Spicy eggs for a lazy weekend brunch

Here's a spicy, flavour-packed brunch for a lazy weekend morning. Or it could equally be a lunch or supper, if you're not keen on spices too early in the day.

This recipe is from Sunshine on a Plate by Masterchef winner Shelina Permalloo (£20; Ebury Press). It's a dish from Mauritius, whose global melting pot of flavours can be seen in the mixture of ginger and coriander with parsley and thyme, plus plenty of heat from the chilli.

It reminded me of various other combinations of eggs with spicy tomato sauce, such as Mexican huevos rancheros or shakshuka from Israel. But it definitely has a character all of its own. Tomato sauce and poached eggs are two staples of my kitchen, and they go together brilliantly. What's more, it sustained me through an afternoon of museum/gallery visiting (The Press Photographer's Year, at the National Theatre - free and well worth visiting, and the Cartoon Museum - a place I pass within yards of every day on my way to work but have never visited before - a quirky little museum which is currently hosting a brilliant Ralph Steadman exhibition - get there soon to catch it).

Serves 2

Ingredients

3 tbsp vegetable oil (I used less than this)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2.5cm piece fresh root ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 red bird’s eye chilli, finely chopped (I used a teaspoon of chilli powder instead)
4 sprigs thyme
400g tin peeled plum tomatoes
2 tbsp freshly chopped coriander
2 eggs
Freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley, to garnish

Method

Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium heat and fry the onion until it is starting to brown. Add the ginger, garlic, chilli and thyme and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook for 20-25 minutes until the tomatoes are beginning to break down. Taste and season as necessary, then add the chopped coriander and stir.

At this point the recipe has you crack the eggs into the sauce, cover and cook for five minutes, or until the eggs are softly poached. I find that eggs poached in a thick sauce like this take far longer than you expect for the whites to set, and definitely more than five minutes. If you're feeling impatient, I would suggest poaching the eggs separately in water and then putting them on top of the sauce to serve. Either way, garnish with the parsley and serve with either crusty bread, or to be a bit more authentic, go for a roti or similar flatbread.