If you’ve ever eaten breakfast at a restaurant in Turkey you’ve probably tasted or at least seen Menemen on the menu. It’s more a scrambled egg dish than an omelet (or omelette), but one thing is certain, it’s a very tasty Turkish egg dish eaten at breakfast and it’s definitely worth trying.
A lot of restaurants will have a few varieties of menemen to choose from but they’ll all have eggs, tomatoes and peppers. Some will add the Turkish salami-like meat called sucuk (which is so tasty!), onion, different cheeses, mushrooms, mince, and a number of different spices. They’re all pretty good and I don’t recall eating a bad menemen during my time in Istanbul.
Today I am using the ingredients in the photograph above to make my menemen for breakfast. So I have white cheese, a few thin green peppers (not the hot and spicy ones, unless that’s what you like), two medium sized tomatoes, one brown onion, some butter, olive oil, 4 eggs, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes which are called pul biber in Turkey.
It’s a simple breakfast recipe that anyone can make. As much as I love eggs benedict I very rarely ever make it because I don’t function at full capacity in the kitchen until after 10am in the morning. With this Turkish egg dish the most complicated thing to do is cracking the eggs and chopping the produce. I guess you could even cut the tomatoes, onions and peppers the night before and keep them in the fridge if you’re not a morning person like me. If you can make an omelet or scrambled eggs then you can also make menemen.
I like a chunky texture to my menemen so I dice things that way. Traditionally Turkish restaurants will cut things much finer and even grate the tomato finely. Try it both ways and see what suits you.
So I’ve started with the onion and peppers in the pan. You can see how big and chunky my green peppers are. Try it this way first and then cut them much finer next time you make menemen.. you will be making it again, trust me 😍
With the tomatoes they’re usually chopped very finely or grated. I like the little chunks of tomato in my menemen though so I don’t worry about pulling the grater out. Either way is good. It’s actually hard to make this Turkish dish taste bad.
You can see how chunky my bit of tomato are. You could also use a can of chopped tomatoes but I much prefer to use fresh tomatoes. Use canned tomatoes only if you have to. If you have a couple of fresh tomatoes in the fridge, use them.
In the picture above you can see the tomatoes and peppers are cooking down, almost forming a chunky sauce. So it really doesn’t make that much difference with how you chop your tomatoes but the Turkish way to do is to serve them much finer than I do it here.
Once the tomatoes, peppers and onions have softened and cooked down to a chunky sauce texture you can add the white cheese. Just use a feta cheese or something close to that in your country. Some of the white cheeses here in Turkey are so ridiculously good. I’m going to miss a lot of the Turkish ingredients when I go back to Australia! Turkish cheeses will be one of those things that I miss!
You can break up the white cheese or roughly dice it. It’ll cook into the sauce as you stir it so don’t get too particular about what it looks like when you put it in.
You can see how the white cheese has stirred into the mix now. It has lightened up the color of the sauce a little and it’s about at this point that my mouth starts to water as I know I’m nearly done. Only the eggs to go and then it’s breakfast time!
I used four small to medium eggs for this pan. This is more than enough for two people to share if you’re eating just the menemen and having it with some bread. If you’re having a full Turkish breakfast then it’s enough for four or more as there will be plenty of other things on the table.
The eggs are what brings this recipe together, they’re where the magic happens. Just gently separate the mix and allow the eggs to spread and seep down into the tomatoes, onions and peppers. And don’t fully cook the eggs as they’ll continue to cook in the pan once you take it off the heat.
Usually when you’re at a restaurant in Turkey and order menemen it’ll come in a small pan that it was cooked in. At home it’s the same, the frying pan will be put on the table and people take what they want from it. It can also be served like you would an omelette.
And above is the finished dish, served with flat leaf parsley to add a splash of color. Obviously the parsley is optional, I just wanted to pretty things up a little. You can see how chunky my tomatoes still are too. It’s how I like it and I cook to please myself but they won’t be so chunky at a Turkish restaurant. Like I said previously though, both ways of making menemen are just as tasty.
Menemen is usually eaten with some type of bread. Today I have eaten mine with the popular Turkish simit. If you’ve ever been to Turkey you would have seen simit sellers everywhere. I bought a couple fresh simit on this day so I figured it would be perfect with the menemen.. and I was right, it was a nice combination. Generally people would just break off a piece of whole loaf bread to eat with menemen. Bread is served with many meals in Turkey.
Let us know in the comments below how you go with your menemen if you decide to make some. Did you make it chunky or in the more traditional way with much finer tomato? I would love to hear how you prefer your menemen 😁 Afiyet olsun.
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