During my student days I made some shady food choices. Cooking potato waffles in a toaster, anyone? When I did cook properly, it was for everyone I knew: huge pots of chilli, giant bowls of pasta. I relied on a few things as flavour boosters – spice mixes, pastes that packed a punch, from garam masala to sun-dried tomato paste. If I was a student now, harissa and za’atar would have pride of place in my kitchen: they add a serious hit of flavour for their price. Here are two things I wish I’d known how to cook back then.

Traybake harissa shakshuka (pictured above)

This is a great brunch, lunch or dinner and won’t leave you hungry, thanks to the beans and eggs. You could use any white beans you have, or even a tin of mixed beans would work. You can scale this up or down easily, but be sure to use a roasting tray that fits everything snugly.

Prep 5 min

Cook 1 hr

Serves 6

2 x 400g tins cannellini beans

100ml olive oil

2 tins chopped tomatoes

2 heads garlic, sliced in half

3 tbsp rose harissa

Salt and black pepper

6 medium eggs

150g feta cheese (optional)

A few handfuls soft herbs, such as parsley and mint (optional)

Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas 7. Drain and rinse the beans. Drizzle the olive oil into a large baking tray and add the beans, mixing them well. Add the tomatoes, garlic, harissa and 400ml water, and season with salt and pepper. Roast for an hour, until the sauce has thickened and is sticky around the edges.

Remove from the oven and turn on the grill as high as it will go. Make six little holes in the tomato and bean mixture with the back of a spoon, then break an egg into each hole. Season and place under the grill for two minutes, until the eggs are just set.

Remove, scatter over the herbs and crumble a little feta, if using. Eat straight away with some bread for mopping up.

Za’atar and garlic butter flatbreads

Anna Jones’s za’atar and garlic butter flatbreads

I remember eating a lot of garlic bread at university; it was cheap and filling. These are cheaper and tastier, and can be made in the time it takes to walk to the cornershop and back. Plain flour and a teaspoon of baking powder work as well as self-raising flour, if that’s what you have.



Prep 10 min

Cook 15 min

Serves 6

For the flatbreads

400g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting

300ml milk

1 tsp salt

For the za’atar butter

2 tbsp za’atar

100g butter

2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

Put all the ingredients for the flatbreads into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture forms a ball. If you don’t have a food processor, this can be done in a bowl using a fork to begin with, followed by your hands to bring it together into a dough.

Tip the dough out on to a clean work surface dusted with flour. Knead for a minute or so, to bring it together. Divide the dough into six equal pieces. With your hands, flatten one piece of dough, then use a rolling pin dusted with flour to roll it into an oval shape about 4-5mm thick. Repeat with the other pieces of dough.

Put the za’atar, butter and garlic in a small pan over a medium heat until bubbling. Remove from the heat and put to one side while you cook the flatbreads.

Warm a frying pan that’s a bit larger than your flatbreads over a medium heat. Once it is hot, cook each flatbread for one to two minutes on each side, until puffed up and charred a little. Slather the butter over the flatbreads with a spoon. Eat while they are hot.

• Anna Jones appears in the award-winning food magazine Feast, along with recipes by Yotam Ottolenghi and more top cooks, with the Guardian every Saturday



