🔗 Share this article

Consider this: the best baked eggs don’t ever hit the oven. During recipe development, I found that simply adding a lid generates steam for cooking the egg tops, delivering a gently cooked delicately prepared egg with a tender white and a warm, runny yolk. Direct oven heat in conventional ovens proves harsher than steam, and has a tendency making dishes dry resulting in firm yolks. Here are two sauce options to get started, encouraging customization. The first features an easy coconut turmeric blend, and the second offers a merguez ragu is a riff on traditional spicy eggs, or, to the likes of you and me, spicy tomato eggs.

Turmeric Coconut Curry Steamed Eggs (shown above)

Prep 10 minutes
Cooking time 55 min
Yields Two people

Extra virgin oil
One medium onion, skinned and diced
Fine sea salt
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
10g fresh ginger, minced ginger
1 tbsp ground turmeric
½ tbsp cumin seeds
Aromatic leaves
Coconut milk
Canned chickpeas
Fresh basil, plus extra to serve
Fresh eggs
2 green finger chillies, julienned, for serving

Heat a cast-iron pan on a medium-high heat. Drizzle olive oil, add the chopped onion and a pinch of salt, and cook for five to six minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin seeds and curry leaves, let them sizzle, occasionally stirring for three to four minutes, add coconut milk including chickpea can contents. Bring to a boil, lower heat to gentle cook, let it simmer for 30-35 minutes, when sauce is rich and yellow. Adjust seasoning, then stir in the basil leaves.

Employ a utensil making four indentations within the sauce, break eggs into each. Sprinkle the top of each egg with a little salt, then cover the pan with a lid, gently heat for a few minutes, until egg whites firm with yolks still runny. Turn off stove, finish with a few extra basil leaves and thinly sliced finger chillies, and serve.

Spicy Sausage Sauce and Pickled Peppers Steamed Eggs

Preparation 10 min
Cook 45 minutes
Yields 2

Oil
2 merguez-style lamb sausages
1 tbsp harissa
Cumin seeds
2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
Tomato base
Salt
Four eggs
Pickled peppers, roughly chopped
Fresh parsley, minced
3 tbsp thick Greek yoghurt
1 lemon, wedge-cut, as garnish

Use a heavy pan at moderate temperature. Add two tablespoons of olive oil and, once it’s warm, remove the skins from the sausages forming small bits adding to pan, resembling tiny meatballs. Turn down the heat, then slowly brown the sausagemeat, releasing flavorful oils. Move sausage pieces as they cook, to brown evenly.

When golden, add the harissa, cumin seeds and sliced garlic to the pan, adjust to moderate flame fry with mixing, briefly, until the mix smells fragrant, and the garlic has lost its raw edge. Pour in tomato contents, salt to taste let it bubble. Lower to gentle simmer cooking gently for 20 minutes. The ragu will reduce, intensify in color, while the oils split and rise to the top.

With a spoon to create four little pockets across base, add eggs individually. Dust with salt lightly salted, place lid on pan. Heat for minutes on low flame, when eggs set and yolks warmed.

Remove from heat, finish with chopped pickled peppers, parsley, a blob of yoghurt, and a drizzle of oil, with lemon on side.