Çilbir

If you ever want to have an "alaturka" breakfast rather than have chai (tea) or menemen (vegetable omelette) or even simit (a bread ring decorated with sesame), Çilbir is the one that will leave a deep impression on you.

Pronounced Chilbir (the Ç is pronounced CH in Turkish), it is one or two poached eggs served over salted yogurt, all drizzled with clarified butter (not melted butter as it often appears) and paprika. What is said a strong breakfast.

This dish has served as the basis for other very popular dishes in the Balkans that follow, with their pluses and minuses, the same guidelines. Also indicate that it is a very old recipe, practiced as a breakfast by the first Ottomans of the fourteenth century.

INGREDIENTS (1 person):

• 1 or 2 eggs (depending on how hungry you are)
• 1 cup of Greek yogurt
• 2 heaping tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 clove garlic
• Sweet paprika and hot paprika
• Salt
• Ground black pepper

First we are going to prepare the yogurt. It does not heat up but it is preferable that it is at room temperature. It is poured into a bowl and stirred with a peeled but uncut clove of garlic - just to get a bit of the flavor - and a pinch of salt. Let it rest for about 15 minutes.

Second, we are going to clarify the butter. To do this, we heat it in a saucepan over very low heat until it melts. We remove from the fire and let it rest. Next, we remove the foam that has formed on the surface, reserve the semi-transparent liquefied part in a separate container (which we separate by simple decantation) and discard the white part that has remained at the bottom (the serum). Mix the sweet and spicy paprika (if we want it to be a little hot, of course, if we don't just leave it with the spicy) and reserve.

Poached eggs are achieved by coagulating the white while the yolk remains liquid and therefore can be "wet" as in the case of fried eggs. To make poached eggs I use a ladle of the kind used to serve soup. I break the shell and pour the contents into the ladle so that the white covers the yolk. I add a pinch of salt and if you want to make it spicy, a little Tabasco sauce, pepper, hot pepper, chili etc.

Meanwhile, I have boiled a saucepan with water and a generous stream of vinegar. The vinegar will serve to curdle the egg white faster.

I place the ladle with the egg into the boiling water. It is best to place the metal of the ladle touching the boiling water but not allowing the water to spurt inside. When the white begins to take on a whitish color, it can be completely submerged. Rest assured, the vinegar will ensure that the egg does not "dilute" in the water.

When the white has turned white, take out and reserve. The yolk will still be liquid unless you have kept it for more than 2 or 3 minutes.

Now we are going to assemble the plate.

First we put the poached eggs. Above the white but without covering the yolks we place the yogurt without the garlic clove.

Next we pour over the top, again respecting the yolks, the clarified butter to which we have added the paprika.

We season the yolks and if we want the whole and ready to eat with a few slices of bread. They are really yummy.