Menemen

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 4 ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped
• 2 long Turkish green peppers, sliced
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 20 g butter
• 1 tsp aleppo pepper
• 80 g feta, crumbled (optional)
• a handful of parsley
• good bread, to serve

Method

1. No onion

   Menemen traditionally contains no onion at all — peppers, tomato and egg. Adding onion makes it a different Turkish dish, and the clean tomato flavour is the point.

2. Soften the peppers first

   Cook the peppers gently in the oil and butter for 8 minutes until completely soft. They take far longer than the tomatoes and must not be rushed.

   8 min

3. Cook the tomatoes down

   Add the chopped tomatoes and aleppo pepper and cook until they collapse and most of the liquid has gone, about 10 minutes. A watery base gives you eggs floating in tomato soup.

   10 min

4. Eggs, barely stirred

   Turn the heat low, crack the eggs straight into the pan and stir slowly two or three times only, leaving streaks of yolk and white visible. Menemen is soft and marbled, not a uniform scramble.

   3 min

5. Off the heat while wet

   Pull the pan while the eggs still look underdone — they set on the way to the table. Scatter feta and parsley and serve in the pan with plenty of bread.