feast.

Eggs for dinner

Most Americans think of eggs as breakfast food, but I usually crave them for dinner. Omelettes are a go-to, quick and easy, weeknight dinner. I think this is a cultural thing; it’s certainly how I was raised. To that end, I would be perfectly happy subsisting on a bowl of steaming, long grain jasmine rice, topped with a fried egg, and a sprinkling of soy sauce. Particularly as a vegetarian, eggs were an easy vehicle for my parents to get me some protein without having to make me a whole separate dish. Even as a small child, however, before I became a vegetarian, I could be perfectly content with my rice and egg bowl. It is my comfort food.

I was particularly fond of an egg over easy, its golden yolk still buttery and runny. I would poke with the tip of my chopstick into the yolk, watch the liquid run out and through the grains of rice beneath, and then stir it all around into a big sticky mess. It was delicious, and I was devastated when my mother, a pediatrician, read a journal article about uncooked eggs and salmonella poisoning, and banned undercooked eggs in our household. Science! Grrr …

Despite being a bit far from my childhood rice and eggs, this dish is another current go-to, easy dinner with protein for this vegetarian. It is technically an Italian breakfast dish, with parallels in many cuisines — Middle Eastern shashouka, Hungarian/Eastern European letcho. For me, however, being composed of mostly pantry staples makes it ideal for when I haven’t planned dinner ahead. As an added bonus, it offers the same satisfaction of my childhood egg dish: stirring a runny egg yolk through the rest of the dish. Here, the eggs are half poached-half fried over a bed of a thick, slightly spicy, buttery tomato sauce. It makes an idea companion for a hunk of fresh, crusty bread, with which I advise you to sop up all the eggy, tomatoey goodness. It also makes a healthy, comforting meal. Try it for breakfast, if you like, but trust me, and try it for dinner, too.

Eggs in Purgatory (Uovo in purgatorio)

As a “homestyle” dish, there are a number of possible variations, including adding olives and herbs, but I like this fairly simple, as per the below.

• 1 1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• Coarse salt
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 (14.5-oz) can plum tomatoes
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Crushed red pepper
• 2 large eggs
• Crusty bread, for serving
• Freshly grated Parmesan, to serve

Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook until the onion is translucent and the edges are turning golden, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or so, until fragrant. Roughly chop the tomatoes (I do this by piercing the tomatoes with a paring knife in the can) and add them, with their juice, to the skillet. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of crushed red pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to maintain an active simmer, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until thickened.

Turn the heat back up to medium and crack the eggs into the tomato sauce, spacing them evenly. Season with salt and pepper. As the whites set, nudge them with a wooden spoon, letting the uncooked whites run into the sauce. Leave the yolks alone for now. Once the whites pillow up in the sauce, give everything a stir, to scramble the yolks in lightly.

Serve immediately, dusted with Parmesan and over a thick slice of toasted bread, or with a hunk of bread on the side.

Serves 2.