Menemen

Ingredients

• 4 green peppers
• 4 tomatoes
• 4 eggs
• 2 onions
• butter
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp paprika

Method

Menemen is a pan-frying scramble where the vegetables break down into a soft sauce before the eggs go in — the tomatoes are the engine here, not an afterthought. Blanch them first to loosen the skin, then peel and crush them directly into the pan so their juice and pulp become the cooking medium for everything else. This matters: raw tomato juice won't concentrate fast enough, and peeling by hand after blanching gives you control over the flesh, not stringy bits left behind under the skin.

Dice the onions and peppers into roughly 5mm pieces — smaller than you might think for a vegetable scramble, because they need to soften into the tomato base, not stay distinct. Melt 50g of butter in a heavy-bottomed frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and peppers together, then salt them generously. The salt draws moisture out of the vegetables and speeds their softening; stir every 20 seconds or so until the onions turn translucent and the raw peppers lose their snap, roughly 4–5 minutes. You're after aromatic-vegetables that have surrendered their texture, not a stir-fry crunch.

Add your blanched, crushed tomatoes — they should collapse almost immediately into a wet, textured pulp. Keep the heat high and stir constantly until the tomato liquid has mostly evaporated and the mixture looks like a loose sauce clinging to the vegetables, about 6–8 minutes. The pan should smell concentrated and sweet, not watery. This reduction is critical: wet vegetables and eggs make for a wet, separated scramble rather than the creamy emulsion that defines menemen.

Crack the eggs directly into the pan and add 1 teaspoon each of thyme and paprika. Lower the heat slightly to medium. Stir gently with a spatula, folding the eggs through the vegetables rather than breaking them into tiny curds — you want soft curds the size of hazelnuts mixed through the tomato and pepper base. After 2–3 minutes, when the eggs are mostly set but still soft-looking on the surface, pull the pan from heat. Residual warmth finishes the cooking. Serve straightaway with flatbread to push through the sauce.