🔗 Share this article

Let me explain: the best baked eggs don’t ever hit the oven. When testing these recipes, realizing that using a cover creates a steamy environment for cooking the egg tops, delivering a gently cooked delicately prepared egg featuring set whites and flowing center. The intense, dry heat of the oven proves harsher compared to steaming, and has a tendency to dry everything out resulting in firm yolks. Presenting two flavorful bases as a jumping-off point, but get creative. The first features an easy turmeric coconut curry, whereas the spicy sausage sauce is a riff on traditional spicy eggs, or, to the likes of you and me, eggs baked in spicy tomato sauce.

Golden Coconut Sauce Steamed Eggs (pictured above)

Prep 10 min
Cook 55 minutes
Yields Two people

Olive oil
1 onion, skinned and diced
Fine sea salt
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
10g fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp ground turmeric
Toasted cumin
Curry leaves
Coconut milk
Chickpeas
Fresh basil, plus extra to serve
4 eggs
2 green finger chillies, julienned, for serving

Heat a cast-iron pan over medium-high flame. Add a shot of olive oil, incorporate onions with some salt, fry until softened. Incorporate aromatics and spices, let them sizzle, occasionally stirring for three to four minutes, pour in creamy liquid including chickpea can contents. Bring to a boil, lower heat to gentle cook, and leave it to tick over for 30-35 minutes, until thickened and deep yellow in colour. Season with salt, mix in fresh basil.

With a spoon’s back making four indentations in the sauce, then crack an egg into each. Sprinkle the top of each egg with a little salt, place a lid on the pan, simmer over low heat for two to three minutes, until the whites are set and yolks warmed. Turn off stove, top with fresh herbs and sliced chilies, then serve immediately.

Spicy Sausage Sauce with Tangy Peppers Baked Eggs

Prep 10 minutes
Cooking time 45 min
Serves Two

Olive oil
2 merguez-style lamb sausages
1 tbsp harissa
Cumin seeds
Garlic cloves, sliced thin
400g good-quality tinned tomatoes
Fine sea salt
4 eggs
1 handful pickled peppers, diced
Fresh parsley, finely chopped
Creamy yogurt
Fresh lemon, sliced into wedges, to serve

Use a heavy pan on a medium heat. Drizzle olive oil and, once it’s warm, take off sausage casings and pinch small amounts of the meat into the pan, almost like little 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, turn up the heat to medium and cook, stirring, for several minutes, until aromatic, with garlic cooked. Tip in the tomatoes, salt to taste and bring to a simmer. Turn down the heat to low cooking gently for twenty minutes. Ragu thickens, intensify in color, as oils separate.

Use the back of a spoon to create four little pockets within sauce, add eggs individually. Season eggs lightly salted, cover skillet. Simmer briefly on low flame, until whites firm and the yolks just warm.

Turn off stove, finish with chopped pickled peppers, parsley and yogurt, and a drizzle of oil, accompanied by lemon.