Turkish Entree
ÇILBIR
(Turkish Eggs)
INGREDIENTS
2 garlic cloves
1 cup Greek yogurt or yogurt
¼ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper or red pepper flakes
4 eggs
3 tablespoons white vinegar
4 slices bread or flatbreads
1 teaspoon dill (optional)
Serves 4. Takes 25 minutes.
PREPARATION
Mince garlic. Add garlic and yogurt to mixing bowl. Mix using fork or whisk until well blended. Add olive oil to pan. Heat olive oil at medium heat until a tiny bit of Aleppo starts to dance. Add Aleppo pepper. Cook at medium heat for 1 minute or until Aleppo pepper becomes fragrant. Remove from heat.
Add enough water to pot to poach 4 eggs. Bring water to boil using high heat. Add eggs and white vinegar to pot. Poach eggs for 3 minutes or until the egg whites are cooked through, or until the eggs are done to your liking. While eggs poach, toast bread.
Add toast to plate. Evenly spread the garlic/yogurt mix on the 4 pieces of toast. Use slotted spoon to transfer a poached egg to each slice of toast (Let water drain from spoon.) Drizzle Aleppo pepper/oil evenly over the toast slices. Garnish evenly with dill.
TIDBITS
1) A horse is a horse, of course, of course. But who ever heard of a talking horse?
2) “Çilbur!”
3) Çilbur is Turkish for the name of this dish.
4) It is also what all Turkish horses say. Turkish don’t neigh, they çilbur.
5) The first Turk, Adlee Badem, to make this dish was quite pleased with it, and why not? But he didn’t have a name for it? How could he boast of it when it didn’t know what to call it?
6) As luck would have, the exact moment Badem plated his entree, his horse said, “Çilbur.” “That’s a great name,” thought Adlee. Ever since then, we’ve all called this dish, “Çilbur.” Now you know.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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