Ojja with merguez

Ingredients

• Merguez sausages500 g
• Tomatoes600 g
• Bell peppers3
• Garlic6 clove
• Harissa2 tbsp
• Tomato paste1 tbsp
• Eggs5
• Ground caraway1 tsp
• Olive oil50 ml
• Parsley30 g
• Baguette — to serve1
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Fry the merguez in olive oil until browned all over and lift them onto a plate.

   10 min

2. 2

   In the same fat fry the sliced pepper and the garlic until soft.

   8 min

3. 3

   Stir in the harissa, tomato paste and caraway and cook them two minutes.

   4 min

4. 4

   Add the chopped tomatoes, season and cook fifteen minutes to thicken.

   17 min

5. 5

   Return the sausages, cut into pieces, and warm them three minutes.

   5 min

6. 6

   Drop the heat to its lowest, break in the eggs and stir with a spatula for three minutes into a creamy mass.

   5 min

7. 7

   Scatter with parsley and serve straight from the pan with baguette.

   4 min

About the dish

Ojja differs from chakchouka in its eggs: here they are not left whole but stirred through the sauce into a creamy mass. That is the fundamental difference between the two.

The merguez are fried first and lifted out, and the sauce is built in their fat. That fat with harissa is what gives the dish its colour and its heat.

The eggs go in over a low heat with constant stirring. Too hot a pan turns them into an omelette in pieces rather than a creamy binder.

Worth knowing

• — Keep the heat under the eggs as low as it goes. On a high flame they set in lumps and no creaminess comes.
• — Merguez varies in heat. Use less harissa if the sausages are already fiery, or the dish becomes uneatable.
• — Ojja is served immediately and straight from the pan. Five minutes on, residual heat goes on cooking the eggs and they set firm.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

620 kcal

Protein

34 g

Fat

44 g

Carbs

22 g

More from Tunisia

• Brik — A thin sheet of pastry with an egg inside, fried so the yolk stays liquid.
• Tunisian lablabi — Chickpeas in a garlic broth poured over torn stale bread, with an egg, cumin and harissa.
• Tunisian chakchouka — Stewed peppers with tomato and harissa, eggs broken into the sauce at the end.