Shakshuka

Method

1. saute12 min
   medium, wide skillet, 10-inch
   olive oil + onion + bell pepper until the pepper strips slump and the edges brown — twelve minutes, not five. Peppers hold water; rush them and it leaks into the sauce later and thins it exactly when you need it thick enough to hold an egg
2. saute2 min
   medium, stirring constantly
   + garlic + cumin + paprika + cayenne + tomato paste. Ground spices are fat-soluble and taste raw and dusty in water; thirty seconds in hot oil dissolves them into it. The paste should darken to brick red — that's the sugars caramelizing, and it's the difference between a sauce that tastes cooked and one that tastes canned
3. simmer18 min
   medium-low, uncovered
   + crushed tomatoes + salt + sugar + black pepper, uncovered, until a spoon dragged across the pan leaves a track that fills in slowly. The sugar is not for sweetness — it offsets the acidity that canned tomatoes carry. Reduce further than feels right: a loose sauce lets the whites disperse in threads instead of pooling
4. prep1 min
   off heat briefly
   make four wells with the back of a spoon, pushing sauce aside all the way to the pan floor and leaving a low wall around each. The wall is what corrals the white; a shallow dimple won't
5. poach9 min
   low, covered, bare simmer
   crack eggs one at a time into the wells and cover. The sauce should barely move — a rolling simmer batters the whites apart and rubberizes them from below before the tops set. Steam under the lid cooks the exposed surface. Pull the pan when the whites are opaque but the yolks still wobble as one piece under a nudge; carryover heat in a mass of hot tomato keeps cooking them for another minute off the burner, so stop early
6. rest2 min
   off heat, uncovered
   uncover immediately so condensation stops dripping onto the yolks, then scatter feta, harissa dotted around the edges, and herbs. Serve straight from the pan with bread — the sauce is the vehicle and it stiffens as it cools