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Let me explain: the most delicious egg dishes don’t ever hit the 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 and flowing center. The intense, dry heat from baking is much more aggressive than steam, and has a tendency to dehydrate ingredients and harden the yolk. Here are two sauce options as inspiration, but get creative. Option one involves a straightforward turmeric coconut curry, whereas the spicy sausage sauce is a riff on traditional spicy eggs, or simply put, spicy tomato eggs.

Golden Coconut Sauce Steamed Eggs (shown above)

Prep A quick 10 minutes
Cook Just under an hour
Yields 2

Olive oil
One medium onion, skinned and diced
Sea salt
2 garlic cloves, minced garlic
Fresh ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
Turmeric powder
½ tbsp cumin seeds
6-8 curry leaves
Coconut milk
Canned chickpeas
Basil leaves, plus extra to serve
Four eggs
Fresh chilies, finely sliced, for serving

Heat a cast-iron pan on a medium-high heat. Pour in some oil, incorporate onions with some salt, fry until softened. Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin seeds and curry leaves, let them sizzle, stirring occasionally for a few minutes, pour in creamy liquid and the chickpeas and their tin liquid. Heat until boiling, reduce to a simmer, and leave it to tick over for half an hour, until thickened and deep yellow in colour. Add salt to taste, mix in fresh basil.

With a spoon’s back to create four little pockets within the sauce, add eggs individually. Dust each egg with salt, then cover the pan with a lid, and cook on a low heat for two to three minutes, when whites are cooked and yolks warmed. Turn off stove, finish with a few extra basil leaves and thinly sliced finger chillies, then serve immediately.

Merguez Ragu with Tangy Peppers Baked Eggs

Prep Quick prep
Cook 45 minutes
Serves 2

Oil
Merguez sausages
1 tbsp harissa
Toasted cumin
2 garlic cloves, minced garlic
400g good-quality tinned tomatoes
Fine sea salt
Fresh eggs
Tangy peppers, diced
Chopped herbs, finely chopped
Creamy yogurt
Fresh lemon, sliced into wedges, as garnish

Heat a skillet over medium flame. Add two tablespoons of olive oil when heated, take off sausage casings and break off pieces of the meat into the pan, almost like little meatballs. Lower temperature, cook until golden, extracting spicy fats. Stir merguez as they cook, for even browning.

After browning, mix in spices and garlic into the skillet, turn up the heat to medium sauté while stirring, for three to four minutes, until the mix smells fragrant, and the garlic has lost its raw edge. Add tomatoes, season with salt heat to simmer. Reduce to low heat cooking gently about 20 minutes. Ragu thickens, become richer and darker, while the oils split and rise to the top.

With a spoon forming wells within sauce, break eggs in. Season eggs with a little salt, place lid on pan. Simmer briefly gently, when eggs set and the yolks just warm.

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