A number of friends and acquaintances of mine have either 1) recently traveled to Jerusalem this summer, or 2) bought plane tickets to go visit soon. Thus, this kind of food is in my viewfinder.

I was inspired by this dish of Jerusalem (brought in to this city by Tunisians) and decided to make it for lunch. The first time I tried this was at Tatte, a cafe in Kendall Square that has inspired a few other culinary feats, such as my favorite summer entertaining beverage, freshly mixed mint limeade.

I have Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook handy, and a new-found curiosity to try to make things in my new cast-iron skillet, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

I hardly followed any of these directions, but tried something different that was easy and quicker.

Trader Joe’s has my favorite tomato sauce called Arrabiata, so I lightly oiled the cast-iron skillet and poured a fairly thin layer of this sauce in the pan. I simmered it on low heat and eventually it began to bubble gently. I had some nutmeg, cinnamon, and moroccan spiced minced beef as well, and added a scoop of that to simmer as well. I then cracked a fresh egg in it and let the tomato juices cook the egg whites and leave the center of the egg to heat up beautifully.

I threw in some moroccan seasonings and freshly ground pepper and let it cook slowly. 

Meanwhile, i sliced a ciabatta roll for dipping and mopping up the savory deliciousness to come.

Next, I scooped out the egg and surrounding sauce into a bowl and enjoyed!

This was unbelievably easy, and hearty for the cooler days to come!

Enjoy your weekend – more adventures to come soon 🙂

BlueBoots