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The eggs are poached and laid on yoghurt warmed to blood heat, with foaming pepper butter poured over.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (yoghurt).

Ingredients

• 4 eggs, very fresh
• 400 g thick yoghurt
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste with salt
• 60 g butter
• 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar, for the poaching water
• a few mint or dill leaves
• salt

to serve

• bread

Method

1. THE EGGS ARE POACHED AND LAID ON YOGHURT WARMED TO BLOOD HEAT. The yoghurt is the bed, not a sauce poured over, and its temperature is the thing most often got wrong. Fridge-cold yoghurt chills the poached eggs instantly and the dish is lukewarm and unpleasant; heated in a pan it splits. The answer is to stand the bowl of garlicky yoghurt in warm water, or over a pan of hot water off the heat, for ten minutes -- to about blood heat, where it is warm to a fingertip and nowhere near simmering. Spread that in the bowls and the eggs stay hot.
2. THE YOGHURT IS NEVER PUT OVER DIRECT HEAT. Not even gently. Without egg or flour to stabilise it -- and there is neither here -- it separates into grains and whey somewhere around 80°C and cannot be brought back.
3. THE POACHING WATER IS BARELY MOVING AND HAS VINEGAR IN IT. A tablespoon of vinegar, and water at the point where a few bubbles rise but the surface is not breaking. The acid helps the white set around the yolk instead of feathering away. A rolling boil tears the whites apart whatever is added.
4. THE EGGS MUST BE VERY FRESH AND ARE CRACKED INTO A CUP FIRST. A fresh white holds together as a mass; an older one spreads into threads. Into a cup, then slid in close to the water -- dropped from a height, even a fresh egg breaks up.
5. THE BUTTER IS TAKEN TO FOAMING AND THE PEPPER GOES IN OFF THE HEAT. Butter melted until it foams and smells nutty, then pulled off and the Aleppo pepper stirred in so it blooms red without burning. Pepper added over the flame turns black and bitter in seconds, and that bitterness is the other common fault in this dish.
6. IT IS ASSEMBLED AND EATEN IMMEDIATELY. Yoghurt, eggs, butter, mint, table. There is no holding it: the eggs cool fast against the yoghurt and the butter congeals.
7. The yoghurt beaten smooth with the garlic paste and a little salt.
8. The bowl STOOD IN WARM WATER, or over a pan of hot water OFF the heat, 10 MINUTES -- to blood heat, warm to a fingertip. NEVER over direct heat.
9. A wide pan of water brought to the point where a few bubbles rise but the surface is not breaking. The vinegar added.
10. Each egg cracked into a CUP and slid in CLOSE to the water.
11. Poached 3 MINUTES, until the white is set and the yolk still liquid. Lifted out with a slotted spoon and drained briefly on paper.
12. The warmed yoghurt spread in two shallow bowls.
13. The eggs laid on the yoghurt.
14. The butter melted until FOAMING and nutty, PULLED OFF THE HEAT, and the Aleppo pepper stirred in.
15. Poured over at once and the mint scattered on.
16. TESTED: the yoghurt should be smooth and warm, the yolks liquid, the butter red rather than brown. Eaten immediately.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes