No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. This really is a Shakshuka in a Tesco Superstore Café. Taking pride of place on the menu, this Maghrebi dish is as delicious as it is distinctive. Eggs are poached in a thick tomato sauce, packed full of warming cumin, fiery cayenne pepper and smoky paprika.
Shakshuka (also spelled shakshouka or chakchouka) has enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, and can often be found in trendy brunch spots all over the UK, but has been a popular meal in Northwest Africa for centuries. Clearly Tesco wanted a piece of the action.
As we’ve seen countless times before, traditional dishes often have much-disputed backstories, and shakshuka is no exception. Countries have clamoured for the rights to claim it as their own, and it’s not surprising considering the dish’s immense fanbase. Some say that it originated in the Jewish communities of Tunisia, whilst others claim its birthplace to be Morocco. Yemen also gets a look-in, as do Algeria and Libya (I opted for a mixture of cocktail stick flags here).
It’s near impossible then to confidently say where shakshuka was first created, so assigning it a regional and temporal origin (i.e. belonging to the Ottoman Maghreb) is a common settlement instead. What is agreed on however, is that Jewish immigrants from these countries brought shakshuka with them to Israel – the reason why it has become so omnipresent in and around the country.
Anyway, let’s get down to business. I’m sure you’re really here to see if Tesco’s shakshuka was worth the break from my weekly shop. And the answer is: well, kind of.
Right away, something stood out as being noticeably wrong. Similar to the Italian dish Eggs in Purgatory, shakshuka’s characteristic feature is the fact that the eggs are poached in the tomato sauce. Poached separately and plopped on top simply won’t do, and that’s exactly what I got here.
The traditional method of preparation is to slowly cook the tomato sauce on a low heat until thickened, then make little ‘wells’ in which to crack the eggs. The result is a cradle of sauce surrounding each egg, setting up a sort of ‘texture gradient’ as you work your way through the meal: thick tomato sauce, followed by slick egg white and a runny yolk at its centre.
When the eggs are separate from the sauce then, both the shakshuka look and feel are lost; the dish takes on an appearance similar to that of a Portuguese Bitoque or French Croque Madame instead.
It’s clear that shakshuka’s usual low-and-slow approach didn’t quite cut it here, so a speedier method was likely devised in its place (I’m sure a pre-made sauce sachet or two featured in its preparation). Whilst this might have saved on time, the complex and robust flavours one would expect from a long-simmered sauce simply weren’t there.
It would be unfair to ignore what was present though: caramelised onions were abundant throughout, lending the sauce a rich sweetness, and heaps of black pepper, paprika and cumin brought a pleasant warmth to each mouthful. The rocket garnish (whilst perhaps not the most authentic) added to this pepperiness, and elevated the overall appearance of the dish in a way that only garnish can. Not enough to disguise the egg conundrum, mind you.
It couldn’t distract from the other major disappointment here either: that of the toast. In the UK, generous slices of a crusty artisan loaf usually accompany shakshuka, whilst in Israel you’d almost certainly find pita. Bland, pre-sliced (and dare I say it, ultra-processed) bread then, was not the dunking device I had hoped for – although when such a product lines the shelves only a few metres away from the cafe, it’s not hard to see why it was chosen.
When looking at Tesco’s shakshuka as a whole, it’s clear to see a quick-and-easy approach had been applied to the dish by its chefs. Indeed, this is reflected in the price – £6.50 is much lower than what you’d be charged in a chi-chi cafe – but I was left feeling as though an opportunity had been missed nonetheless.
This will of course, be many people’s first introduction to a shakshuka (and I applaud Tesco for having the courage to move away from the monotony of so many British cafe menus)… I just wish I could award it a higher Tribudishional score than 4.5/10.
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