I first focused on the sauce. In a 12-inch skillet, I softened red bell pepper that I’d cut into ½‑inch pieces and then added sliced garlic. When the garlic turned golden, I added tomato paste for savory depth and bloomed a few ground spices in oil: coriander, smoked paprika, cumin, and cayenne. Once the tomato paste had darkened, in went canned tomatoes, which I intentionally left chunky.
After a 10-minute simmer, the sauce had thickened slightly, so I quickly cracked eight eggs into the pan, covered it, and waited. After a few minutes, I peeked. Things had already gone awry. The eggs I’d added first were cooking faster than the others. The eggs nestled deeply into the sauce had hard yolks, while eggs near the surface had runny yolks but watery whites. The sauce wasn’t great either; its flavor was nondescript, and though the pepper’s texture was pleasing, I couldn’t taste it through all the tomato.
I made a couple of changes. First, I swapped the fresh bell pepper for smoky, sweet jarred roasted ones. I also doubled the spices. When it came time to add the eggs, I removed the skillet from the burner to eliminate the urgency of adding them over heat and to help them cook at a more even rate. These were all improvements, but the eggs still sank into the sauce to varying degrees, so they remained unevenly cooked. I also realized that there were watery patches in the sauce.