🔗 Share this article

Consider this: the most delicious egg dishes never require an oven. During recipe development, realizing that using a cover produces a humid atmosphere that gently cooks the eggs, delivering a gently cooked soft-cooked egg featuring set whites plus liquid yolk. The intense, dry heat of the oven acts stronger compared to steaming, and has a tendency making dishes dry and overcook the yolk. Here are two sauce options to get started, but get creative. One is a super-simple turmeric coconut curry, while the merguez ragu reimagines traditional spicy eggs, or, to the likes of you and me, eggs cooked in zesty tomato base.

Golden Coconut Sauce Steamed Eggs (featured)

Preparation A quick 10 minutes
Cook 55 min
Yields 2

Extra virgin oil
One medium onion, trimmed and minced
Fine sea salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
10g fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
Turmeric powder
½ tbsp cumin seeds
Curry leaves
Creamy coconut
400g tin chickpeas
Basil leaves, and additional for topping
Fresh eggs
Fresh chilies, thinly cut, for serving

Set a 25cm heavy cast-iron pot on a medium-high heat. Add a shot of olive oil, add the chopped onion seasoned with salt, sauté for several minutes. Mix in garlic, ginger, and spices, let them sizzle, mixing now and then briefly, pour in creamy liquid including chickpea can contents. Let it bubble, lower heat to gentle cook, and leave it to tick over for 30-35 minutes, until thick and golden. Add salt to taste, then stir in the basil leaves.

With a spoon’s back forming small wells within the sauce, break eggs into each. Season eggs with salt, place a lid on the pan, and cook on a low heat briefly, when whites are cooked with yolks still runny. Take off the heat, finish with a few extra basil leaves and thinly sliced finger chillies, then serve immediately.

Spicy Sausage Sauce and Pickled Peppers Baked Eggs

Preparation 10 min
Cooking time 45 min
Serves Two

Olive oil
Spicy lamb sausages
1 tbsp harissa
Toasted cumin
Garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
Canned tomatoes
Seasoning
Fresh eggs
Pickled peppers, diced
1 small handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
Greek yogurt
Fresh lemon, wedge-cut, as garnish

Use a heavy pan over medium flame. Add two tablespoons of olive oil when heated, peel sausages and break off pieces of the meat into the pan, almost like little meatballs. Turn down the heat, brown the meat slowly, so it renders out all that spicy, flavour-packed fat. Move sausage pieces while cooking, for even browning.

Once browned, incorporate harissa, cumin, and garlic to the pan, turn up the heat to medium and cook, stirring, for three to four minutes, when fragrant, and garlic softens. Pour in tomato contents, season with salt let it bubble. Turn down the heat to low and simmer slowly for twenty minutes. Ragu thickens, intensify in color, with oils separating and surfacing.

Employ utensil to create four little pockets within sauce, add eggs individually. Sprinkle the top of each egg with a little salt, then cover the pan with a lid. Heat for minutes over a low heat, until whites firm and the yolks just warm.

Turn off stove, finish with chopped pickled peppers, parsley, a blob of yoghurt, and oil splash, with lemon on side.