all your eggs in one basket

On my recent trip to Istanbul with the girls, we embarked on a culinary walking tour with Istanbul Eats (you may remember from an earlier post that I did the old town culinary walking tour with them in July this year). One of the many local dishes we tasted that day was menemen. In Turkey, this is a traditional breakfast dish made with eggs, onions, tomatoes, green peppers and ground pepper. You can have it with feta as well as sucuk (a Turkish spicy beef sausage).

I decided to improvise on this dish and made my own version of baked eggs for breakfast last weekend.  This dish is really easy to make, is delicious and high in protein. It is best served slightly runny and eaten with a warm toasted baguette.

the finished product topped with thinly sliced chorizo

baked eggs (mediterranean style)

created: 8 October 2011

[ingredients]:

• 3tsp olive oil
• 2 shallots (finely sliced)
• 3tsp of sundried tomatoes and red pepper paste*
• 2tsp cumin seeds
• 1tsp sugar
• 2tsp smoked paprika
• 6 eggs
• 1 red or yellow pepper (diced)
• 2 stalks of spring onions (finely sliced)
• 12 thinly sliced pieces of chorizo (optional)
• pinch of salt

* if you cannot find sun-dried tomato/red pepper paste, simply blitz a red pepper with 4 pieces of sun-dried tomatoes with some olive oil until you achieve a paste consistency

[method]:

• Preheat oven to 200⁰C
• Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan
• Once oil is hot, add shallots and fry until soften
• Add cumin seeds, smoked paprika, tomato/pepper paste and sugar
• Fry for approximately 5 minutes on medium heat until peppers have softened
• Dish out the mixture onto a small casserole/baking dish (16cm x 10cm)
• Sprinkle the spring onions all over the mixture
• Evenly space the chorizo slices over the mixture (optional)
• Break 6 eggs over the mixture
• Sprinkle a pinch of sea salt over the eggs
• Bake for approximately 18-20 minutes (depending on how runny you like your eggs)

Serve with a side of warm toasted bread

Serves: 3-4


Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time:      20 minutes