Turkish soft-scrambled eggs cooked into a base of long green peppers and tomatoes, with crumbled feta stirred through at the end. Fifteen minutes, one pan.
Prep
8 mins
Cook
18 mins
Servings
2
Per serving
£1.60
Difficulty
easy
The mistake with menemen is treating it as scrambled eggs with vegetables on the side. The peppers and tomatoes need to cook down properly first into a loose, jammy base, and then the eggs are stirred in slowly over a low heat until barely set. It should be spoonable, not fluffy.
Heat the olive oil in a heavy frying pan over a medium heat. Add the sliced green peppers and cook for 6 minutes until softened and blistering slightly at the edges.
Add the chopped tomatoes, half the pul biber, the oregano and half the salt. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes until the tomatoes collapse into a loose, jammy sauce with no watery liquid pooling.
If the pan looks wet, keep going. Adding eggs to a watery base gives you soup.
Turn the heat down as low as it will go and stir in the butter until it melts into the sauce.
Season the beaten eggs with the remaining salt and pour them over the tomato base. Wait 20 seconds without touching them.
Now drag a wooden spoon slowly through the mixture every few seconds, folding the setting egg through the sauce. This should take 3 to 4 minutes.
Take the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly underdone. They will carry on setting in the residual heat.
Scatter over the crumbled feta, the remaining pul biber and the parsley. Serve straight from the pan with a spoon.