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Let me explain: the most delicious egg dishes are made without baking. When testing these recipes, I found that simply adding a lid generates steam to cook the top of the eggs, yielding tender perfectly poached egg with firm whites and a warm, runny yolk. Direct oven heat in conventional ovens is much more aggressive than steam, typically causing to dehydrate ingredients resulting in firm yolks. Here are two sauce options as inspiration, but get creative. One is a super-simple turmeric coconut curry, while the merguez ragu is a riff on classic tomato-baked eggs, or simply put, eggs baked in spicy tomato sauce.

Golden Coconut Sauce Steamed Eggs (pictured above)

Prep 10 minutes
Cook 55 min
Serves 2

Olive oil
1 onion, skinned and diced
Sea salt
Two garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
Fresh ginger root, grated ginger
Turmeric powder
½ tbsp cumin seeds
Aromatic leaves
200ml coconut milk
400g tin chickpeas
Basil leaves, plus extra to serve
Fresh eggs
Green chilies, julienned, as garnish

Use a heavy skillet on a medium-high heat. Drizzle olive oil, incorporate onions seasoned with salt, and cook for five to six minutes. Incorporate aromatics and spices, allow to cook, occasionally stirring briefly, add coconut milk and the chickpeas and their tin liquid. Let it bubble, lower heat to gentle cook, let it simmer for half an hour, until thickened and deep yellow in colour. Adjust seasoning, then stir in the basil leaves.

Use the back of a spoon making four indentations in the sauce, add eggs individually. Season eggs with salt, cover the skillet, simmer over low heat for two to three minutes, until the whites are set with yolks still runny. Turn off stove, finish with a few extra basil leaves plus chili slices, ready to enjoy.

Merguez Ragu with Tangy Peppers Baked Eggs

Prep 10 min
Cooking time 45 minutes
Yields 2

Oil
2 merguez-style lamb sausages
Spicy paste
Cumin seeds
Garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
Tomato base
Salt
Four eggs
1 handful pickled peppers, coarsely cut
1 small handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced
Creamy yogurt
1 lemon, sliced into wedges, for serving

Set a 25cm heavy cast-iron pot on a medium heat. Drizzle olive oil and, once it’s warm, remove the skins from the sausages and break off pieces adding to pan, like mini balls. Turn down the heat, then slowly brown the sausagemeat, so it renders out all that spicy, flavour-packed fat. Move sausage pieces during cooking, for even browning.

Once browned, incorporate harissa, cumin, and garlic to the pot, adjust to moderate flame and cook, stirring, briefly, when fragrant, with garlic cooked. Pour in tomato contents, season with salt heat to simmer. Turn down the heat to low and leave to blip away for 20 minutes. Sauce will thicken, become richer and darker, with oils separating and surfacing.

With a spoon to create four little pockets across base, break eggs in. Dust with salt with salt, place lid on pan. Simmer briefly over a low heat, until the whites are set with yolks runny.

Turn off stove, finish with chopped pickled peppers, parsley, a blob of yoghurt, and oil splash, accompanied by lemon.