One-Pan Shakshuka with Feta

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 80 g feta, crumbled
• 2 pitta breads, warmed
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 0.5 tsp chilli flakes
• 0.5 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 15g coriander, roughly chopped
• Crusty sourdough toast, to serve
• Dressed leaves, to serve

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, deep frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and red pepper with a good pinch of salt and cook for 6–7 minutes, stirring now and then, until softened and just starting to catch at the edges — that catch is flavour, don't rush past it.
2. Stir in the garlic and cook just until fragrant, about 30 seconds — no more. Burnt garlic turns the whole pan bitter, so watch it and move on the moment you can smell it.
3. Add the cumin, smoked paprika, chilli flakes and cinnamon and bloom them in the oil for 30–60 seconds until fragrant and a shade darker. Raw spices taste dusty; bloomed spices taste of themselves.
4. Tip in the chopped tomatoes, red lentils and water. The water is doing real work here — it breaks the tomatoes down so they taste of summer fruit, not tin, and gives the lentils something to swell into. Season generously with salt and pepper, bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 12–14 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils have collapsed and the sauce is thick and glossy. Loosen with a splash more water if it tightens up too much.
5. Stir the spinach through a handful at a time and let it wilt into the sauce, about 1 minute. Taste now, season again, taste once more — adjust here, not at the table.
6. Make 4 wells in the sauce and crack an egg into each. Season the eggs with a pinch of salt, cover with a lid and cook for 5–6 minutes until the whites are just set but the yolks still wobble when you nudge the pan.
7. Scatter the crumbled feta over the eggs and sauce while everything is still bubbling — the feta softens but shouldn't melt away.
8. Bring the pan straight to the table. Shower over the chopped coriander, crack over plenty of black pepper, and tear the warm pitta to scoop through yolk, sauce and feta.