shakshouka.

Shakshouka. A good thing to do for a warming breakfast if you've made too much red sauce for your previous two days' Italian needs (yesterday's arancini risotto and the day before's unprecedented chicken parm casserole).

To your remaining red sauce, add a bunch of toasted cumin seed, dried thyme, and some crushed red pepper. Cook it down some, ten minutes or so, then lay a couple of eggs in there (make wells first if you want them to look pretty), cover, and cook for 4 minutes for still-runny yolks or until eggs are set to your liking. Throw some chopped cilantro, crumbled feta and pul biber on there afterwards and blast your sinuses out. The Wikipedia article says that you can/should even serve it with zhoug, which next time I maybe will.

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Chronology break: Day Two of shakshouka (after the Top Chef Brazil dream) was decorated with a pesto that I'd pestled up out of wilting arugula (1 cup), nearly stale pistachios (1/4 cup) and spotty basil (1/4 cup), plus garlic (3 cloves), salt and olive oil (to taste). Even better than the first day, fresh garlic and herbs bring a nice zing.

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