Balinesey Shakshuka

Shakshuka is a North African dish of vegetables, tomatoes, and eggs flavored with smokey paprika or harissa or sumac, ubiquitous from Israel to Turkey to Morocco. I love classic shakshuka, but I’ve also made Mexican shakshuka (cumin, cilantro, chipotle Chile), Italian shakshuka (capers, anchovy, basil) and this Balinese-ish version, which uses the Balinese Spice Paste from earlier as a fast track to flavortown (fast, that is, if you made it in advance and froze some.)

Most Balinese dishes are based on spice pastes (bumbu) ground with a stone mortar and pestle, consisting of things like shallots, garlic, many varieties of chiles, galangal, lesser galangal (kencur), turmeric, etc. The spice paste is fried and then the other ingredients are added. The sambal, the green beans, and the spices in this dish are all fairly Balinesey, but you can be pretty loose with the vegetables. Green beans are ubiquitous in Balinese cooking, but throw in some frozen okra, some bell peppers, or maybe some green onions, it will be a little less Balinese, but I bet you’ll still want to eat it.

Now, many ingredients essential to Balinese cooking are difficult to get in the US, like kencur root, candlenuts, and many of the chiles. Working too hard is entirely beside the point of shakshuka, so I invented this one morning when I had a jar of sambal I felt guilty about not eating and half a 28-oz can of tomatoes left over from a previous pasta. Proportions are rough, so taste as you go. The green beans and spinach were frozen. Frozen vegetables are fine.

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INGREDIENTS

Serves 2-3

• 140 g Balinese Base Gede spice paste

• 1 medium onion, sliced, any color. Ideally, slice it from root to stem longitudinally. Green onions are also fine. Or both.
• Spinach (fresh or frozen). (Spinach cooks down, so feel free to throw in, oh, two cups packed if fresh or at least 1/2 an 8-oz bag of frozen. There are a number of Balinese green leafy vegetables that would also be perfect here, like kangkung or bayam, but good luck finding them. Spinach is fine.)
• Two fat handfuls green beans, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces.
• 1 tbsp-ish glob Tomato paste
• 1 tbsp-ish glob Chili-garlic sauce
• 1 tbsp-ish glob Sambal oelek, fresh or jarred
(Do you have all three? Use all three. Adjust proportions accordingly, maybe take it down to a 1/2 glob of each.)
• One 14-oz can tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes are also fine.
• A splash or two of fish sauce. (This replaces the fermented shrimp paste often found in Balinese food, because frying fermented shrimp paste in the average American indoor kitchen is a form of domestic warfare. Traditional Balinese kitchens are either outside or partially outside, which makes all the difference.
• 6 or so eggs

SERVE WITH:

• White rice (Jasmine, ideally, or Calrose) or even Coconut Rice (replace 1/2 your rice water with coconut milk, lite is fine, in fact, I prefer it here)

• A pile of chopped cilantro, as garnish.

• More sambal, if you have it. All the sambal.

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WEE COOKING TIPS:

- Why slice the onion longitudinally? Because it breaks down differently and is less piquant than if you slice it horizontally, since you are breaking fewer of the cell walls in the slicing.

- The acid in tomato-based sauces can sometimes strip the seasoning from cast-iron pans, so if you have an enamel-lined cast iron or oven-safe stainless pan, maybe use that instead for this dish.

DIRECTIONS

1. Make the spice paste. For the full experience, grind the shallots, garlic, roots, and spices (except the bay leaf) with a stone mortar and pestle, but it’s also fine to use a food processor or blender. (Plenty of Balinese cooks use blenders. I use the rock, however, because I think the spices taste better and stronger when their cells are bruised/smashed rather than sliced by a food processor blade. Admittedly, this might be all in my head, but it’s worth pointing out that Italians make the same claim about pesto.)

2. Heat the oil. Saute the spice paste until fragrant in an oven-safe frying pan or enamel-lined cast iron pan. Do not burn.

3. Add the sliced onion. Saute until soft and a bit browned.

4. Add the globs of tomato paste, chili garlic sauce, sambal, etc. Saute a bit more.

5. Add the green beans, sauté until they get some Maillard on them too.

6. Add the tomato sauce, thin with a little water. Throw in the bay leaf. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Simmer for oh, 5-10 minutes or so, until everything comes together.

7. Toss in the spinach, wilt.

8. Now, there are two ways to do the eggs:
   Option A.) Make a well in the sauce for each egg, crack the egg into the well, and place in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes until the eggs are cooked to your liking. However, this method, for me, often results in the egg yolks overcooking before the whites congeal (especially if I start with fridge-temp and not room-temp eggs because I forgot to take them out early) so option 2 is:

   Option B.) Just fry the eggs separately and place them on top of the shakshuka. I mostly do it this way. Side benefit: you can make your eggs with runny yolks and crispy whites.

FACTOIDS

• “Shakshuka” means “mixture” or “shaken” in Maghreb Arabic. The word “shake”, in English, comes from the proto-Germanic word “skakanan.” Also this.

• Shake Shack does not serve shakshuka. If this bothers you, let them know.