One of the more common misconceptions about cast iron cookware is that you shouldn’t cook any acidic foods in your pans. While it’s true that simmering acidic ingredients in cast iron for longer periods of time can impart a metallic taste and/or affect your pan’s seasoning, you can safely cook lots of things—including our shakshuka recipe below—without having to worry about off flavors or damaged pans.
Here's how to do it:
When cooking acidic foods in cast iron, it’s best to keep the cooking time below 30 minutes; any longer and your sauce might begin to taste metallic, or your dutifully maintained pan might lose some of its seasoning.
When cooking acidic sauces, stews and the like, it helps to know the general pH level (i.e. acidity) of your ingredients. Canned tomatoes—a common ingredient for many sauces‚ have a pH of around 4, which is less acidic than wine (3 to 4), vinegar (2.5), and citrus juice (around 2). The takeaway? It’s safe to cook tomato- and wine-based sauces in cast iron, but you should save the vinegary pan sauces for stainless-steel pans—or dilute the vinegar (or citrus) with water or stock.
We always advocate cleaning your cast iron pans as soon as you can after you’ve finished using them, but it’s especially important to do so when you’ve cooked higher-acid foods in them. If you forget to do the dishes, don’t worry: Even if your pan’s seasoning takes a hit, you can restore it with regular cooking, or a good re-seasoning.
Menus use the two interchangeably, but they describe different things. Baked eggs is a method: eggs cooked in the oven, often in a ramekin, as in the French œufs en cocotte, where an egg goes into a small dish with crème fraîche and bakes in a water bath until the white sets and the yolk stays loose. Shakshuka is a dish, and the sauce is the whole point. The name comes from Maghrebi Arabic and means mixed, though some trace it instead to the Amazigh word shakshak, and the strongest historical case for its origin points to Tunisia and western Libya. The dish took its modern form only after tomatoes and peppers reached the region in the mid-sixteenth century, and it became a breakfast and lunch staple across Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt before Jewish emigrants from the Maghreb carried it to Israel in the 1950s and '60s. The eggs poach directly in a simmering base of tomato, pepper, and warm spice until the whites set and the yolks stay soft.
Cooks around the Mediterranean have their own versions of eggs cooked in a sauce that's already been built. Naples has uova in purgatorio, a cucina povera dish of eggs poached in tomato, garlic, and olive oil, leaning on chili and basil rather than cumin and usually skipping the peppers, and named, by one account, for eggs that look like souls adrift in the flames. Turkey has menemen, where the eggs are stirred into the tomatoes and green peppers instead of left whole, and the seasoning stays spare, little more than salt and pul biber. Mexico has huevos rancheros, rancher's eggs: fried eggs on lightly fried corn tortillas with a cooked salsa spooned over the top. And the Basque country has pipérade, which is properly the pepper, onion, and tomato base itself, seasoned with piment d'Espelette, with eggs among the most common things served in or alongside it—the version with eggs is the one Julia Child brought to American readers in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. What separates them is the spice, the treatment of the peppers, and whether the eggs stay intact. What they share is a tomato base acidic enough to need a hot, well-seasoned pan and a short stay in it, which is exactly why shakshuka is the right recipe for this lesson.
While a well-seasoned skillet can absolutely stand up to acidic ingredients if you follow the instructions above, we wouldn’t recommend cooking shakshuka in a brand new pan. When is a skillet ready? Reliable non-stick performance and the darker patina that comes with seasoning earned through cooking are each signs that you’re ready to give acids a try.
In a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until the peppers are soft, 10 to 15 minutes.
Add the harissa and tomatoes, bring to steady simmer, and cook until thickened, about 10 minutes.
Crack the eggs into skillet and cover the pan with a lid (or transfer the skillet, uncovered, to a 375°F oven). Continue cooking until the egg whites are set, 5 to 7 minutes longer.
The key to reliable, use-it-every-day cast iron is seasoning: a smooth, well-seasoned skillet will clean up with just a quick wash, and produce natural non-stick performance every time. Apply a dab of Field Seasoning Oil after cleaning to protect your skillet and build durable non-stick seasoning.
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