Turkish Cilbir with Poached Eggs
Ingredients
2 servings
For the poached eggs
- Eggs, fresh 4
- Water for poaching (as deep as an egg is wide)
- White vinegar 1–1.5 tbsp
For the yogurt
- Thick yogurt or soured milk 300 g
- Dill 2–3 sprigs (or 1 tsp dried)
- Garlic 1–2 cloves
- Salt to taste
For the drizzle
- Butter 1 tbsp
- Olive oil 1 tbsp
- Sweet paprika 1 tsp (2 g)
- Chili flakes 0.5 tsp
For serving
- Flatbread, buns or toasted bread to taste
Step-by-step recipe
Yogurt and water
The dish is simple and very quick to make; most of the time goes into heating the water.
Get the ingredients ready: fresh eggs, fresh or dried dill, a little garlic and paprika, plus chili coarsely ground with its seeds. You need thick yogurt, not the drinking kind; stores always have a thick one or soured milk.
Pour water into a small saucepan with a handle, about as deep as an egg is wide. Put it over high heat and bring to a boil. Add 1–1.5 tbsp ordinary white vinegar and turn the heat down so the water barely simmers.
While the water heats, mix the yogurt with 1 tbsp finely chopped dill (4 g) and 1–2 garlic cloves, pressed. Salt to taste and mix well.
Dried dill is a fine substitute for fresh; 1 tsp is enough.
Poached eggs
This way of poaching differs a little from the common method, where you swirl the water in the pan so the white doesn’t spread into strands. Then again, whatever works for you.
Crack an egg into a small tea strainer; just a little liquid drains from the white, or none at all. Gently tip the egg from the strainer into the simmering vinegar water. It’s handy to poach two eggs at a time.
Poach the eggs for 2 minutes at the gentlest simmer, without stirring the water, so no strands of white form. The white should be set and the yolk still runny.
Gently lift each egg out with a slotted spoon and put it on a wet plate; the water on the plate keeps the runny yolk from sticking and breaking. Poach the remaining eggs the same way.
I like this way of poaching eggs better, and it works the first time, every time.
Assembly and butter drizzle
From here, things go very quickly. The drizzle takes 1–1.5 minutes.
Spoon the dill and garlic yogurt into deep plates, ideally small round bowls. Carefully pour off the water from the plate with the poached eggs. Put two eggs on top of the yogurt in each bowl; they slide and roll easily off the plate.
Wash and dry the saucepan you poached the eggs in. Put it over medium heat to evaporate any moisture. Right away, add 1 tbsp butter and a little olive oil. Quite often only butter is used; it’s a matter of taste. As soon as the butter starts to sizzle, add the sweet paprika and chili flakes. Let the pepper sizzle in the butter for 5–10 seconds and take the pan off the heat.
Spoon the spiced butter over the eggs on the yogurt. Sprinkle with finely chopped dill or parsley if you like.
Serve right away. Usually flatbread or small buns serve as the fork: scoop up the yogurt and soft eggs with their runny yolks. Toasted whole-grain bread works great instead of flatbread or buns.
Despite the very hot butter, the dish ends up almost at room temperature; the butter cools the instant it touches the yogurt. Cilbir has a “creamy” texture and softness, and you can’t smell the garlic. Though the dish isn’t spicy at all, you can leave the chili out of the drizzle if for some reason you don’t like it.
Calories and macros
410 kcal
Serving ≈ 240 g
- Protein27 g26% of kcal
- Fat30 g66% of kcal
- Carbs8 g8% of kcal
100 g172 kcalProtein 11.2 gFat 12.4 gCarbs 3.4 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.