Ojja Merguez

Lamb sausage and eggs in a slightly spicy tomato sauce

Many Tunisian dishes could pass as New Mexican food. Ojja merguez, with its spicy red sauce, sausages and eggs, tastes like a dish I might have ordered for breakfast here in Santa Fe. However, it is a hearty Tunisian dinner entrée. Since we have returned home, Angela gets a periodic craving for ojja merguez. We were delighted to find that our local butcher makes a pretty good merguez sausage, so I can satisfy her craving without having to take her back to Tunisia.

Merguez is a lamb sausage found throughout the Maghreb (a region of Berber-influenced countries including Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and Libya). I imagine that this dish can be made with any kind of sausage (a venison sausage would be a superb choice), but if you’ve never had merguez, I would recommend looking around for it. Merguez is well seasoned with a distinctive North African spice blend and is generally only mildly spicy, but with the addition of extra (or hotter) chili powder and harissa, you can make this dish as fiery as you’d like. We ate many dishes in Tunisia that rivaled New Mexican food in terms of chili intensity. It always came as a pleasant surprise and was a momentary balm for homesickness.

Ingredients:

· 8 plum tomatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks

· 6 cloves of garlic, minced

· 1 T. cumin

· 1 T. tomato paste

· 1 T. mild (or hot) chili powder

· 1/2 T. harissa

· 2 green peppers cut into large chunks

· 4 eggs

· Salt

· 2 T. olive oil

· 1 lb. merguez (spicy lamb sausage), whole links or cut into bite sized chunks

· Water

Directions:

1. In a saucepan heat olive oil on medium-high heat. Add the merguez and brown on all sides.

2. Add tomatoes, stirring until tender.

3. Add garlic, paprika, cumin, harissa, tomato paste, salt & 16 oz. water. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer.

4. Continue to simmer, stirring occasionally. Add hot water ½ c. at a time as the sauce thickens – it should be the consistency of a thick marinara sauce.

5. After simmering for about 10 minutes, add the green peppers and then continue to simmer for 10 minutes more.

6. Crack the eggs over the sauce, and continue to simmer until the whites are firm, but the yolks are still soft. At this point, you can either leave the eggs whole, which makes a striking presentation, or slowly stir, scrambling them into sauce. Both methods of serving are common in Tunisia.

7. Remove from heat and serve with bread. A French-style baguette is the traditional accompaniment in Tunisia.