Turkish Eggs Cilbir Recipe
One of the most important and valuable food sources of the Ottoman cuisine was eggs. There were plenty of egg recipes that were served to the sultans. Çılbır, in other words, poached egg served with garlic yogurt, was one of the favorites of the sultans. Although poached egg seems like a very European method today, it was actually a known and applied cooking method in Turkish soil five hundred years ago.
If we turn back to the recipe ... The tricky part of the recipe is cooking the egg. The best way is to cook the egg in swirling water. When you place the egg into the boiling water and leave it on its own, the white dissolves in the water and cooks piece by piece. We don't want this. We want the egg to cook as a whole. The two things that make it easier are the vinegar and to create a swirl in the middle of the water. When you place the egg into the swirling water, it can't find any chance to spread because of the motion and cooks as a whole.
Another thing you should be careful about is the temperature of the eggs. If you take the egg from the water and put it on the yogurt sauce immediately, the water accumulated in the recessed parts dilutes the yogurt, and if the egg is too hot, it will curdle the yogurt. To prevent this, after removing the egg from the water, it's better to rest it for a while in a separate plate and wait for the water to drain.
Enjoy the recipe...
Turkish Eggs Cilbir Recipe with Video
Ingredients
- 4 eggs,
- 1.5 cups of strained yogurt,
- 1 small clove of garlic,
- 1 tablespoon butter,
- 1 tsp of paprika,
- 1/4 tsp of pepper flakes,
- Salt,
- 2 tablespoons of vinegar.
Preparation
- Crush the garlic and add it to the yogurt together with salt according to your taste and mix,
- Spread the garlic yogurt into two serving plates,
- Boil 3 cups of water in a small saucepan,
- Add the vinegar and mix,
- Break one of the eggs into a small tea or coffee cup,
- Quickly mix the boiling water with the handle of a wooden spoon in a clockwise direction to form a swirl,
- Gently pour the egg in the middle of the swirl and mix it in a clockwise direction so that the egg collects in the middle of the pot,
- After cooking in the desired consistency, take out the egg with a small skimmer ladle and put it on a plate,
- Cook other eggs one by one using the same method,
- After all of them are cooked place them on the yoghurt mixture,
- Melt the butter in a sauce pan, add the paprika and pepper flakes, mix and remove from the heat,
- Pour the sauce over the eggs,
- If you wish, you can sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Bon Appetit...