The REAL Shakshuka
Thank you everyone for the kind words regarding my recent misfortune. You know what else? My sister got robbed today too – in a completely different part of town. She stepped out to see a movie (she has a newborn and it was the first time she actually had some time for herself). When she got back 2 hours later, her place had been ransacked – the diamond tennis bracelet I bought her for her wedding had been stolen along with other Jewelry. I got off relatively easy but today was not a banner day for the ck clan.
Anyhow, here’s a proper shakshuka recipe, the way my Mom Brakha makes it. So forget perfect measurements – be prepared to fly by the seat of your pants….
First, proper shakshuka is a pain in the ass to make, so if you’re going to make it, make a bunch. Take whatever’s extra and freeze it – it keeps really well in an airtight container. Now, I start off with a 4 quart saucepan, something like this. Shoshi loved shakshuka, so she would start off with an 8 quart saucepan. Whatever the case may be, fill it up 3/4 full with whole canned tomatoes – not diced, not pureed but whole. Pretentious cooks will tell you to start with fresh tomatoes, but that’s crap. This is peasant food, leave your pretentions at the door – you’re going to cook these babies to within an inch of their lives, no need to bother with fancy shmancy fresh tomatoes. A standard 4 quart saucepan would require like 5-6 cans of tomatoes to fill 3/4 of the way.
You need to drain most of the liquid from the tomatoes or else you’ll be cooking forever – watery shakshuka sucks, so don’t forget to drain! Once the drained tomatoes are in the saucepan, wash your hands and then squish all the tomatoes so that you are left with a pot full of uneven tomato chunks. The uneveness is what gives it its modest charm. Again, try to drain most, but not all of the excess liquid.
Now get a whole mess of fresh garlic cloves – remember the cardinal rule – there is no such thing as too much garlic. 2 whole cloves per quart ought to be fine. Peel the cloves and slice them into chunks. Don’t be a smart ass and try to use your garlic press – remember, chunks of garlic, not crushed garlic. And do not get anything other than fresh garlic – none of that stupid pre-peeled marinated garlic in Brakha’s kitchen…. Throw the garlic into the pot.
Next we need to add roasted peppers. See the pepper pictured here? I don’t know what kind it is, but that’s the kind you ought to get. If you’re a little wuss you may substitute this pepper with green bell peppers. Anyhow, you need about 1.5 peppers per quart so for a 4 quart saucepan, use 6 peppers. Place the peppers on a medium fire (electric elements works too) and turn it around untill it has flattened and lost its form, and the outside skin is darkened. Take the peppers and put them in a paper bag for like 20-30 minutes. Remove from the bag and carefully peel off what’s left of the outer skin. The bag thing makes this tedious process a little easier. Use a good German paring knife for best results.
Once the skin is peeled, scrape away as many of the seeds as possible. The seeds are what makes the shakshuka hot and two many will overwhelm the delicate shakshuka yumminess. Cut the peppers into strips 3/4 of an inch long and half an inch(ish) wide. Dump all the peppers into the pot.
Now add some olive oil. Remember, the shakshuka has to be shiny so be generous, but don’t go overboard. Do not bother with cold pressed extra virgin overpriced bullshit Spanish Italian olive oil – it would be wasted here. Finally, add salt and sweet paprika to taste and start cooking. Keep the fire at a medium heat and cook for several hours until most of the remaining liquid is gone. Don’t let it boil too much because it will splatter and make a mess. Brakha hates a mess.
Now you have the shakshuka base. We call it Salade Cuite (cooked salad). You take this enormous salade cuite and eat it with yummy challah during shabat. Cover the pot and refrigerate when not being eaten. Come Sunday morning, take what’s left and freeze some of it for later. Now, with what remains (still in the original pot it was made in, drop in a mess of eggs. Make sure not to break the yolk! Let the pot simmer under medium heat until the yolks start to lose a bit of their color and whiten at the edges. I like my shakshuka yolk a little runny but how runny is up to you – definitely do not overcook it. That’s yucky and boring. Once cooked, put the pot on the table and serve for brunch.
