Italian · meal

Eggs in purgatory

Name: Eggs in purgatory
Total time: 27 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 4 whole Eggs; 1 can Canned diced tomatoes; 2 large handfuls Spinach; ½ whole White onion; 3 cloves Garlic; ½ tsp Red pepper flakes; 8 leaves Basil; ¼ cup Parmesan; 2 tbsp Olive oil; Salt and pepper (to taste)

Neapolitan: the eggs set inside a spicy tomato sauce, unbeaten and with no second pan. The spinach goes into the sauce before the eggs and makes the bed. Twenty-seven minutes and a single skillet.

Serves

2 people

Amount

2 servings

Time

27 min

Steps

Why this one and not another

Except for the spinach, all of it comes out of the pantry —can, eggs, onion, garlic—, so it's the dish in this batch you can cook without having gone to the store. Twenty-seven minutes and a single skillet. The second portion reheats with no trouble, with the warning that the yolks are not going to wobble anymore.

Where it comes from

Uova in purgatorio is Neapolitan: the eggs set inside a spicy tomato sauce, unbeaten and with no second pan, and the name always gets explained the same way, by the yolks peeking out of the red. The move —setting an egg inside a sauce that was already made— shows up in half a dozen kitchens, and in Naples you eat it with bread to drag through what's left. Here there is no bread and what picks up the sauce is the spinach, which goes inside and not underneath. That swap has a cost the recipe pays with a step: you have to wait one more minute for the sauce to thicken again after the leaf gives up its water.

Raw chicken and raw vegetables, the same kitchen

Never the same board for raw meat and for what goes in the juicer. If you only have one, vegetables first and meat after. And don't wash the chicken: it splatters.

1Ingredients and how to prep them

Ingredient	Amount	How to prep it
Eggs	4 whole	At room temperature if you can. Crack them one at a time into a cup, not over the sauce.
Canned diced tomatoes	1 can	Whole, crushed by hand until the pieces are the size of a fingernail.
Spinach	2 large handfuls	Washed. It goes inside the sauce, not under the dish.
White onion	½ whole	Finely chopped.
Garlic	3 cloves	Sliced thin.
Red pepper flakes	½ tsp	—
Basil	8 leaves	Torn by hand, at the end.
Parmesan	¼ cup	Finely grated, off the heat.
Olive oil	2 tbsp	—
Salt and pepper	to taste	—

Eggs4 whole
At room temperature if you can. Crack them one at a time into a cup, not over the sauce.
Canned diced tomatoes1 can
Whole, crushed by hand until the pieces are the size of a fingernail.
Spinach2 large handfuls
Washed. It goes inside the sauce, not under the dish.
White onion½ whole
Finely chopped.
Garlic3 cloves
Sliced thin.
Red pepper flakes½ tsp
—
Basil8 leaves
Torn by hand, at the end.
Parmesan¼ cup
Finely grated, off the heat.
Olive oil2 tbsp
—
Salt and pepperto taste
—

2Steps

In this order. The box on each step is the specific pitfall: what goes wrong there and why.

1
Sweat the onion, then the garlic
5 min
Oil over medium heat, the onion until it turns translucent, and only then the garlic slices and the pepper flakes, half a minute.
Heads up
The garlic goes in at the end, never alongside the onion. The onion needs four minutes and the garlic burns in forty seconds: together, by the time the onion is ready the garlic is already black and the whole sauce tastes of bitter scorch.
2
The crushed tomato, until it thickens
10 min
Medium heat, uncovered, stirring now and then and scraping the bottom. Salt.
Heads up
This sauce has to end up as thick as custard, not runny. In a watery sauce the white scatters into threads and the egg sinks to the metal, where it scorches underneath before it sets on top. You can see it's right when the spoon leaves a track that takes a second to close.
3
Add the spinach and let it give up its water
2 min
All of it at once; it collapses in a minute. Stay on medium heat until the sauce thickens again.
Heads up
Spinach is almost all water and it's going to release it into the sauce. If you drop the eggs in the moment the leaves wilt, you're dropping them into the watery sauce you just avoided: wait that extra minute until it thickens again.
4
Make four wells and crack the eggs into a cup
3 min
With the back of the spoon, four separate nests. Crack each egg into a cup and slide it from there into the well.
Heads up
One at a time and out of the cup. Cracked straight over the hot pan, either the yolk breaks on the way down or a piece of shell drops in that you are never going to find inside the red tomato. And keep the nests apart: overlapping, the whites fuse and what you get is an omelet.
5
Cover, low heat, until the white sets
6 min
Five or six minutes. Shake the pan: the white no longer moves, the yolk does.
Heads up
Low heat and covered; on medium the sauce boils, shoves the eggs around and they break. It's right when the white is opaque and the yolk wobbles when you shake. If you wait until the yolk looks firm from above, inside it's already marble: the heat of the sauce keeps working for two minutes after you turn it off.
6
Torn basil and parmesan off the heat
1 min
The leaves torn by hand over the top, the grated cheese and raw olive oil. Pepper.
Heads up
Torn by hand and at the end. Chopped with a knife, basil oxidizes along the cuts and goes black within minutes, and if you boil it inside the sauce it leaves a cooked-herb bitterness instead of the perfume.

3If something goes wrong

What happens	Why	What to do
The whites fell apart into threads	The sauce was watery, or boiling hard when the eggs went in.	Thicken the sauce until the spoon leaves a track, drop the heat to its lowest and cover.
The yolks came out hard	You waited until they looked firm from above.	Pull them when the yolk still wobbles as you shake the pan. It finishes setting on its own on the way to the table.
The sauce tastes of raw, sharp tomato	The ten minutes weren't served, or it was covered and nothing evaporated.	Uncovered and over medium until it darkens and pulls away from the bottom. Time is the only ingredient it's missing.

The whites fell apart into threads
Why: The sauce was watery, or boiling hard when the eggs went in.
What to do: Thicken the sauce until the spoon leaves a track, drop the heat to its lowest and cover.
The yolks came out hard
Why: You waited until they looked firm from above.
What to do: Pull them when the yolk still wobbles as you shake the pan. It finishes setting on its own on the way to the table.
The sauce tastes of raw, sharp tomato
Why: The ten minutes weren't served, or it was covered and nothing evaporated.
What to do: Uncovered and over medium until it darkens and pulls away from the bottom. Time is the only ingredient it's missing.

This recipe is one of the meals in the plan

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Why this one and not another

Where it comes from

▲Raw chicken and raw vegetables, the same kitchen

1Ingredients and how to prep them

2Steps

Sweat the onion, then the garlic

The crushed tomato, until it thickens

Add the spinach and let it give up its water

Make four wells and crack the eggs into a cup

Cover, low heat, until the white sets

Torn basil and parmesan off the heat

3If something goes wrong

This recipe is one of the meals in the plan

Raw chicken and raw vegetables, the same kitchen