🔗 Share this article

Consider this: the best baked eggs never require an oven. When testing these recipes, realizing that using a cover generates steam to cook the top of the eggs, resulting in perfectly cooked delicately prepared egg featuring set whites and flowing center. Direct oven heat in conventional ovens is much more aggressive versus moist heat, typically causing to dry everything out and harden the yolk. I’ve given you two sauces to get started, but get creative. One is a super-simple turmeric coconut curry, whereas the spicy sausage sauce puts a twist on eggs in purgatory, or, to the likes of you and me, spicy tomato eggs.

Golden Coconut Sauce Baked Eggs (shown above)

Preparation A quick 10 minutes
Cook 55 minutes
Serves Two servings

Olive oil
1 onion, skinned and diced
Salt
2 garlic cloves, minced garlic
10g fresh ginger, minced ginger
Golden spice
½ tbsp cumin seeds
Curry leaves
Creamy coconut
Chickpeas
Fresh basil, with more for garnish
4 eggs
Fresh chilies, julienned, for serving

Set a 25cm heavy cast-iron pot over medium-high flame. Add a shot of olive oil, incorporate onions with some salt, and cook for five to six minutes. Incorporate aromatics and spices, let them sizzle, mixing now and then briefly, pour in creamy liquid along with chickpeas and liquid. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer, and leave it to tick over for 30-35 minutes, until thick and golden. Add salt to taste, mix in fresh basil.

Use the back of a spoon forming small wells across the base, add eggs individually. Season eggs with a little salt, place a lid on the pan, and cook on a low heat for a few minutes, until the whites are set with yolks still runny. Take off the heat, top with fresh herbs and sliced chilies, ready to enjoy.

Merguez Ragu with Tangy Peppers Steamed Eggs

Prep 10 minutes
Cooking time Under an hour
Yields 2

Oil
Spicy lamb sausages
1 tbsp harissa
Cumin seeds
2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
Tomato base
Seasoning
Fresh eggs
Pickled peppers, diced
Fresh parsley, minced
Greek yogurt
Fresh lemon, wedge-cut, as garnish

Heat a skillet over medium flame. Pour in oil and, once it’s warm, remove the skins from the sausages and pinch small amounts of the meat into the pan, resembling tiny meatballs. Turn down the heat, then slowly brown the sausagemeat, releasing flavorful oils. Move sausage pieces while cooking, for even browning.

Once browned, incorporate harissa, cumin, and garlic to the pan, turn up the heat to medium fry with mixing, for three to four minutes, when fragrant, and garlic softens. Pour in tomato contents, salt to taste heat to simmer. Turn down the heat to low and leave to blip away for 20 minutes. Sauce will thicken, thicken and deepen in colour, while the oils split and rise to the top.

With a spoon to create four little pockets across base, then crack an egg into each. Sprinkle the top of each egg with salt, place lid on pan. Heat for minutes over a low heat, until whites firm and yolks warmed.

Remove from heat, garnish with peppers, herbs, yogurt dollop, and oil splash, accompanied by lemon.