Menemen: delicious Turkish scrambled eggs

I stumbled across this recipe from Menemen whilst reading Diana Henry’s cookbook ‘Simple’ and planned to make it as soon as possible. I had all the ingredients on hand and I love exciting egg recipes. I had also never encountered Turkish scrambled eggs before and really this should be a global phenomenon as they are that tasty.

This book of hers is my latest cookbook obsession and is filled with recipes I can’t wait to make. They are simple to execute – so perfect for when you are in a hurry, and don’t involve too many complicated ingredients. Her flavours are big and I feel like they talk directly to my soul. She uses ingredients in interesting ways and combinations and draws inspiration from all over the word in her cooking. If this menemen recipe is anything to go by, there will be others that will change my mealtimes forever.

I also decided to make a little recipe video.

The other big upside to this is it’s really healthy. Who doesn’t want to add a load of vegetables into their scramble. She advises serving this with crumbled feta or natural yoghurt, but I loved it as is with a good sprinkling of chopped coriander. I piled into onto slices of whole grain toast and gobbled it for lunch and dinner, and didn’t even mind eating it for two meals in a row.

Diana uses a leek in her recipe but I had shallots on hand (fairly rare to find here in South Africa) so I used those instead. For me they are far superior to onion. It is important that you cook the vegetables until they are nice and soft and until the tomatoes have lost most of their moisture, you don’t want the eggs to be too soggy. It needs seasoning so make sure to add salt and pepper in both stages. I’ve changed her method slightly because I used shallots instead of leek and sauteed them before adding the peppers. 

Next time I might add a pinch of cumin because I think the earthy flavour will work wonderfully here, but this recipe could change the way you scramble your eggs in the future. 

My favourite egg recipes:

My best egg recipes

Recipe – serves 2 for a supper or 4 for a breakfast

Menemen: delicious Turkish scrambled eggs

Menemen is a delicious recipe for Turkish scrambled eggs with onions, tomatoes, peppers and garlic. Perfect for a light lunch or supper.

Print Recipe

Ingredients

• ½ cup finely chopped shallots or onion or leek 1 large shallot or ½ an onion or 1 leek
• a glug of olive oil – about 2 Tbs
• 1 cup finely chopped green pepper – 1 green pepper
• 1 cup finely chopped red pepper – I medium red pepper
• 2 cups deseeded and finely chopped tomatoes – about 4
• 2 cloves garlic crushed
• pinch of dried chilli flakes as much heat as you like
• 5 large free-range egg
• salt flakes and black pepper
• Serve with a small handful fresh parsley or coriander chopped to serv

Instructions

• Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and sauté the onion until softened but not browned – about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chilli and salt and pepper and cook for a further minute or so.
• Add the green and red peppers and cook this stirring regularly until softened. Add the chopped tomatoes (important to deseed these by cutting into quarters and removing the seeded flesh) and cook these until they have softened and most of the liquid has evapourated off.
• While this is cooking, lightly beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Add this to the vegetable mix and cook slowly over a gentle heat until they just start to set. This happens very quickly and you need to stir them all the time.
• Serve immediately with chopped fresh parsley or coriander sprinkled over the top.

Author: Sam Linsell

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