Campfire Skillet Portuguese Peppers and Chorizo Eggs with Broa Toast

Build your campfire and let it burn down to a bed of even, glowing coals — you want steady, moderate heat rather than leaping flames. Set a grate over the coals and place a 12-inch cast-iron skillet on top to preheat for about 5 minutes.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 ounces cured chorizo, sliced into thin coins
• 1 large red bell pepper, seeded and cut into wide strips
• 1 large yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into wide strips
• 1 small sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 ripe farmers-market tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt, plus more to taste
• 8 large eggs
• 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 4 thick slices broa (Portuguese corn bread) or rustic country bread
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges

Instructions

1. Build your campfire and let it burn down to a bed of even, glowing coals — you want steady, moderate heat rather than leaping flames. Set a grate over the coals and place a 12-inch cast-iron skillet on top to preheat for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the olive oil and the chorizo coins to the hot skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes until the edges curl and the fat renders out deep orange and fragrant.
3. Add the pepper strips and sliced onion. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, tossing every couple of minutes, until the peppers slump and pick up dark blistered patches from the pan.
4. Stir in the garlic, chopped tomatoes, smoked paprika and salt. Let everything simmer for 5 minutes until the tomatoes break down into a loose, glossy sauce that coats the peppers.
5. Using the back of a spoon, make eight shallow wells in the pepper mixture. Crack an egg into each well, cover the skillet with a lid or a sheet of foil, and slide it toward the cooler edge of the coals.
6. Cook for 6 to 8 minutes, checking at 6, until the whites are just set and the yolks are still soft and orange. Pull the skillet off the heat the moment they look right — residual heat in cast iron keeps cooking them.
7. While the eggs set, lay the bread slices directly on the grate for 1 to 2 minutes per side until toasted and lightly charred at the edges.
8. Scatter the parsley over the skillet, add a final pinch of flaky salt, and serve straight from the pan with the toast and lemon wedges for squeezing.
9. This dish borrows its soul from the Portuguese countryside, where a hot pan, good chorizo and whatever ripened in the garden that week have always been enough for a proper meal. Broa, the dense corn-and-rye bread of the Minho and Tras-os-Montes regions, was traditionally baked in communal wood ovens and is built exactly for this job — sturdy enough to scoop up runny yolk and pepper juices without falling apart. Cooking it over an open fire at a campsite in August is not a gimmick but a return to form: peppers and tomatoes are at their absolute peak, and there is no better place to eat them than outdoors, still warm from the pan.

Nutrition (estimated, per serving)

• Calories: 512 kcal
• Protein: 28g
• Fat: 34g
• Carbohydrates: 24g
• Fiber: 4g
• Sugar: 8g
• Sodium: 890mg