Ottolenghi’s sweet potato shakshuka with sriracha butter and pickled onions

Yotam Ottolenghi has a new cookbook: Ottolenghi Test Kitchen – Shelf Love. The dishes in this book contain all the flavour and originality we expect from Ottolenghi, but offer more flexibility to make them your own, using ingredients we often already have in our kitchen cupboards. Like this sweet potato shakshuka with sriracha butter and pickled onions—wow!

This version is quite far removed from classic shakshuka, certainly, but we’ve discovered that sweet potatoes have exactly the right moisture content and weight to serve as the base for these eggs. Serve this exciting dish as a weekend brunch; it looks the part too.

How to make sweet potato shakshuka with sriracha butter and pickled onions

• Heat the oven to 200 °C. Prick the sweet potatoes all over with a fork (8–10 times) and place them on a medium-sized baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake them for 45–50 minutes, until cooked through and soft. Set them aside to cool and reduce the oven temperature to 180 °C.
• Meanwhile, mix the onion with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and a pinch of salt in a small bowl and set aside to marinate.
• Pull the skins off the cooked potatoes and tear them into pieces of roughly 4 cm. Place the potato flesh in a large bowl and set aside. Put the skins back on the baking tray and toss them with 1 tablespoon of oil, ¼ teaspoon of salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper. Bake the potato skins in the oven for 8 minutes, until nicely coloured and beginning to crisp. Set them aside to cool and become even crispier.
• Mash the potato flesh smooth with a fork, add the cheddar, garlic, cumin, another 1 tablespoon of oil, the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper, and mix everything well.
• Pour the remaining tablespoon of oil into a large frying pan with a fitting lid, and tilt the pan so the oil covers the base. Spoon the mashed potato mixture into the pan and spread it out evenly with a tablespoon. Place the pan over medium-high to high heat and cook the mash for about 7 minutes, until the underside starts to colour. Now reduce the heat to medium and press eight wells into the mashed potato with the rounded side of a spoon; crack an egg into each one. Lightly season everything with salt and pepper,  cover the pan with the lid and cook the shakshuka for 4–5 minutes, gently shaking the pan occasionally, until the whites are set and the yolks are still runny.
• While the eggs are cooking, put the butter and sriracha in a small saucepan and place it over medium heat until the butter has melted; keep stirring continuously until emulsified. Remove the pan from the heat before the butter starts to bubble—it must not split.
• Spoon the sriracha butter over the eggs and scatter a generous handful of crispy potato skins, half of the marinated onions and all the coriander leaves over the shakshuka. Serve immediately, with the remaining potato skins and marinated onions on the side.

Title: Shelf Love
Author: Yotam Ottolenghi
Price: €24,99
Publisher: Fontaine uitgevers

Read also:

• Cheese through your letterbox: this cheese subscription makes it possible
• 5 tips for truly crispy sweet potato fries
• Forget the cheese board, here’s the fries board