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

Let me explain: the most delicious egg dishes are made without baking. During recipe development, realizing that using a cover generates steam for cooking the egg tops, resulting in perfectly cooked perfectly poached egg with a tender white and flowing center. Direct oven heat from baking proves harsher compared to steaming, typically causing to dehydrate ingredients and harden the yolk. Here are two sauce options to get started, but get creative. The first features an easy coconut turmeric blend, and the second offers a merguez ragu reimagines classic tomato-baked eggs, or, to the likes of you and me, spicy tomato eggs.

Turmeric Coconut Curry Baked Eggs (shown above)

Prep 10 min
Cooking time 55 min
Yields Two servings

Olive oil
1 onion, trimmed and minced
Sea salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
10g fresh ginger, grated ginger
Turmeric powder
Cumin seeds
6-8 curry leaves
Coconut milk
400g tin chickpeas
Fresh basil, and additional for topping
4 eggs
Green chilies, thinly cut, as garnish

Set a 25cm heavy cast-iron pot on a medium-high heat. Pour in some oil, incorporate onions with some salt, and cook for five to six minutes. 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. Heat until boiling, reduce to a simmer, allow to cook slowly about 35 minutes, until thick and golden. Adjust seasoning, then stir in the basil leaves.

Use the back of a spoon making four indentations across the base, break eggs into each. Sprinkle the top of each egg lightly salted, cover the skillet, simmer over low heat for a few minutes, until egg whites firm and yolks warmed. Turn off stove, top with fresh herbs plus chili slices, then serve immediately.

Merguez Ragu and Pickled Peppers Steamed Eggs

Prep Quick prep
Cooking time Under an hour
Yields 2

Olive oil
Spicy lamb sausages
Spicy paste
Toasted cumin
2 garlic cloves, minced garlic
Canned tomatoes
Salt
Fresh eggs
Pickled peppers, roughly chopped
Fresh parsley, minced
Creamy yogurt
1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

Use a heavy pan at moderate temperature. Add two tablespoons of olive oil when heated, remove the skins from the sausages and break off pieces adding to pan, resembling tiny meatballs. Reduce heat, cook until golden, extracting spicy fats. Stir merguez while cooking, for even browning.

Once browned, incorporate harissa, cumin, and garlic to the pot, increase to medium heat and cook, stirring, for several minutes, when fragrant, and the garlic has lost its raw edge. Add tomatoes, add seasoning let it bubble. Reduce to low heat and leave to blip away for 20 minutes. Sauce will thicken, thicken and deepen in colour, as oils separate.

With a spoon making indentations across base, add eggs individually. Dust with salt with salt, place lid on pan. Heat for minutes gently, until whites firm with yolks runny.

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