🔗 Share this article

Let me explain: the best baked eggs are made without baking. During recipe development, realizing that using a cover creates a steamy environment for cooking the egg tops, resulting in perfectly cooked delicately prepared egg with firm whites and a warm, runny yolk. The harsh, arid temperature from baking is much more aggressive versus moist heat, often leading to dry everything out resulting in firm yolks. Here are two sauce options as inspiration, but get creative. Option one involves a straightforward turmeric coconut curry, while the merguez ragu is a riff on traditional spicy eggs, essentially, eggs baked in spicy tomato sauce.

Turmeric Coconut Curry Baked Eggs (shown above)

Preparation 10 minutes
Cook 55 minutes
Yields Two servings

Olive oil
1 onion, trimmed and minced
Fine sea salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
Fresh ginger root, minced ginger
Golden spice
Toasted cumin
Aromatic leaves
Creamy coconut
Chickpeas
Fresh basil, with more for garnish
4 eggs
Fresh chilies, thinly cut, to serve

Set a 25cm heavy cast-iron pot on a medium-high heat. Add a shot of olive oil, add the chopped onion with some salt, sauté for several minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin seeds and curry leaves, leave to sizzle, occasionally stirring briefly, pour in creamy liquid along with chickpeas and liquid. Let it bubble, then turn down to a simmer, allow to cook slowly for half an hour, until thickened and deep yellow in colour. Add salt to taste, then stir in the basil leaves.

Use the back of a spoon to create four little pockets within the sauce, then crack an egg into each. Sprinkle the top of each egg with a little salt, then cover the pan with a lid, gently heat for two to three minutes, when whites are cooked with yolks still runny. Take off the heat, top with fresh herbs and sliced chilies, ready to enjoy.

Merguez Ragu and Pickled Peppers Baked Eggs

Prep Quick prep
Cook Under an hour
Yields Two

Oil
2 merguez-style lamb sausages
Harissa paste
Toasted cumin
Garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
400g good-quality tinned tomatoes
Fine sea salt
Fresh eggs
1 handful pickled peppers, roughly chopped
1 small handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
Greek yogurt
Fresh lemon, cut into wedges, as garnish

Set a 25cm heavy cast-iron pot on a medium heat. Drizzle olive oil once hot, take off sausage casings and break off pieces of the meat into the pan, almost like little meatballs. Turn down the heat, brown the meat slowly, releasing flavorful oils. Move sausage pieces during cooking, for even browning.

Once browned, incorporate harissa, cumin, and garlic to the pan, increase to medium heat and cook, stirring, for several minutes, when fragrant, with garlic cooked. Pour in tomato contents, salt to taste heat to simmer. Lower to gentle simmer and leave to blip away about 20 minutes. Sauce will thicken, become richer and darker, with oils separating and surfacing.

With a spoon making indentations in the sauce, add eggs individually. Dust with salt with a little salt, then cover the pan with a lid. Heat for minutes gently, until the whites are set and the yolks just warm.

Take off the heat, finish with chopped pickled peppers, parsley and yogurt, and oil splash, with lemon on side.