The whole shabbat thing is important because shakshuka is better if the salade cuite base is one or two days old. In that respect it ages well. Please note, one does not add pepper to salade cuite although you may add pepper to your shakshuka egg if you insist. Also note – no onions are used in this recipe. NO ONIONS!
That’s it. Brakha’s most excellent monster salade cuite. Enjoy, let me know how it turned out.
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Mom does NOT squish the tomatoes with her hands!!!! Also, i’m pretty sure that she doesn’t peel the chilli peppers but just slices them up real small. Most importantly, you forgot to tell people to wash their hands with loads of soap after handling the peppers….
But whatever they’re probably using wussy bell peppers anyways….
If both you and your sister got robbed, maybe it’s one of those cosmic things…still sucks, though.
Thanks for the recipe! I’m totally making it once I have access to a kitchen where I don’t have to battle the red ants and inch-long roaches for dominance.
And really, it’s true, there is no such thing as too much garlic. It reminds me of a funny story with my mom, actually. She had just made aliyah from the Soviet Union and was going to school at the Hebrew U. One of her roommates was a super JAP-y Southern California girl. One day my mom was cooking and chopping up garlic. The JAP comes in and goes, “Ooh, what’s that?” My mom says, “Garlic.” The JAP looks alarmed and says, “That’s not garlic!” My mom figures she could have been wrong since her English isn’t perfect, so she goes and looks it up in her dictionary. Sure enough, it was indeed garlic, and she reported back to the JAP. The JAP sniffed haughtily and said, “I know that’s not garlic, because garlic comes in a powder.”
So, um, yes. Garlic rules.
I saw Alton Brown’s episode of Good Eats that was about peppers. (Alton Brown is a mad-scientist guru chef who has a very entertaining TV show on the Food Network)
The seeds may be hot, but all the heat comes from the membrane. That’s the white-ish parts that holds the seeds. The seeds should come out purely because they taste bitter. If you want less heat out of a hot pepper, scrape the membrane off.
I have experienced the impossible! There actually is such a thing as too much garlic. (Is this a sign the world’s coming to an end?)
My mom made a batch of babaganoush that had so much garlic it burned my mouth when I ate it… not that it stopped me from eating it – you can’t waste babaganoush…. but wow were my eyes watering and I didn’t go near anyone for a day after.
D’vorah, you are right, and don’t let the people with bad breath tell you otherwise.
Tiff wrote: “Mom does NOT squish the tomatoes with her hands!!!!”
-True, that’s an enhancement I came up with. You could alternatively poke the tomatoes with a wooden spoon – not as much fun though.
And mom no longer peels the peppers now that I do not live at home because she doesn’t love you guys as much as me. When I was there, she peeled the peppers.
Michael: You’re too funny
Velvel: Thanks for the info!
D’vorah: I am so glad you didn’t waste that Babaganoush ….
A trick for the tomatoes… dump them from the can into a strainer to get rid of the main juice then pierce and press them lightly. Do this before putting them in the pot. Makes getting rid of the extra juice a lot easier.
Worked that one out when I used to make the pasta sauce at my family’s restaurant.
So sorry to hear that your sister got robbed also. Especially when she finally got out of the house where I’m sure she was going crazy from ongoing baby care. Been there.
But please tell me, what is the relationship between a shakshuka and getting robbed? How did you make that segue? My only guess is that shakshuka is a kind of comfort food for you, and your sister too. So of course you should both have some!
But ck, gotta get Mom to make it for you. It will be more effective in helping your recovery.
You are so wise and insiteful Janice. Really.
Oh… D’vorah – I just realized – your Mom’s babaganoush may have been wicked garlicy because she crushed the garlic. Something happens to garlic when it’s crushed – releases its flavor, or I don’t know what… but if you slice it and don’t crush it, you can definitely eat more and you seem to be spared the err… odiferous after effects of garlic consumption.
