Piment d'Ville Menemen
Turkish Piment d'Ville Menemen
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Category
Breakfast
Cuisine
Turkish
Author:
Boonville Barn Collective
Servings
2-3
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Menemen, a beloved Turkish egg dish, is a cousin to shakshuka, but looser and more scrambled, the eggs folded gently into the thick, spiced tomato and pepper sauce. Blooming Piment d'Ville in olive oil before the tomatoes go in brings a warm, rounded heat. The cumin adds a thread of earthiness, and a generous handful of torn parsley at the end keeps everything feeling fresh. Bring the skillet to the table and eat it straight from the pan with warm bread.
Ingredients
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1 Tablespoon butter
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2 Tablespoons olive oil, divided
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4 ripe roma tomatoes (about 14 ounces), halved (or one 14-ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes)
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¾ cup finely diced yellow onion (about 1 medium onion)
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¾ cup diced green bell pepper or Italian frying pepper
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2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
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1 teaspoon Piment d’Ville, plus more for serving
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¼ teaspoon ground cumin
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½ teaspoon salt
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4 eggs
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Crumbled feta cheese
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Fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly torn
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Crusty bread or warm flatbread
Directions
Peel the tomatoes: If using fresh tomatoes, warm the butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add tomatoes, cut side down, and cover. Cook until the tomato skins begin to wrinkle and, when pinched, you can easily slide them off, about 4 minutes. Transfer the tomatoes to a plate to cool. Once cool, pinch the skins off the tomatoes and discard. If using canned tomatoes, you can skip this step.
Sauté the vegetables: Add the onion, bell pepper, and a pinch of kosher salt to the medium skillet where the tomatoes were cooked. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until completely soft and nicely golden, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant. Meanwhile, finely chop the tomatoes.
Bloom the Piment d'Ville: Push the vegetables to the edges of the pan and add 1 remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Add Piment d'Ville and ground cumin and let them sizzle in the oil for about 30 seconds, stirring. Then stir everything together so the spices coat the vegetables.
Build the tomato sauce: Add tomatoes and another pinch of salt. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally and breaking up the tomatoes with a spoon, until the sauce thickens and most of the liquid has cooked off.
Add the eggs: Crack 4 eggs into a bowl and stir briefly, just enough to break up the yolks and make a streaky mixture. Reduce the heat to medium-low and pour the eggs into the pan. Using a wooden spoon or heat-proof spatula, gently and slowly fold and stir the eggs into the sauce, pulling the set edges inward and letting the loose egg flow out to the sides. Stop when the eggs are just barely set and still look glossy and a little underdone, they'll finish cooking from residual heat of the pan. This should take about 3 minutes and the mixture will look varied, not uniform: red tomato sauce, with white and yellow streaks of cooked egg.
Finish and serve: Remove from heat immediately. Dust with an extra pinch of Piment d'Ville, crumbled feta cheese, and parsley. Bring the whole skillet to the table and serve with plenty of crusty bread or warm flatbread, for serving for swiping up every last bit of sauce.

