmer eggs you probably want to stretch
that to maybe seven or eight minutes whew look at that so I'm gonna just turn this off for now
because I know it will continue to cook ever so slightly finishing touches sorry for a moment I
didn't know what the heck I was doing finishing touches so I am going to add some cilantro you
can do parsley but I always have cilantro and now you can top this with anything you want really
I've seen olives if you like anchovies that'll be really good too it'll definitely go with a
fish sauce or I love cheese I love goat cheese on it you can do feta cheese on it I feel like
anything that you would like on your pizza would be a good topping for this I'm gonna grab my toast
sourdough always get this baby on a serving plate
tada how pretty is that with some crusty sourdough bread of course and
for this guy right here oh yes look at that so because this is something that cooks from
the bottom up you're not gonna get like you're over easy super runny yolk because the bottom
of the yolk will naturally cook so flavorful I mean there's so much going on in there the
tomato sauce is full of spices and tart with all the little chunks of vegetables and then
you've got creamy eggs creamy cheese and a touch of smoked paprika with that crusty
sourdough bread and it's substantial enough that it would be completely satisfying for
dinner but it's not so heavy that it would be too much for breakfast like I think this is one
of those perfect dishes you can have breakfast lunch or dinner if you wanted a little heavier
you can add some meat on it some chorizo or I don't know put anchovies on it ham I don't know
the options are endless so when you make it send me a photo with such a pretty dish on Facebook
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