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Consider this: the most delicious egg dishes are made without baking. During recipe development, discovering that covering the pan creates a steamy environment to cook the top of the eggs, delivering a gently cooked soft-cooked egg featuring set whites and flowing center. The intense, dry heat from baking acts stronger versus moist heat, and has a tendency making dishes dry and harden the yolk. Presenting two flavorful bases as inspiration, but get creative. The first features an easy golden coconut sauce, and the second offers a merguez ragu is a riff on eggs in purgatory, essentially, eggs baked in spicy tomato sauce.

Golden Coconut Sauce Baked Eggs (shown above)

Preparation 10 minutes
Cook 55 minutes
Serves 2

Olive oil
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
Fine sea salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
Fresh ginger root, minced ginger
Golden spice
Cumin seeds
6-8 curry leaves
Coconut milk
400g tin chickpeas
Basil leaves, and additional for topping
Four eggs
Green chilies, finely sliced, as garnish

Set a 25cm heavy cast-iron pot at moderate-high temperature. Drizzle olive oil, add the chopped onion seasoned with salt, sauté for several minutes. Mix in garlic, ginger, and spices, leave to sizzle, occasionally stirring briefly, then tip in the coconut milk and the chickpeas and their tin liquid. Heat until boiling, then turn down to a simmer, let it simmer for 30-35 minutes, until thick and golden. Season with salt, mix in fresh basil.

Use the back of a spoon making four indentations within the sauce, add eggs individually. Season eggs with a little salt, place a lid on the pan, gently heat for two to three minutes, until egg whites firm and the yolks just warm. Turn off stove, finish with a few extra basil leaves and sliced chilies, then serve immediately.

Spicy Sausage Sauce with Tangy Peppers Baked Eggs

Preparation Quick prep
Cook Under an hour
Serves Two portions

Olive oil
2 merguez-style lamb sausages
1 tbsp harissa
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 garlic cloves, sliced thin
Tomato base
Salt
4 eggs
Pickled peppers, coarsely cut
Fresh parsley, minced
Creamy yogurt
Fresh lemon, wedge-cut, to serve

Use a heavy pan at moderate temperature. Add two tablespoons of olive oil and, once it’s warm, peel sausages and break off pieces of the meat into the pan, almost like little meatballs. Turn down the heat, cook until golden, releasing flavorful oils. Stir merguez as they cook, for even browning.

Once browned, incorporate harissa, cumin, and garlic into the skillet, adjust to moderate flame fry with mixing, for three to four minutes, when fragrant, and garlic softens. Pour in tomato contents, salt to taste heat to simmer. Lower to gentle simmer cooking gently for 20 minutes. Ragu thickens, thicken and deepen in colour, while the oils split and rise to the top.

With a spoon making indentations across base, add eggs individually. Season eggs lightly salted, cover skillet. Heat for minutes on low flame, until the whites are set and the yolks just warm.

Remove from heat, top with pickled peppers, parsley, a blob of yoghurt, plus oil drizzle, accompanied by lemon.