Braised Eggs with Chicken, Tahini and Sumac

The Jerusalem cookbook is one of many that I own by Yotam Ottolenghi, an Isreali, Italian, London based chef. I LOVE all his recipes that I have tried so far. Not only are they delicious, but crowd pleasing too. This recipe in particular seems complicated but I assure you it is not. Once you have all the ingredients in front of you, it comes together pretty quickly.
The original recipe is made with ground lamb but neither I or my husband like lamb so I subbed ground chicken. Next time I would use dark meat only or ground beef, as it was a little dry, but still great tasting!! I also didn't have preserved lemons so I used lemon zest.
Warning, this dish is spicy because of the harissa paste but the yogurt sauce really cools it down. If you don't like heat, either cut down on the paste or omit it.


Braised Eggs with Chicken, Tahini and Sumac
( adapted from Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi)

Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
12 oz ground chicken
2 teaspoons sumac
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup toasted, unsalted pistachios, crushed
7 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
2 teaspoons harissa paste
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 1/3 cup cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup chicken stock
4 large eggs
cilantro
salt & pepper

Yogurt Sauce
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 1/2 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon water

Saute onion and garlic in a little olive until soft and golden. Turn up heat and add the ground chicken until browned. Add sumac, cumin, salt and pepper and cook for another minute. Turn off heat and add nuts, harissa, and lemon zest.
In the meantime, char the tomatoes either in a hot pan or under the broiler. Set aside.
Mix the ingredients for yogurt sauce with a pinch of salt. Set aside.
Reheat meat and add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Make 4 small wells in the mix and break an egg in each well. Cover and cook the eggs over low heat for 3 minutes. Place the tomatoes on top and cover again for 5 minutes or until the whites are cooked.
Remove from heat and dot with yogurt sauce. Sprinkle with cilantro.

m xo