Coconut Turmeric Curry and Spicy Sausage Sauce: The Chef's Oven-Free Egg Dishes Recipes

Consider this: the most delicious egg dishes don’t ever hit the oven. When testing these recipes, realizing that using a cover generates steam for cooking the egg tops, delivering a gently cooked delicately prepared egg featuring set whites and a warm, runny yolk. The harsh, arid temperature of the oven is much more aggressive versus moist heat, typically causing to dry everything out resulting in firm yolks. Here are two sauce options as a jumping-off point, encouraging customization. Option one involves a straightforward golden coconut sauce, whereas the spicy sausage sauce reimagines classic tomato-baked eggs, essentially, eggs baked in spicy tomato sauce.

Turmeric Coconut Curry Baked Eggs (featured)

Preparation 10 minutes
Cook 55 minutes
Serves Two people

Extra virgin oil
1 onion, skinned and diced
Sea salt
Two garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
Fresh ginger root, minced ginger
Turmeric powder
Cumin seeds
Curry leaves
200ml coconut milk
Canned chickpeas
Fresh basil, and additional for topping
Fresh eggs
Fresh chilies, finely sliced, to serve

Heat a cast-iron pan on a medium-high heat. Add a shot of olive oil, toss in the onion with some salt, fry until softened. Mix in garlic, ginger, and spices, let them sizzle, stirring occasionally briefly, then tip in the coconut milk and the chickpeas and their tin liquid. Let it bubble, lower heat to gentle cook, and leave it to tick over about 35 minutes, when sauce is rich and yellow. Add salt to taste, mix in fresh basil.

Use the back of a spoon to create four little pockets in the sauce, add eggs individually. Sprinkle the top of each egg with salt, cover the skillet, and cook on a low heat briefly, until the whites are set and the yolks just warm. Turn off stove, finish with a few extra basil leaves and sliced chilies, and serve.

Merguez Ragu and Pickled Peppers Baked Eggs

Preparation 10 minutes
Cooking time Under an hour
Serves 2

Olive oil
2 merguez-style lamb sausages
Spicy paste
Cumin seeds
2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
Canned tomatoes
Fine sea salt
Four eggs
Pickled peppers, coarsely cut
Chopped herbs, finely chopped
Creamy yogurt
1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

Heat a skillet over medium flame. Drizzle olive oil when heated, take off sausage casings and pinch small amounts of the meat into the pan, resembling tiny meatballs. Lower temperature, brown the meat slowly, so it renders out all that spicy, flavour-packed fat. Move sausage pieces while cooking, to brown evenly.

After browning, mix in spices and garlic to the pan, increase to medium heat and cook, stirring, briefly, until the mix smells fragrant, and the garlic has lost its raw edge. Pour in tomato contents, add seasoning let it bubble. Reduce to low heat and leave to blip away for twenty minutes. The ragu will reduce, thicken and deepen in colour, as oils separate.

Employ utensil making indentations in the sauce, add eggs individually. Season eggs lightly salted, cover skillet. Simmer briefly gently, until the whites are set and yolks warmed.

Take off the heat, top with pickled peppers, herbs, yogurt dollop, and a drizzle of oil, and serve with lemon wedges.