Wild Garlic Baked Eggs

In early spring wild garlic lines our hedgerows, paths and parks. You can smell it a mile off, so it’s pretty easy to be sure you have the right stuff. It’s a great place to start gathering your own food – there is a satisfaction from picking something from the wild which would have otherwise gone unloved. While the leaves will smell very garlicky in the hedgerows as you pick them, they will mellow as they cook so don’t worry. That said, you don’t have to use wild garlic here. If you can get your hands on some, great; if not, you can add a little more rocket and a clove of finely chopped garlic. It won’t taste exactly the same but will still be delicious.

SERVES 2
50g wild garlic
150g rocket
olive oil
1 unwaxed lemon
4 organic eggs
100g Greek yoghurt
12 sage leaves
30g sesame seeds
pul biber or a pinch of dried chilli flakes
flatbreads or sourdough, to serve

Preheat the oven to 170oC/150oC fan/gas 3. Wash the wild garlic and the rocket and place them in a 23cm ovenproof frying pan with a drizzle of oil. Add some salt and cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until the rocket has wilted and most of the liquid has evaporated. Strain the liquid from the leaves in a sieve set over the sink, pushing down to remove as much of the water as possible, then put them back into the pan. Grate over half of the lemon zest.

Make four deep indentations in the rocket mix, and crack an egg into each little hole. Place in the oven for 7–10 minutes, or until the egg whites set. Meanwhile, mix the yoghurt with the other half of the lemon zest and some salt and pepper.

Heat about 3 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan until it’s good and hot but not smoking, line a plate with kitchen paper, then add the sage leaves to the pan. Cook for a few seconds until they are crisp, then scoop out with a slotted spoon and drain on the paper. Using the same pan, add the sesame seeds to the sage oil for 30–45 seconds, until they turn a deep golden colour. Scoop them out on to a separate sheet of kitchen paper.

Once the eggs are done, take them out of the oven and spoon over half the yoghurt mixture (leaving the rest for the table). Top with the fried sage, the toasted sesame seeds and a sprinkling of pul biber, and serve with flatbreads or good sourdough