Ispanaklı Yumurta

The eggs are broken into wells pressed into the cooked-down spinach and left whole.

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

Ingredients

• 700 g spinach, washed and roughly chopped
• 2 onions, finely sliced
• 6 eggs
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 30 g butter
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• ½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper flakes
• salt and black pepper

to serve

• 100 g thick yoghurt

Method

1. THE EGGS ARE BROKEN INTO WELLS PRESSED INTO THE SPINACH AND LEFT WHOLE. Not stirred through. Once the spinach has collapsed and its water has gone, the back of a spoon is used to make six hollows right down to the pan, and an egg goes into each. The lid goes on and they cook undisturbed until the whites are set and the yolks still soft, so the dish arrives as whole eggs sitting in dark greens rather than as a scramble. Stirred in, it becomes a quite different and much duller thing -- which is also precisely how it differs from the tomato-and-egg dish in this same batch, where stirring is the whole technique.
2. THE ONION IS FRIED SLOWLY UNTIL SWEET AND IT IS NOT A BACKGROUND NOTE. Two onions, sliced thin, fifteen minutes in the oil until genuinely golden and sweet. Spinach and eggs are both mild, and the fried onion is where almost all the flavour of the dish comes from. Softened pale for five minutes, there is nothing to taste.
3. THE SPINACH IS COOKED UNTIL ITS WATER HAS GONE, NOT JUST WILTED. Seven hundred grams wilts to very little and gives out a great deal of liquid, and it must be cooked on until the pan is dry. Eggs cracked into wet spinach poach in the water and spread, and the whites never set in neat rounds.
4. THE WELLS GO RIGHT DOWN TO THE PAN BASE. Pressed firmly, so the egg sits on hot metal rather than on a cushion of spinach. The base of the white sets fast and holds the egg in place; on top of the greens it spreads sideways.
5. THE LID GOES ON AND THE HEAT GOES LOW. Eight to ten minutes, covered, over a low flame. The steam sets the tops of the whites without needing the yolks to cook through. Uncovered, the whites stay translucent on top while the bottoms toughen.
6. THE BUTTER GOES IN WITH THE SPINACH, NOT AT THE START. The onion is fried in olive oil, which takes the heat; the butter goes in with the greens for flavour, where it will not brown.
7. The olive oil heated and the onions fried SLOWLY 15 MINUTES, until genuinely golden and sweet.
8. The garlic in for 1 MINUTE.
9. The butter added, then the spinach in handfuls as it wilts.
10. Cooked on over a medium heat until the PAN IS DRY, about 8 MINUTES. Seasoned.
11. Six WELLS pressed into the spinach with the back of a spoon, RIGHT DOWN to the pan base.
12. An egg broken into each.
13. LID ON, heat LOW, cooked 8 to 10 MINUTES until the whites are set and the yolks still soft. Not stirred.
14. The Aleppo pepper scattered over.
15. TESTED: six whole eggs should be distinguishable, their whites set in rounds. Spread or feathered whites mean the spinach was still wet.
16. Served from the pan with yoghurt alongside.

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