Moorish Eggs

With the brutal winter weather we have been having I have become extremely nostalgic of the 10 months we spent living in New Zealand a couple years ago. We had a downtown apartment that had access to so many great places to eat. Two of my favourites were:

Mezze Bar

and

Tasca 

Both have awesome breakfast/brunch menus. One of my favourite items was their "Moorish Eggs". It is basically meatballs in a tomato sauce with eggs poached in the sauce. It is usually served with toasted Turkish bread but I could only find Naan at the grocery store.
I went really "Kiwi" and used New Zealand lamb for my meatballs. It ended up being good but a little on the sweet side for Jess and my tastes. I think next time I will make beef meatballs and go for a saltier tomato sauce and actually dig up some Turkish bread. 

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 500g beef or lamb mince
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 egg (plus however many you want to eat 6 - 8)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 cup coriander/cilantro

Directions:

1. Place half the onion, cumin, salt, pepper and coriander in a food processor and pulse until pureed. 
2. In a medium mixing bowl mix the onion mixture, meat, egg and bread crumbs.
3. Roll your balls into the desired shape.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
5. Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook meatballs until cooked through. 
6. Chop the rest of the onion and saute it in the meatball grease.
7. Add tomatoes and allow to boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. 
8. Dump the sauce into oven safe dishes and add the meatballs.
9. Break as many eggs into each dish and bake until whites are cooked through. 
10. Sprinkle with chopped coriander.