Shakshuka
A colourful dish full of spicy flavours, yet low in salt, potassium and phosphate.
Chef
Ingredients
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
75ml light olive oil or vegetable oil
2 large onions, sliced
2 orange and 2 yellow peppers, deseeded and cut into 2cm strips (red peppers can be used but they are higher in potassium. Green peppers will change the flavour, but can be used if preferred)
1 tablespoon muscovado sugar
2 bay leaves
6 thyme sprigs, leaves picked and chopped
6 tablespoons chopped parsley or coriander (or a mixture of both, if you have them) plus a few extra leaves to garnish
400g tin chopped tomatoes
½ teaspoon saffron threads (optional)
Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
To serve
8 eggs
100g soft goat’s cheese (optional)
4 crusty bread rolls or 1 baguette (50g bread per person, either 1 crusty roll or a piece of baguette)
Method
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Step 1
In a very large (about 30cm diameter), lidded pan that can go in the oven, dry-fry the cumin seeds on a high heat for a minute or two. Add the oil and onions and fry for five minutes. Add the peppers, sugar and herbs and continue cooking on a high heat for 10 minutes to lightly brown.
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Step 2
Add the tomatoes, saffron (if using), cayenne (if using), paprika and some freshly ground black pepper. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Fill up the empty tomato tin with water and add half of it – during the cooking, keep adding more water as necessary, so that the mix has the consistency of a pasta sauce. Taste and add more black pepper if needed – it should be potent and flavoursome. (You can prepare this mix well in advance – just reheat it before adding the eggs and goat’s cheese).
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Step 3
Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180°C fan / gas mark 6. Remove the bay leaves from the pepper mix, then make eight gaps in the pepper mix and carefully break an egg into each gap. Crumble over the goat’s cheese (if using) and a few grinds of black pepper. Cover with the lid (or foil) and bake for 15 minutes, or until the eggs are just set.
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Step 4
Warm up the bread (crusty rolls or baguette) in the oven for the last five minutes of the cooking time. Remove the pan from the oven, remove the lid (or foil) and sprinkle over the coriander leaves. Serve immediately with the bread.
Food facts
The bread roll is the main source of carbohydrate in this main meal and the value has been provided for those who have been trained in insulin adjustment.
Although this dish contains some high potassium ingredients, the amounts used in the recipe have been kept within a range that ensures the entire meal is low in potassium.
This dish is low in phosphate, however, still contains some phosphate provided by the eggs and cheese. Therefore, a phosphate binder should be taken as directed if prescribed.
This dish contains eggs and goat’s cheese, which are sources of protein. This makes it suitable for those advised to eat more protein, such as those receiving dialysis.
Use gluten-free bread.
This is a relatively healthy dish, but you may wish to reduce the sugar by half. To lower the fat, you could omit the goat’s cheese.
The saffron is a nice thing to add, but it is expensive and not essential. If you don’t already have muscovado sugar, you can use brown sugar, treacle or white sugar - whatever you have. The goat’s cheese can be omitted.
You can make the sauce up to two days in advance and keep it covered in the fridge. It can be frozen but won’t be quite as good.
Instead of one big pan, you can transfer the sauce (once you’ve re-heated it) into four individual oven-proof dishes and then break two eggs into each; cover with foil before baking. The cayenne pepper can be replaced with chilli pepper, or - if you would prefer it not to be spicy - leave this out.