Eggs cooked in a bed of tomatoes and banana peppers

If you are planning a trip to Istanbul, make sure you start, at least one day of your stay, with a full Turkish breakfast in Rumeli Hisari, the suburb that gets is name from the Ottoman fortress on the European side of the Bosphorus, which was built for the conquest of "Constantinopolis."

Make sure you go early because they are very popular and you might end up having to wait for a table overlooking the water and believe me no other one will do.

Select one of the cayevleri (tea houses/cafes) lined up along the outer wall of the fortress resembling carriages of a train linked to one another. Be careful in your selection, as there are fancy looking cafes that might have managed to sneak in between these carriages of simplicity. They too will serve a Turkish Breakfast but if want the real deal, you will need to pick a no frills one with flowery table clothes and cheap looking tables and chairs.

When you finally make your pick, sit down, order the full breakfast and prepare to enjoy the next couple of hours by doing nothing other than eating and watching the ships passing by.

You will be served freshly brewed tea in traditional Turkish tea glasses, slices of feta and kashar cheeses, black and green olives, fresh tomato and cucumber slices, honey and kaymak, fried Turkish pastrami or salami and a never ending supply of warm Turkish bread and simit (Turkish bagel).

And when you start to think "that was it", they will ask you how you would like your eggs, as no breakfast is complete without the sizzling hot eggs that are served in a small copper or metal frying pan.

We love our eggs. We love them fried, poached or simply boiled. In fact, we love them so much that we have many dishes where the egg is the star ingredient.  A few of the most popular are namely sucuklu yumurta (eggs with Turkish salami), pastirmali yumurta (eggs with Turkish pastrami), ispanakli yumurta (eggs with spinach), cilbir (poached eggs with yoghurt) and menemen (scrambled eggs with tomatoes and banana peppers).

The traditional menemen is made by adding the eggs to the sautéed onion, peppers and tomatoes and then stirring it continually until the mixture begins to firm. The dish is supposed the be firm and juicy, not dry or overcooked.

But, I prefer to scramble my eggs as I am eating them and not beforehand. So I just break the eggs on top of the mixture and cook them until the white is cooked through but the yolk is still bright yellow and runny. I love watching the warm sunshine coloured sweetness ooze on top of the sautéed vegetables when I break them with a piece of sourdough bread.


Menemen (Eggs cooked in a bed of tomatoes and banana peppers)

Ingredients (per person):

2 eggs
1 tomato
1 small banana pepper
1/2 brown onion, peeled
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Here is how:

Dice the onion and banana pepper.

Peel the tomato skin and dice into cubes.

In a shallow and small frying pan, add the oil, diced onions and peppers and sauté them on low heat until the onion is transparent and the peppers are cooked.

Add the tomatoes and sauté for another minute or two.

Even out the mixture in the pan with the back of a spoon so that the base of the pan is covered.

Then break the eggs on top of the mixture and on lowest heat cook until the egg whites are cooked.

Serve with salt, black pepper and slices of thick sourdough bread.

Afiyet Olsun!