Turkish eggs: poached eggs on garlicky yogurt
Çılbır is a Turkish dish said to have been eaten in the Ottoman palace kitchens, built from three things: garlic yogurt, a poached egg and chilli butter. It sounds odd until you taste it — tangy yogurt, running yolk and hot, nutty butter add up to something none of them promises alone. One step is easy to miss: the yogurt must be gently warmed. Straight from the fridge it chills the egg in no time.
Your own work in that: 18 min.
- Yogurt 6 min
- Eggs 8 min
- Chilli butter 4 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneMix the yogurt with garlic
Stir the yogurt with the crushed garlic, salt and lemon juice. Leave 5 minutes for the garlic to infuse. The yogurt must be thick, Greek style: a thin one spreads across the plate and the egg sinks into it.
Ingredients: 350 g thick Greek yogurt · 2 cloves garlic · ½ tsp salt · ½ pcs lemon, juice
TipIf all you have is thin yogurt, drain it for an hour in a muslin-lined sieve. The whey runs off and you are left with something close to Greek.
Thick yogurt, crushed garlic, five minutesWarm the yogurt to lukewarm
Set the bowl over a pan of steaming water for 3–4 minutes, stirring, until it is lukewarm to the touch, not hot. It is an easy step to skip, and it makes a difference — cold yogurt under a hot egg quickly turns the whole plate lukewarm.
TipNever heat yogurt directly over a flame or above about 45 °C. Overheated yogurt splits into curds and whey, and that cannot be reversed.
Lukewarm, not hot; over steam, not on the heatPoach the eggs
Bring water and vinegar to the boil in a wide pan and reduce to a bare tremble. Crack each egg into a fine sieve (the thin white drains off), tip it into a cup and slide it into the water. Poach in batches of 2, 3 minutes per batch (about 8 minutes in all). Lift onto a folded towel with a slotted spoon.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 1 tbsp vinegar · 1500 ml water
Sieve, three minutes, towelMake the chilli butter
Melt the butter in a small pan and cook 2 minutes over medium heat, until it foams and smells nutty. Take it off the heat, add the chilli and paprika and stir — the butter turns vivid red immediately.
Ingredients: 60 g butter · 1 tsp chilli flakes · ½ tsp sweet paprika · ½ bunch dill · 2 pcs flatbread
TipChilli dropped in over the flame burns within seconds and the butter turns bitter and brown. Off the heat the butter has enough warmth to draw out the colour and too little to scorch the spice.
Chilli off the heat; the butter turns redAssemble and serve at once
Spread the warm yogurt across two shallow plates, make a hollow with the back of a spoon and set two drained eggs in each. Spoon over the chilli butter and scatter with dill. Serve immediately, with warm flatbread for scooping.
A hollow in the yogurt, eggs, red butter
Before you start
Without poaching
Fried eggs in butter work too and are far simpler. You lose the yolk running across the yogurt, but keep everything else.
Aleppo chilli
Turkish pul biber flakes (very close to Aleppo pepper) are milder and fruitier than ordinary chilli, and they give this dish its characteristic brick colour. Use half the quantity if using ordinary chilli flakes.
As a main course
Add a layer of wilted spinach or cumin-spiced chickpeas under the yogurt. It becomes a full meal while the technique and proportions stay identical.
What not to do
Don't prepare this ahead. The yogurt cools within five minutes and a poached egg cannot be reheated — this is a dish you make as people sit down.
