Crispy potatoes Recipe with Sugo and Eggs

Dan Wilson serves up a delicious mess of merguez-spiced tomato sugo (sauce), tangy, gooey cheese curd, fried eggs and crispy potatoes in one delicious brunch recipe. Demolish with plenty of bread when you're feeling worse for wear.

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This is the only recipe my mother has ever asked me for – I’m certain it was purely because she loves tomatoes but I like to think it’s because it’s delicious. It also happens to be no fuss. The potatoes are boiled and fried, the sugo is cooked in the oven and you can often buy cheese curds ready to go from your cheesemonger. We use curds from Montgomery cheddar which we pick up from Neal's Yard Dairy.

This recipe makes a lot of sugo, it will keep and you can use it for sauces, pasta or as the base of a casserole out of 1993.

Merguez-spiced sugo
10 large tomatoes, ripe
50ml of oil
20g of merguez spice mix
300g of red onion, sliced
10 garlic cloves, crushed
10g of fenugreek seeds
20g of cumin seeds
20g of coriander seeds
5g of chilli flakes
800g of tinned chopped tomatoes
salt
Potatoes, curds and eggs
500g of new potatoes, washed
200g of cheese curds, Dan uses Montgomery Cheddar curds (or you can use Taleggio cheese when in season)
4 eggs
50ml of oil
salt
To serve
onion seeds
sourdough bread

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Preheat the oven 200°C/gas mark 6

Place the tomatoes in a large baking tray with the oil, the merguez spice, the onions and garlic. Mix everything together with your hands and bake until the tomatoes burst from their skins and begin to release their juices, for roughly 20 minutes

Remove from the oven and add the seeds and the chilli, mixing once more to incorporate. Return to the oven, bake for a further 20 minutes then remove and add the tinned tomatoes. Return to the oven, covered, for 1 hour

Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Season to taste

Place the potatoes in a pan of cold, salted water and bring to a boil. Remove from the water when they can be pierced by a knife or a fork. Set aside to cool

Once cooled, place in a large frying pan with the oil and fry until they begin to crisp up. Evenly sprinkle over the curds and continue to fry

Make some little holes in the potatoes so you can see the pan and crack some eggs in between the curds and the potatoes

Allow the eggs to begin frying over a high heat. As the whites start to form, add dollops of the spiced sugo into the pan randomly to create chaos

Slip the pan into the oven on the grill setting for 3 minutes to set the whites and crisp up the potatoes one final time. Season to taste. Slip onto a plate, sprinkle with onion seeds and serve with a big hunk of sourdough bread