Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Moroccan Ragout with Poached Eggs

In my constant search for healthy, tasty breakfasts that aren't completely carb loaded, I came across a recipe for a Moroccan Ragout.  The recipe I found had a lot of ingredients that I didn't have, including a lamb sausage.  I made this without any meat, although it would be seriously kick-*ss with chorizo... and would be seriously worse for you, SO...  for my recipe, once again I made do with the limits of my paltry pantry cabinet.
As usual, I recommend using recipes as a launch pad for your own ideas, so with that in mind, I used the following ingredients:
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled, smashed and minced
1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1 10oz can diced tomatoes and chilies (like Rotel)
1 6oz can tomato sauce
3 whole canned plum tomatoes, diced (If I had two cans of the tomatoes and chilies I would have used that instead of the last two ingredients)
1 1/2 Tbsp Harissa (My favorite "new" ingredient this past year!  spicy and sweet and AWESOME with scrambled eggs!)
Fresh large eggs
Toast (preferably a nice crusty bread, but I made do with weight watchers whole wheat)
 Spice Blend:
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp paprika
The original recipe called for "Ras El Hanout", a Moroccan spice blend.  The name means literally: "top of the shop" and called a lot of spices that I didn't have.  Oh well, next trip to Whole Foods or Trader Joes I will have to search it out!  I also used some of the spices that were in the sausage that was called for.
First, Sautee the onion and pepper till transparent, then add the garlic, wait a minute or so, and the spice blend.  Stir this around to toast the spices a little...
...then add the tomatoes and harissa.   Let this ragout simmer at a low boil for 5 minutes or so...
then drop the eggs in.  I like to break my eggs into a bowl one at a time, so I don't get any shell in the ragout, and just in case there is a bad egg, you don't ruin the dish, or the rest of the eggs.
Put a lid on this, and let the eggs poach...
...until the whites are cooked but the yolks are still runny.
Serve on the toast and season with salt and pepper, and maybe a little more harissa, if you can take the heat!
The beautiful thing with this dish is the large amount of leftover ragout was put in a container in the fridge, and now I can make it again as quickly as poaching eggs in water!

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