When it comes to mouthwatering baked eggs, you don’t really need the oven. Just reach for a lid and let the steam do its work

So, hear me out: the best baked eggs don’t ever hit the oven … When testing these recipes, I found that simply adding a lid creates a steamy environment to cook the top of the eggs, delivering a gently cooked, perfectly poached egg with a tender white and a warm, runny yolk. The intense, dry heat of the oven is much more aggressive than steam, and has a tendency to dry everything out and overcook the yolk. I’ve given you two sauces as a jumping-off point, but get creative. One is a super-simple turmeric coconut curry, while the merguez ragu is a riff on eggs in purgatory, or, to the likes of you and me, eggs baked in spicy tomato sauce.

A vegetarian classic that’s a bit like a bubbling, rustic, cheesy quiche

The first time I encountered homity pie was in a disused train carriage. It was Deptford market in the late 2000s: a reliably chaotic, noisy morass of jostling bodies, the wafted smell of sweating burger onions and a vast section where the “stalls” generally comprised gatherings of orphaned trainers, boxy VHS players and other random house-clearance items dumped on to lengths of tarpaulin. I was an eager but gastronomically green 25-year-old in my first proper flatshare and this ragtag locus of trade became an early site of core dining memories. I thoughtfully appraised very ordinary vegetables, channelling Rick Stein in Gascony; bought warm, hectically seeded granary loaves from the Percy Ingle bakery; ate average pub Thai, better kerbside rotisserie chicken; and generally tried, with limited success, to ignore the creeping sense that I had settled in a part of town that wanted for some structure or culinary vitality.

It was this atmosphere of cultural nascence into which the Deptford Project trundled. Predominantly housed on a former railway yard in the midst of redevelopment, this cafe, cultural hub and outdoor cinema was located around a decommissioned 1960s commuter train, boldly redecorated and reimagined by designer Morag Myerscough: a becalmed, brightly daubed piece of rolling stock that, between 2008 and 2014, jutted out into the high street like a glitch in the urban matrix. Though it sounds, I know, like an unforgivable cliche of “gritty” hipsterdom, the Deptford Project had a ramshackle edge, a palpable community ethos, genuinely affordable prices and a charming streak of weirdness (the toilet, if memory serves, was an eternally freezing garden shed turned into a shrine to Elvis).

Mix up a classic croque monsieur with different cheeses and, in an autumnal twist, a rich leek and bechamel base

While I love a classic croque monsieur (or madame), I do occasionally like to mix things up by using different cheeses and hits of other condiments – I basically live life on the edge. This leek-laced version feels comfortingly autumnal, and a bit special, too. If I have friends coming over, I’ll make the leek and bechamel base in advance, then fill the sandwiches just before baking and serve them with a bitter leaf salad.

Fragrant with spices, this staple of north African cooking brings a welcome heat to stews and braises

I thought I knew my harissa after nearly two decades of making it from scratch. Then I tasted a spoonful of rich, wine-dark paste from an unmarked jar that arrived on my doorstep from brothers Mansour and Karim Arem. They were on the verge of launching Zwïta, a company focused on celebrating their Tunisian heritage. Whereas western cooks and food writers are familiar with many of the food traditions of nearby Morocco, we’ve largely neglected to learn anything about Tunisia or its culinary history. And, judging by the Arem brothers’ harissa, that’s entirely to our detriment.

Made with mild, sun-dried chillies, the traditional Tunisian version of this pepper paste is layered with garlic, caraway and coriander. Multidimensional in flavour and distinctly thick, it will be a revelation to anyone who has only ever encountered the stuff squeezed from a tube (or any other version similarly doctored with tomato products, hydrated chilli powder or fresh peppers). Once I tasted their harissa, I began to incorporate it into my everyday cooking, stirring it into garlic and herb labneh and drizzling it over roast vegetables. One of my favourite ways to use it is as a rub or marinade for chicken.

Crisp chicken and sweet onions with rosemary and salty pancetta, set off by a sweet-sour apple salad with pickled red onion and hazelnuts

I recently invested in a beautifully wide, Shropshire-made pan that works on the hob and in the oven with equal ease, and without the chemical nonstick lining I keep reading about. It is a brilliant pan. As I turn on the heat to crisp the skin on my chicken thighs on the stove top, I can prep the vegetables I will then roast in the same pan. There is a soothing rhythm to this type of cooking, where most of the work is done in the oven. Here, I use jerusalem artichokes, the most delicious of autumn vegetables, parboiled in lemon juice to make them more digestible and then roasted with garlic and onions, until beautifully caramelised, and it’s a marvellous thing to put down on the kitchen table.