food to glow

Sometimes a great meal is made by writing a careful list, driving to the store, loading up the cart with all manner of esoteric and single-use items, bringing in so.many.bags, tying on an apron, flicking on the radio and getting busy in the kitchen. Some hours later – and a teetering pile of dirty pots and pans to show for your effort – you, your friends and loved ones will then sit down to a fabulous meal amidst pressed linen napkins, fragrant flowers, and a crystal maze of wine glasses. The conversation will sparkle – in direct proportion to the amount of expensive wine drunk – and heels will be kicked off to do a little dancing as 8 pm turns to 1 am. Or so I imagine. 

It has been some time since I have had such a dinner, either in my home or someone else’s.

My “great” meals these days, as I get older and lacking the energy to do the culinary gymnastics usually required of chef-written recipes, can often be measured not in how much effort (and wallet-emptying) is made, but how little.

Basic ingredients and recipes that give and give are my preferred way of eating most days. Sure, it is wonderful to pull out all of the stops occasionally – Thanksgiving, Diwali, Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hasanah, Eid-al Fitr. But isn’t it wonderful to have great meals at one’s fingertips, to be eaten just because? To celebrate getting though another day? Start your day with a smile instead of a sigh?

Eggs and tomatoes are my hero foods in this respect, and the easy but stunning North African dish, shakshuka, is my hero recipe. I have a rather fancy but easy one that is perfect for weekending guests or lazy weekends for two, while this green one eschews the tomato base for – as expected – a mulchy pile of gently spiced greens. All topped with eggs that poach gently to your liking under a steamy lid, or whacked into a screaming-hot oven. But this one is just for me  – and you: a single-serving skillet of head-clearing tomato sauce and perfectly poached egg.

Eggs In Purgatory is the name British journalist and TV cook Nigella Lawson gave her stripped-back shakshuka way back in the “Nigellisima” stage of her eating and writing career. I can’t say I had actually heard of her moniker for spicy tomato and eggs until someone popped a pic of their version onto Instagram, but I thought it an apt name. Hers is just the simple but stunning combination of garlic, oil, chilli flakes, tinned tomatoes and eggs.

Looking at this clip, I know Nigella made it as a hangover cure of sorts, saying, “eggs in purgatory is absolute heaven when you are feeling like hell.” I can quite agree that it would be the case, but I have only ever had it as a cure for not enough sleep. This and a near-pint of cold matcha tea and I am ready for the day.

In this third version of my favourite breakfast-brunch dish I have included modest pinches of some pretty potent players – tongue-tingling Sichuan peppercorns (not true peppers of course), hot chilli flakes; even some fragrant cardamom and nippy-sweet rice vinegar for balance and to extend the Sichuan credentials. But perhaps the real deviation is where a little raw grated beetroot is added as the necessary note of sweet that sets off the tomatoes so well. If you don’t have beetroot – and ready-prepared is completely fine but not as sweet – just taste and add a squiggle of honey or date syrup, or even a dash of brown sugar. If you use all fresh tomatoes then you can skip the beetroot, but I think it makes the sauce even more vibrant and enticing, and adds a little earthy note without being “beetrooty”.

Thinking about it, why wait until breakfast to eat this? Enjoy as a solo supper, or indeed post-fancy dinner party, after you’ve got rid of waved goodbye to your last guest, and drained the last mouthful from that bottle of red. Hosts never really eat at their own parties, right? So grab a skillet, kick off your shoes, and have a party of your own in the kitchen.

What is your go-to simple recipe for a solo breakfast or supper?