Shakshuka: A Tale of Culinary Pursuit

By Elisabeth Fondell

On my kitchen’s bookshelf sits a cookbook called PLENTY. If you opened it to page 87, you would find a well-traveled page thickened with splatters of cumin-infused olive oil, smudged with evidence of being turned hastily in a cloud of onions, torn in places worn thin from heavy use, and loved the way all cookbook pages dream of being loved. This three-page spread tells the story of shakshuka, a North African dish that’s been a staple throughout Israel and the Middle East. At its simplest, shakshuka is a dish of slow-cooked tomatoes, onions, and spices topped with poached eggs. But to me, it is a divine dish worthy of culinary pursuit.

I have cooked shakshuka countless times since encountering it in 2014. If you looked at my instagram posts from this era, you’d know the depth of my obsession: skillets of varying sizes, bold reds and yellows of bell peppers, stately egg yolks, green splashes of cilantro and parsley, side dishes of olives and hummus, and loaves of bread for dipping. The aesthetic potential is overwhelmingly vast.

Yotam Ottolenghi, the Israeli-born British chef and cookbook author, didn’t invent the dish, but by including it in PLENTYhe played a part in bringing shakshuka to kitchens across the globe. His tomato-based recipe shares similarities with others but adds highlighted focus on the strips of bell peppers and the addition of saffron.

Before shakshuka, I’d only tasted saffron in Lussekatter, the traditional Christmas buns eaten in Sweden. But I am now a saffron enthusiast. Grown in only a few regions of the world, saffron threads are harvested by hand from the inside of a flower called the saffron crocus. Each flower holds just three threads of saffron. It takes 10,000 flowers to produce one ounce. Any spice worthy of such delicate treatment is one worth celebrating.

Shakshuka became my go-to dish — I cooked it for long meals with old friends, I cooked it to impress guys I was dating, I cooked it when visiting friends around the globe, and once I even cooked it in a crockpot for a potluck.

In addition to cooking it, I’ve enjoyed sampling it on the road. While in Oakland in 2016, a fellow food appreciator told me to go to Beauty’s Bagel Shop. When I saw shakshuka on their menu, I was sold. I walked miles across Copenhagen in 2016 to sample the shakshuka at Atelier September, a local favorite for Danes and foreigners alike. Twice, actually, because the first time it was late afternoon and too near closing time. So, the following morning, I woke up and trekked back down the familiar path.

And my favorite shakshuka experience of all time happened in 2015 while on a six-hour layover in London. Determined to eat the real shakshuka at one of Ottolenghi’s restaurants, I set off in haste from the airplane. After clearing customs and boarding the Heathrow Express, I hopped on the Underground at Paddington Station, got off at Piccadilly Circus, and walked to NOPI.

“I’m here for the shakshuka,” I told the waitress. My shakshuka arrived in a copper skillet, still sizzling, and topped with a smoky labneh that I will spend the rest of my days thinking about. Alongside the shakshuka, warm bread appeared on a wooden tray. To top it all off, I saw Yotam Ottolenghi himself. My morning at NOPI provided nothing short of a blue-ribbon feast, a crowning moment in my portfolio of lifetime culinary experiences.

To you – readers, fellow cooks, diners, photographers, friends: find some tomatoes, eggs, and saffron, grab a skillet, and get to work. Shakshuka awaits.

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