Dining in: baked eggs with crushed chickpeas, chorizo and breadcrumbs recipe

It’s the one dish I am most likely to eat for lunch or dinner, with or without eggs, because I find chickpeas simmered with dried chorizo and fresh tomatoes to be one of life’s greatest pleasures. 

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Alison Roman8 April 2019

Serves 4

Ingredients 
*2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
*175 g dried chorizo sausage, thinly sliced
*1 small onion, finely chopped
*½ teaspoon ground cumin
*kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
*2 tomatoes, chopped
*440 g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
*4 large eggs
*75 g Spicy, Herby Breadcrumbs
*3 tablespoons roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley or coriander
*190 g labne, Greek-style yoghurt or sour cream, for serving (optional)

Method

1. Place an oven rack in the top third of the oven and preheat the oven to 200°C.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium heat. Add the chorizo, onion and cumin and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring every so often, until the chorizo has rendered some of that fiery orange fat and the onion is softened and beginning to brown, 5–8 minutes.

3. Add the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the tomatoes have totally softened and released their juices, 5–8 minutes.

4. Add the chickpeas and season with salt and pepper. Stir to coat the chickpeas in everything, using the back of a wooden spoon or spatula to crush them lightly – you don’t want to mash them, just break them up a bit.

5. Add 60 ml water and let everything simmer together, further crushing those chickpeas if they need it, until the liquid has reduced by half and all the flavours are mingling, 5–8 minutes.

6. Using the back of a spoon or spatula, make four little evenly spaced nests in the pan of chickpeas. Crack the eggs into the chickpea nests and season with salt and pepper. Place the skillet on the top rack in the oven and bake until the whites of the eggs are just set and the egg yolks are still runny, 5–7 minutes.

7. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the breadcrumbs and parsley. Serve with labne, if you like.

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DINING IN: Highly cookable recipes by Alison Roman (Hardie Grant, £22.00) Photography: Michael Graydon