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Let me explain: the best baked eggs are made without baking. During recipe development, I found that simply adding a lid creates a steamy environment to cook the top of the eggs, resulting in perfectly cooked delicately prepared egg with a tender white and a warm, runny yolk. The harsh, arid temperature in conventional ovens acts stronger versus moist heat, often leading to dry everything out and harden the yolk. Here are two sauce options to get started, but get creative. Option one involves a straightforward turmeric coconut curry, whereas the spicy sausage sauce is a riff on eggs in purgatory, essentially, eggs baked in spicy tomato sauce.

Turmeric Coconut Curry Baked Eggs (pictured above)

Prep 10 min
Cooking time Just under an hour
Yields 2

Extra virgin oil
1 onion, trimmed and minced
Fine sea salt
Two garlic cloves, minced garlic
10g fresh ginger, minced ginger
Turmeric powder
Cumin seeds
Curry leaves
200ml coconut milk
Chickpeas
Fresh basil, plus extra to serve
Four eggs
Fresh chilies, finely sliced, to serve

Use a heavy skillet over medium-high flame. Add a shot of olive oil, incorporate onions with some salt, sauté for several minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin seeds and curry leaves, allow to cook, mixing now and then for three to four minutes, pour in creamy liquid and the chickpeas and their tin liquid. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and leave it to tick over for half an hour, when sauce is rich and yellow. Season with salt, mix in fresh basil.

With a spoon’s back making four indentations in the sauce, add eggs individually. Sprinkle the top of each egg lightly salted, then cover the pan with a lid, simmer over low heat for two to three minutes, until egg whites firm and yolks warmed. Remove from heat, top with fresh herbs plus chili slices, and serve.

Spicy Sausage Sauce and Pickled Peppers Baked Eggs

Preparation 10 minutes
Cook 45 min
Yields 2

Olive oil
Merguez sausages
1 tbsp harissa
Toasted cumin
2 garlic cloves, minced garlic
Tomato base
Salt
Fresh eggs
1 handful pickled peppers, coarsely cut
1 small handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
Greek yogurt
Fresh lemon, sliced into wedges, to serve

Use a heavy pan at moderate temperature. Add two tablespoons of olive oil when heated, remove the skins from the sausages forming small bits adding to pan, almost like little meatballs. Reduce heat, brown the meat slowly, so it renders out all that spicy, flavour-packed fat. Roll the merguez pieces around the pan as they cook, so they colour on all sides.

Once browned, add the harissa, cumin seeds and sliced garlic to the pan, turn up the heat to medium and cook, stirring, briefly, when fragrant, and garlic softens. Tip in the tomatoes, season with salt heat to simmer. Turn down the heat to low cooking gently for 20 minutes. Sauce will thicken, thicken and deepen in colour, while the oils split and rise to the top.

Employ utensil forming wells across base, break eggs in. Dust with salt lightly salted, then cover the pan with a lid. Heat for minutes on low flame, until the whites are set and the yolks just warm.

Turn off stove, garnish with peppers, parsley and yogurt, and oil splash, and serve with lemon wedges.