Menemen

Menemen

In Turkish: Menemen, named after a town in Izmir province in western Turkey. It’s the classic Turkish breakfast: eggs that set slowly in a sauce of tomatoes and long green pepper, in a single iron pan that comes to the table.

The difference between menemen and shakshuka confuses many people, and it really comes down to one detail: in shakshuka the eggs are cracked whole into the sauce and the yolk stays round, whereas in menemen they are gently stirred in until softly set in curds, like soft scrambled eggs inside a sauce. A second, smaller difference: menemen is based on long green pepper rather than sweet red pepper, and its flavor is fresher and greener.

Prep time: 10 minutes · Cooking time: 15 minutes · Total: about 25 minutes · Yield: 2 servings · Difficulty: Easy

Menemen is part of something bigger: the kahvaltı

The Turkish breakfast (kahvaltı, literally “before coffee”) isn’t one dish but a table: white cheese and kashkaval, green and black olives, sliced tomato and cucumber, jams, honey with clotted cream, a hard-boiled egg or menemen, fresh bread and black tea in tulip-shaped glasses. Menemen is the only hot dish on that table, which is why it arrives last, in the pan it was cooked in.

Adding menemen to the table changes it nutritionally more than you’d think: a breakfast of bread, jam and cheese is almost entirely carbohydrate and fat, and two eggs add about 13 g of protein plus choline — two components that determine how long the fullness will last.

Ingredients (for 2 servings)

• 4 large eggs
• 3 very ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped (or 400 g canned crushed tomatoes)
• 2 long green peppers (sivri biber), sliced into rings — or a regular green pepper
• 1 tablespoon olive oil + 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 onion, chopped — optional, and in Izmir they’ll say it’s forbidden
• 1 teaspoon Turkish pepper paste — or 1 teaspoon tomato paste and a quarter teaspoon paprika
• Salt, black pepper and 1/2 teaspoon pul biber (Turkish pepper flakes)
• 60 g crumbled Bulgarian cheese or feta, in place of the Turkish cheese — optional

To serve: fresh country bread, olives and Turkish tea.

Choosing ingredients and substitutes

A regular sweet green pepper replaces the Turkish pepper; add heat separately to taste. Instead of a teaspoon of pepper paste, use a teaspoon of tomato paste and a quarter teaspoon of paprika. Pul biber is Turkish pepper flakes; replace half a teaspoon with a quarter teaspoon of paprika and a pinch of chili. Bulgarian cheese or feta works instead of the Turkish cheese, in the same amount; this doesn’t mean spreadable white cheese.

Method

1. Fry the peppers. Heat the olive oil and butter in a wide pan over medium heat, add the peppers (and the onion if using) and fry 4-5 minutes until softened and browned at the edges.
2. Add the paste. Stir in the pepper paste for half a minute.
3. Reduce the tomatoes. Add the chopped tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and cook 8-10 minutes over medium-low heat until the liquid reduces and the sauce thickens. This is the step that decides whether the menemen will be rich or watery.
4. Add the eggs. Lower the heat to minimum, crack the eggs directly into the pan and stir them in with a spatula in slow movements. Don’t overmix — the goal is large soft curds, not a uniform mixture.
5. Take it off early. Remove from the heat while the eggs still look slightly soft; residual heat finishes the cooking. Eggs that dried out in the pan are the most common mistake with this dish.
6. Serve straight from the pan, with crumbled cheese on top if you like, and plenty of bread.

Nutrition facts and calorie estimate

The recommended serving is half the pan — 2 eggs with the sauce.

Adding 60 g of feta adds about 150 calories to the pan (about 75 per serving), and two slices of country bread — another 160 or so. A full meal with bread and cheese actually comes to about 550 calories.

Nutritionally it’s an especially good breakfast: the protein-to-carbohydrate ratio is high, which means lasting fullness and a moderate rise in blood sugar. The eggs supply choline and vitamin B12, and the tomatoes cooked in oil supply highly bioavailable lycopene — lycopene actually becomes more available after heating, and is absorbed better in the presence of fat.

Variations and tips

• A lighter version: Skip the butter and use just a tablespoon of olive oil — a saving of about 50 calories per serving without hurting the texture.
• A higher-protein version: Add a fifth egg or an extra egg white. See also other protein sources on the eggs page.
• Sucuk: A version with slices of fried sucuk sausage is common in Turkey. It’s very tasty, but adds about 150-200 calories and brings processed meat into the dish — best saved for weekends.
• Tomatoes in winter: When there are no ripe tomatoes, a good can of crushed tomatoes beats pale fresh ones.

Summary

Menemen is what happens when a simple egg dish gets a well-reduced tomato sauce instead of water. Twenty minutes, one pan, about 320 calories per serving, and a nutritional profile that lasts until lunch. More Turkish recipes on the Turkish cuisine page; a full Turkish breakfast is spread around it — cheeses, olives, jams and tea — and sometimes cacık on the side.