A tasty and quick vegetarian Passover lunch or dinner: red pepper and egg matzo galettes are ready in under an hour!
One of the most overlooked aspects of Passover is how long it lasts. Days after the seder has been eaten, the dishes done, and the dining room put back together, you still have to come up with three meals a day that are kosher for Passover. And some of those meals take place on busy weeknights with homework, music lessons and sports practice.
That’s why we all need some quick and easy Passover recipes that fit into a busy family’s schedule. One of the most popular, kid-friendly Passover meals is some version of a matzo pizza with tomato sauce, cheese and the dreaded bread of affliction — oh, I am afflicted! — standing in for a chewy crust.
My family enjoys matzo pizza, but I also like to come up with different matzo toppings to help me get through the week of Passover. This recipe, for a vegetarian matzo galette topped with sauteed peppers and a baked egg, was inspired by one of my favorite recipes from Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s classic 2012 cookbook Jerusalem.
The original recipe calls for the home cook to spread sour cream over squares of puff pastry and top them with onions and peppers. The squares are baked for about 15 minutes and then you add an egg to each and bake the squares for another 10 minutes or so until the egg is set. These red pepper and baked egg galettes, as Ottolenghi calls them, are a tasty and slightly indulgent — puff pastry! — quick vegetarian dinner and I have made them many, many times in the past four years.
It occurred to me that, for Passover, one could replace the puff pastry in the original recipe with boards of matzo and reduce the baking time significantly because, unlike the puff pastry, the matzo boards are not raw. The light coating of sour cream would prevent the baked galettes from being too dry without saturating and breaking down the matzo — which sometimes happens if you add too much tomato sauce to your matzo pizza, for example.
The Passover version of this recipe may be one of my all-time favorite ways to top matzo. I love the tanginess of the sour cream, the sweetness of the peppers and when you break that runny yolk with your fork, it coats the veggies and softens the matzo in the most irresistible way.
The best news about this recipe may be how quickly it comes together. The vegetables need about 15 minutes in a hot skillet to soften and become sweet. And the eggs need 10 minutes in a hot oven to set. That’s a total of 25 minutes cooking time for those of you doing the math at home. Perfect for a quick weeknight dinner or even an easy lunch.
So this year, in addition to your basic matzo pizza, try a baked matzo galette topped with sweet sauteed peppers and a perfectly baked egg. You may find that this becomes part of your regular Passover repertoire.
Ingredients
- 3 TB extra virgin olive oil
- 2 yellow onions, halved and sliced
- 3 red peppers, sliced
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp coriander
- Pinch red pepper flakes
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 4 boards matzo
- 4 eggs
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Chopped cilantro (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400.
- Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until softened, about five minutes. Season with salt.
- Add the red peppers and spices and saute for an additional ten minutes until the vegetables are softened and sweet. Taste and season with salt and pepper if needed.
- Spread 2 TB of sour cream on each matzo board and arrange the boards on two large baking sheets.
- Divide the vegetables evenly among the matzo boards, creating a small well in the center of each one.
- Crack an egg into the well in the center of the matzo boards being careful not to break the yolks.
- Bake the matzo galettes in the oven until the eggs are set but the yolk is still runny, about 10 minutes.
- Serve immediately topped with chopped cilantro and additional salt and pepper if desired.
This looks so delicious, love the mixture between the sauteed peppers and the egg…great recipe whether for passover or to enjoy all year long