Lebanese Eggs with Ground Beef and Cauliflower is a delicious traditional dish that has been updated with additional vegetables to make it an easy one pot meal. Affiliate links have been used to link to items I am discussing.
This dish comes via Australian born Chef Chris Honor’s Big Flavors From a Small Kitchen
, where it is described as a family dish starting with his Lebanese grandmother. The base of Lebanese Eggs with Ground Beef and Cauliflower is fairly similar to my Middle Eastern Scrambled Eggs with Meat and Onion, but it had been embellished with spices and harissa. I took it a step further, adding cauliflower and peppers, to turn it into an easy one pot weekday meal.
I made this dish in the middle of fall, just as days were getting a lot shorter, and thus struggled with the lighting. The difference between the beginning and end of the photo shoot is noticeable–and this is, not coincidentally, the last of my fall dishes photographed in decent(ish) lighting. From here on out it is dinner at 4:30 pm so Mom can actually take pictures! You can file that under #LifeWithAFoodBlogger. Lebanese Eggs with Ground Beef and Cauliflower can of course be made any time of year, adjusting the vegetables to the season. I think asparagus would be delicious in the spring, for example. Or zucchini in the summer.
Change up the vegetables with the season; instead of cauliflower try asparagus, zucchini or butternut squash, for example.
- 1-2 t vegetable oil
- 1 t yellow mustard seeds
- 1 t ground cumin
- 1 t ground ginger
- 1/2 t ground turmeric
- 1 small head of cauliflower, broken into small florets
- 1-3 T water
- kosher sea salt to taste
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 red onion thinly sliced into rings
- 1 sweet bell pepper thinly sliced
- 1/2-1 T harissa (my harissa only had garlic and chile pepper, so I mixed in some ground cumin, ground coriander, pinch of cardamom, and some ground ras el hanout)
- 1 t pomegranate molasses
- 8 eggs (whisked if you prefer to avoid runny yolks, as my husband does, or add the eggs whole)
- juice of one lime or lemon
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro (flat leaf parsley would work too, but I am more likely to have cilantro)
- pomegranate arils (when pomegranates are not in season you could also drizzle with a little pomegranate molasses at the end)
- more harissa
- lemon or lime wedges
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Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet with the mustard seeds over medium heat. Let them roast until they pop, and then add the other ground spices. Let them roast briefly, until fragrant.
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Add the cauliflower and toss with the roasted spices. Add a pinch of salt, a splash of water, and keep tossing while they cook. Add water as needed to keep the cauliflower steaming and the spices not burning.
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When the cauliflower is about halfway cooked, add the ground beef with another pinch of salt. Break the beef up and mix it into the cauliflower and spices.
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When the ground beef is all broken up and is sizzling, add the sliced pepper and onion. Mix it in and add another pinch of salt. Continue cooking until all of the pink is gone from the beef and it has browned.
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Make spaces in the ground beef to add the eggs. Either crack an entire egg into each hole, or just divide the whisked eggs between the holes. Add a tiny pinch of salt to each hole filled with eggs.
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Turn the heat to medium low and let the eggs cook, stirring occasionally. When the eggs are mostly set, add the harissa and pomegranate molasses. Stir them in.
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When the eggs have finished cooking, add the juice of one lime or lemon, stir, and taste for additional salt.
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Serve hot, garnished with chopped cilantro, fresh pomegranate arils, more harissa to drizzle, and lime or lemon wedges.
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