Menemen made at home

Menemen - made at home

I take a restaurant dish, buy the ingredients, and have a go making it at home.

Why Menemen made at home? Because I really enjoyed this dish during my breakfast review at Coffee Warehouse and it’s easy to make. This dish is very healthy and you can experiment with ingredients. Apart from adding the eggs at the end of the process, it was super easy to cook. Adding the eggs was obviously beyond my ability – I’ll explain later.

Thanks to Coffee Warehouse for providing the recipe. There are lots of Menemen recipes online, but I wanted to recreate the version I enjoyed so much during my breakfast review. Menemen originates in Turkey and there are very differing views on what ingredients should be used. The ingredients seem to be governed by the region, who is doing the cooking , and whether it is being served for breakfast or as the main meal of the day. It is very similar to Shakshouka with just as many variations. Both dishes are frequently served with bread.

Remove the eggs from the ingredient list and the dish becomes vegan.

making the Menemen

preparing the vegetables

Ingredients for one person: chopped tomatoes (one tin), peppers (one large), onion (one smallish), garlic (3 cloves), spinach (good handful), two eggs, half a glass of water and one teaspoon of tomato paste. The quantities can be adjusted to taste or to suit what you have in the fridge.

Peel and chop the onions, peppers and garlic. For a bit of spice, I chopped and added a red chilli along with the seeds. Rinse and drain the spinach. Next, open a tin of chopped tomatoes. Some recipes use chopped fresh tomatoes. You choose.

And that is it. Other than cracking the eggs later, that’s the preparation done!

cooking the ingredients

I added a splash of sunflower oil to a small frying pan – 22 cm diameter. Then I added the onion, pepper, garlic (plus the optional chilli). I fried these over a medium heat for ten minutes and then poured in the tomatoes. This needs to be cooked until the sauce starts to thicken, which took about 8 minutes. I added the tomato paste and the water. For Christina I added just less than a quarter of a cup of water and hers was a bit dry. For me I added half a cup of water and it was fairly good – perhaps a tad on the runny side for me – but OK. A pinch of salt and pepper went in at this stage.

I left this to cook on a medium heat for another five minutes and then laid the spinach on top and gently pressed them down. For Christina I mixed the spinach leaves into the mixture, but this resulted in a messy look. For my dish, I left the leaves on top of the mixture, just pressed into it enough to cook.

And now the eggs. I followed the instructions. I doubled checked other recipes online. But my eggs looked extremely messy – a disappointing splodge! You are supposed to create a hole in the mixture in the pan for each egg and pour the egg in. Then cover the pan and the eggs cook on a low heat. It took a while to cook, and the eggs didn’t look good. The eggs on the Coffee Warehouse Menemen looked great. The eggs in the online recipes look great. Mine don’t. Perhaps next time I will poach the eggs separately and then place them on top of the Menemen. Alternatively, I have had Shakshuka with two fried eggs placed on top.

serving the Menemen

Menemen is traditionally served in a two-handled pan. I used a small, one-handled frying pan.

I do like some quality bread and it goes well with the Menemen – great for soaking up the sauce.

what did we think of the Menemen?

The Menemen was a rich, tasty and filling dish. It is easy to see how the ingredients can be changed to suit your tastes, although I think it does have to be a tomato-based sauce. If you don’t like tomatoes, it’s probably not for you. We had this Menemen as a late breakfast and we didn’t need lunch that day.

Taste:
Coffee Warehouse 9
Me 8

Consistency:
Coffee warehouse 10
Me 8

Presentation:
Coffee Warehouse 10
Me 6