These eggs aren’t just for breakfast
A chef-perfect midnight meal
Ciao friends, and welcome back to Cool Beans! After cooking all day at High Street restaurant in Philly, executive chef Christina McKeough often finds herself making the same satisfying but very simple meal On Repeat when she gets home: shakshuka, a North African dish of eggs baked in a spiced sauce of tomatoes, peppers, and other veggies. “It’s not just for breakfast,” says McKeough. “It’s such a fun main dish that you can expand a meal around. It’s the star of the show, but it goes really well with so many other things.”
Serving it with salad is a no-brainer, she says. “You could do a super-herbaceous one with tons of herbs and pickled onions to break up the richness of the tomato, or you can go with bitter greens—that’s my favorite.”
Why I love it
“It’s fast and it’s adaptable, so it can be made with a lot of things people have in their pantry. I’m a mom and full-time chef and have no time to cook at home, so I like the versatility of it: It’s brunch, it’s lunch, it’s dinner, it’s all those things. I don’t think there are many dishes out there that fit into that category.
“And it’s such a beautiful dish—it’s visually stunning—and it looks more impressive than it actually is. The things I love to cook are usually really bright and colorful. And then the one-pot aspect is something people are attracted to.”
What I’ve changed
“The red pepper can be sweet, hot, or it can be a combination. I like to add my spices and get them really toasty: fennel seed, coriander, paprika, and cumin. But you don’t need them all: You can go more cumin heavy if that’s your preference, or sort of decide which direction you want to go. If you wanted to lean more to the fennel you could add fresh fennel and let that ‘sweat’ with your onions.
“I always use tomato, but [you can add] any other vegetable. Sometimes tomatillos in the summer are really nice in there, because they’re acidic and I think go really well with the tomatoes. I have added chickpeas into the braise, and greens like kale as well.”
What else I’m into right now
Not wasting a crumb. Because High Street is a bakery first and foremost, my menu is very focused on what we’re doing in the bakery and how we can incorporate that onto the savory menu. Not a crumb of bread ever goes to waste, whether that’s making crostinis or croutons or breadcrumbs. We’ll soak day-old bread in milk to thicken our meatballs or patés.
A colorful cookbook. Bright Cooking by Camille Becerra has some great vegetable-focused recipes, and the photos are beautiful. I love color—all my dishes have that sort of interesting pops of colors and textures.
Good grounds. We serve Passenger Coffee out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in our restaurant and bakeshop, and admire their approach to supporting small family farms, forging meaningful partnerships with coffee growers, and publishing price transparency. And the coffee is fantastic!