CK… yah… if you crush/puree the garlic it will release it’s oils more readily into the dip… however, in this case, it was quantity. I did the same thing recently. Added enough garlic for double the amount of babaganoush I made.
Oh well… I bought eggplant last night and I’m making a batch tonight… this time I’ll add garlic as I go instead of right at the beginning… anyone have fresh lavash?
Should be fine. Works well with most peppers.
Okay, I went out and bought some peppers.
[...] In any case, if you want to make your own shakshuka, don’t forget to refer to the classic shakshuka recipe (and comments) brought to you by Jewlicious. One of the things you do in making shakshuka is you roast hot peppers. Joy noted that if you rinse your hands with orange juice (not water) after peeling the peppers, your eyes and nostrils won’t burn if you touch them. Then she went ahead and touched her eyes without cleaning “just for the heck of it.” Oh Joy … Filed under: Jewlicious Comments: [...]
That’s an Anaheim pepper, one of the milder types. I mention it only for the benefit of other cooks who come upon this entry belatedly, as I did. Quite a resemblance to the Tex-Mex dish “Ox Eyes” or “Eggs in Hell”, but then again, there WOULD be a heavy Sephardi influence on Tex-Mex cooking, wouldn’t there?
Made a mess of shakshuka this shabbat and I used fresh tomatoes peeled by dipping in boiling water. This is a suitable alternative when tomatoes are in season and cheap. Just so y’all know.
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I was surfing the net trying to find a recipe for salade cuite when I came across your recipe. I have never had so much fun reading a recipe before. I’m going to tell all my friends about it so they can enjoy it too. I’m even going to try your reicpe even though that isn’t the one I was looking for. Thanks!
I LOVED reading your column about shakshuka! I am israeli, but a spoiled one… my mom always made shakshuka for me, or we just ate it in the army, or in the streets. Now that I live in Texas, i forgot how to make it until one day i had a yearning for it and couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to make it. You should write more recipes, i like your writing style. How about cheesecake next? Or rogalach?
Sorry about getting robbed, although it was two years ago…
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That is the best shakshuka. My family said it was up there with the best we had in Israel. Now can you come up with the recipe for the terrific Kosher le Pesach bread we had with it? I was told it was made with potato flour. I would love to reproduce that. Thanks for sharing and making it sound like so much fun.
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good work man
So, I lost my recipe for shakshuka – it was inside a cd cover (one of those world music specials that I had bought to conjure some of what I remember of Israel – while rehearsing a play about a couple in Meah Shearim). Seems the recipe is a moveable feast: my co-star is Israeli and USES ONIONS! Anyway, great fun reading your own version. While I write this mine is bubbling away WITH ONIONS and red pepers and jalapenos. My co-star said: ‘Only FRESH TOMOTOES!’ So, the RYE BREAD is waiting patiently, the family is still surfacing Sunday morning, and I have to get the table ready. Tw sows last night, so what a great recipe to wind down with.
Ooops! That should have read: Two shows – not Tw Sows. And on a good Jewish blog…
[...] any extra code. You can see that demonstrated in the photo here of my Mom (Brakha – of the famous shakshuka recipe) and my Dodah Channah. Mom was in Israel this summer and we spent a lovely day in the old city. She [...]
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Hi.
I was just about to make shukshuka for my family, friends and husband. I haven’t made it in years. I learned from the cooks at the Hebrew University’s little restaurant as a student in the early 80′s. I also learned that on Kibbutz they called it Budgie and I was the Fish Pond Boy’s cook for about a year, and regularly made it for the guys.
So….I will probably try your version, but in my traditional version, we used fresh tomatos, fresh green and red peppers, onions, and only powdered garlic, never fresh.
As a person who loves fresh garlic, I look forward to testing your version. As a habit in our family, when there are two ways to make a delicious meal, I often make both and have every one taste test it for future reference.
If you would like to know the results, I will let you know. I was invited to a Mayday celebration, so I will cook two pots up and see which goes faster!
Thanks for your recipe.
S.C.
Thanks, I made it today and was delicious!