Nostalgia and New Breakfast Favourites.

Written by Connor Francis Wallis

Edited by Alex Bamforth

As a kid I was lucky enough to find a brief release from the baron store cupboards of a council estate by traveling to Turkey with my grandparents. I went from super noodles to a fortnight of feta, za’atar and shawarma. That being said super noodles are fucking brilliant when cooked as the packet dictates, but are made better with the addition of a fried mushroom or an onion. Perhaps, even,  the type of dried herbs or spices that the local boss man keeps in stock for your mum paired with Aldi soy sauce and some chopped spring onions. Anyway, enough about super noodles.

I’m around 14 years old, I’m playing super bomber man and Pokémon yellow on the game boy colour and I’ve left the estate for the first time in my life, for me this was a sort of bliss that adult life has rarely afforded me, and a feeling I’ve kept with me since that day. Aside from being dead set on catching them all, I was a chubby kid dining out on my Nan’s credit card, and never, ever scared of filling my face with something I’d never heard of and that someone else was paying for. 

The first breakfast comes around after a night of being subjected to mosquito bites, a man who would later become my friend places in front of me no less than twelve plates of different sides, salads, meats, vegetables and egg dishes, with the latter being the only familiar dish on the table, a pan, with a volcanically hot red sauce bubbling and gurgling away beneath four glorious eggs, the yolks still fluid but the whites just cooked enough as to not turn this privileged chubby white boys stomach. 

This dish would become my white whale, a beast I would chase again and again until I finally got it, the one hundred and fifty first Pokémon, simply called Shakshuka.

Shakshuka:

Serves 2

For the spice blend;

2 tablespoons of Pul Biber (red)

1 tablespoon of Pul Biber (black)

1 teaspoon of coriander seeds 

1 teaspoon of Red ras el hanout 

Add to a dry pan and roast on a low heat until either your eyes hurt or you sneeze. Alternatively for two minutes or until golden.

For the sauce ;

3 vine tomatoes (grated)

1 white onion (grated)

1 clove of garlic chopped finely

2 generous glugs of olive oil 

1 roasted red pepper (roast on a high heat and peel once rested and de seed)

Add to a pan with your spice mix and an extra glug of olive oil, allow to simmer for three to five minutes and add;

2 teaspoons of soft dark brown sugar 

1 tablespoon of red wine vinega

Once all of the ingredients are in the pan and have made friends, by this I mean you’re left with a sauce that would stick to the back of a spoon and not watery in its consistency, crack over four eggs spaced evenly and leave on a medium high heat until the whites have solidified (I always have the grill on for the toast I serve alongside Shakshuka and so I finish the cooking of the eggs under that). 

To plate, lay your toast down first, heavily buttered, and top with a generous scoop of your eggy spicy tomato heaven, ensuring that everyone has two yolks to play with. 

Enjoy, and for that split second believe that you’re the best Pokémon trainer that ever lived, and most certainly, far from home.