BipolarLawyerCook

Deb at Smit­ten Kitchen had this recipe for Shak­shuka, an Israeli Spicy Tomato Stew with Poached Eggs that I really wanted to try.  See, it looked really easy, a one pot dish that you built by lay­er­ing fla­vors, and when the stew was basi­cally done, you popped in a few eggs and poached them in the cooked liq­uid, then spooned them out into bowls, sprin­kled them over with feta and pars­ley and voila, BOOM, dinner.

See?  Doesn’t it look just yummy?

It was just that easy, and ooh, it was awe­some.  Espe­cially because I tried this new Rhode Island feta that I bought at the Ded­ham Whole Foods.  But for those of you who don’t like poached eggs, the stew base is deli­cious and spicy and yum.   I made it with 2 jalapenos, not three, and did the jalapenos, not the Ana­heim Chiles.  If you’re not a fan of poached eggs,  you could totally poach some fish or scal­lops or shrimp in the liq­uid, or just add more feta.  (Yes, Jenn, I tried it with­out the egg for break­fast this morn­ing.  It’s awe­some with­out the egg and just a lit­tle more cheese.)

I did devi­ate from Deb’s recipe in one way.  She sug­gests you serve it with pita, and I didn’t do that since I’m try­ing to get back to gluten-free eat­ing.  What I did instead is make socca.

Socca?  What’s this?  It’s chickpea-flour flat­bread, made from Bob’s Red Mill chick­pea flour I bought at my co-op.  Bob’s rocks, plain and sim­ple.  I keep the open pack­ages in the freezer in a ziploc after they’re open, since the bean flours tend to go ran­cid.  Here’s what it looked like, after it baked.

My recipe is based on the one in Fran McCullough’s Liv­ing Low Carb, page 135.  Since I mod­i­fied it a bit, I’ll post it here.

1 cup room tem­per­a­ture water
2/3 c chick­pea flour
3 tbsps extra vir­gin olive oil
1 tsp salt
5–6 grinds fresh black pep­per
Penzey’s rose­mary pow­der and/or finely chopped dried or fresh rose­mary nee­dles, at least 1/4 tsp.

Mix all ingre­di­ents in a bowl, whisk­ing until all lumps are gone.  Let sit for one hour.

Pre­heat oven to 500F.  In some­thing smaller than a sheet pan (this is why mine looks uneven and ragged, all the right pans for this recipe hap­pened to be dirty last night)– you want some­thing more like a round pizza pan or a 10–12 inch oven-proof skil­let, oil the pan with more olive oil, pour the bat­ter, then put it in to bake until set, approx. 6 minutes.

Turn on the broiler, take out the socca and spray/drizzle the top with more oil before putting it under the heat to crisp until golden brown, 3–5 min­utes.  Sprin­kle with salt and pep­per if you like (I didn’t, because I like my bat­ter pre-seasoned, I don’t think it needs any more), cut into wedges, and serve.