By Humaira
I am a cereal girl when it comes to breakfast food. Eggs are my lunch or dinner go to food for a quick delicious meal. In Afghanistan people have boiled eggs or sunny side up for breakfast, but this is rare since eggs are expensive. Most people in the villages keep a couple of chickens around for their coveted eggs.
When I was a little girl we lived in a modern two-story house in Kabul with a big yard. My father, a diplomat, loved gardening, growing his own fruit and keeping chickens so we had a chicken coupe in the corner of the yard with around 10 chickens and a rooster. In the mornings I loved to retrieve the freshly laid eggs for breakfast.
This recipe is an amalgamation of various styles of egg recipes I have seen over the years. The sautéing of the tomatoes until caramelized I learned from my daughter’s Turkish babysitter. Adding cumin for extra flavor came from my aunt and the hollowed hard-crusted bread I took from a scene in the movie Moonstruck when Olympia Dukakis cooks eggs for Cher.
In this recipe I use tomatoes, but since tomato season is over you may substitute canned or homemade tomato sauce. The eggs are even more flavorful and richer in flavor with tomato sauce.
EggsFinal
Ready to eat!
Afghan Inspired Open-Face Sandwich Tomatoes, Cumin and Paprika Flavored Eggs
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tomato diced or 1/4-cup tomato sauce
A pinch of cumin and paprika
2 one inch thick slices of hard crusted Italian bread
2 eggs
Heat oil in a frying pan on high heat.
Add the diced tomatoes to the pan and stir for around 2 minutes until
caramelized. If using tomato sauce you can cook the sauce for a couple of
minutes to brings out its flavors. Add the cumin and paprika to the
tomatoes and stir until mixed well. Move the caramelized tomatoes to the
edge of the pan. Remove the inside of the bread; place the hollowed bread
in the pan. Gently place each egg inside the bread crust.
Reduce temperature to medium, place a lid on the pan and cook for around 5-7 minutes
until the whites of the eggs are fully cooked through. It is important to keep
the temperature low so the bottom of the bread doesn’t burn.
Gently remove the open-faced sandwiches, place
on a plate, put a dollop of tomatoes sauce on top of the eggs and place the
rest around the eggs. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and enjoy
with a glass of your favorite drink.
EggsPartlyCooked
Eggs party cooked before placing the lid.
Except where otherwise noted, all content on this blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.