Today I shall show you all how to make Turkish style eggs: menemen. They're my favourite way to prepare eggs; they're delicious, filling, leave lots of room for creativity and are generally so good they almost make me forget Constantinople.
INGREDIENTS:
- Extra virgin olive oil.
- One bell pepper. Traditionally green is used but any color works. Pic related uses orange.
- Two red shallots (used in pic related), or one red onion. Technically the onion is optional but IMO menemen's better with it.
- One Thai chili pepper.
- Cherry or grape tomatoes. Pic related uses enough leftover grape tomatoes to fit in a 14oz Ikea bowl.
- Tomato paste. If you have a ton of tomatoes you could forgo this, but I used it in conjunction with the tomatoes I had and it turned out well. I estimate I used about a cup. Vary to taste and tomato quantity.
- Eggs, pic related uses 3 eggs though you could go for more.
- Cheese. Usually something like feta is used but pic related uses goat cheese. Vary to taste.
- Salt.
- Sumac.
- Fresh parsley.
DIRECTIONS:
- Dice the shallots and bell pepper. Cut the Thai chili into rings.
- Heat your olive oil in a pan to medium/medium-low. Once heated, toss the shallots, bell pepper and Thai chilli into the pan and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes, moving things around occasionally.
- Toss the tomatoes and add tomato paste into the pan. Add salt and sumac to taste and mix the pan contents.
- Cover the pan for about 5 to 7 minutes to wilt the tomatoes. Preferably, use a cover smaller than the pan circumference so the steam is concentrated near the tomatoes.
- Once tomatoes are wilted, take a fork and crush all the tomatoes. Optionally, you can remove the tomato skins but they're nice in menemen IMO. After crushing the tomatoes, mix the pan contents and let simmer for about 5 minutes until the mixture reduces to a thicker sauce-like state.
- Add eggs and cheese, sprinkle a bit more salt to taste. From here you can choose how to cook the eggs to your liking. I've had sunny side up, over-easy and scrambled menemen. Pic related is scrambled because it's pretty idiot proof and tastes fantastic.
- Once eggs are just about cooked, garnish with parsley and mix everything around.
- Plate and serve with toast or rice.
And that's how you make menemen with a nice, mild spicy kick. Until next time. :justiniangrin: