Flamenco eggs (huevos a la flamenco)

This what you might call Spain on a plate, a sum-up dish of everything we love about Spanish cooking: serrano ham, chorizo, pimentón, tomatoes, garlic and onion. To these basic ingredients I have added green beans and peas; you could also add sliced, cooked new potatoes or chickpeas or the big butter beans called judion. Actually I first tried this in Cádiz and wasn’t particularly knocked out by it, but I love eggs with tomato sauce, so I did a bit of research and came up with my own version.

Flamenco eggs (huevos a la flamenco) Credit: BBC Books / James Murphy

• serves

  4

• prep

  20 minutes

• cook

  30 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 80 g serrano ham, chopped
• 1 tsp hot smoked paprika (pimentón picante)
• 8 large tomatoes (about 750g), skinned and chopped, or 2 x 400g tins of peeled plum tomatoes
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• 75 g peas, cooked
• 100 g fine green beans, blanched
• 4 eggs
• 12 slices chorizo sausage
• 1 red capsicum (pepper), roasted and skinned, cut into 8 strips (or use peppers from a jar)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the griddled bread

• 4–8 thick slices bread
• 1 clove garlic, halved
• 30 ml olive oil
• small handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped, to serve

Instructions

Heat the oil in a frying pan or shallow casserole over medium-low heat and cook the onion and garlic until soft, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the ham and the pimentón picante, fry for 3 minutes, then add the chopped tomatoes and tomato paste. Cover the pan and cook until the tomatoes are reduced and pulpy, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Heat the oven to 200°C/gas 6.

Grease a large ovenproof dish or shallow casserole and pour in the tomato sauce. Scatter over the peas and green beans. Break the eggs into the sauce. Arrange the chorizo slices around the eggs and the red pepper strips over and around the eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Bake until the egg whites are set and the yolks still soft, about 8 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, rub the bread with the garlic, brush with the olive oil and griddle it on a ridged pan or in a frying pan. Scatter the chopped parsley over the dish and serve with griddled bread.

Recipe and image from Rick Stein’s Long Weekends by Rick Stein (BBC Books, hb, $55). Photography by James Murphy.  Read our Q & A with Rick and more recipes from the book here.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.