Green Shakshuka

The big Australian supermarkets publish free monthly ‘recipe’ magazines and I always pick up a copy to browse. It’s rare for a recipe to catch my eye – because most of them are cleverly designed to promote packaged (and often processed) products. But in last month’s Coles magazine the ‘green shakshuka’ recipe looked like a winner and the page quickly made it’s way from the magazine to my kitchen notice board.

Traditionally shakshuka combines eggs, tomatoes and spices. It has origins in the Middle East and North Africa and is a popular and hearty brunch staple at many cafe here in Sydney. This ‘green’ version of Shakshuka has a green rather than a tomato base and throws in cheese and cream.

Green Shakshuka from Coles

Here I’m sharing not just the Coles recipe but also ideas on how you can easily adapt it. For example depending on what greens are in season you can play around with the green base. I also used Greek yoghurt in place of cream, omitted the cheese and topped my shakshuka with sliced tomatoes.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 leek, thinly sliced (plus optional chopped garlic)
• 1.5 tsp each of ground cumin and smoked paprika (plus optional chilli powder)
• 250g frozen spinach (or wilted kale or other leafy greens)
• 300ml light thickened cream (or Greek yoghurt)
• 1.5 cups frozen peas
• 200g sugar snap peas, trimmed (or broccolini or asparagus)
• 4 eggs
• 100g drained feta (or omit the cheese topping or replace with sliced tomatoes)

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the leek and optional garlic cook until it softens. Add the spices and cook for another minute.
2. Add the spinach (or other greens) and cream (or yoghurt) and cook for 1-2 minutes or until heated through. Add the peas and sugar snap peas. Bring to a simmer.
3. Use the back of a large metal spoon to make 4 large holes in the mixture. Carefully crack an egg into each hole and top with optional sliced tomatoes.
4. Cook, partially covered, for 5 mins for soft yolks or until the eggs are cooked to your liking.
5. Remove from the heat and sprinkle with feta.

Note: Rather than cooking my green shakshuka on the stove I transferred the green base mixture into an oven proof Pyrex pie dish. I then made the holes, added the eggs and cooked it in the oven at 170C until the eggs were cooked but soft. 

You can see the full recipe and images here.