I have placed my own spin on the classic Turkish breakfast and infused it with lovely Indian flavours, like cumin, turmeric and coriander. At its heart, it still remains, fundamentally as cilbir, just infused with spice and lots of garlic!
This is a part of my series where I make ‘more interesting breakfasts’ to liven up your Sunday brunches, or just your casual Thursday morning breakfasts where you’ve got a bit more time on your hands and want to make something more flavourful and interesting. If you want to explore that series, feel free to head over to my socials or my recipes page and filter by breakfasts!
One of my favourite other south-asian fusion recipes is my baked chicken shakshuka. My Tofu Bhurji is also a great classic indian breakfast, if you were looking for something more traditional!
This spicy Indian inspired cilbir turned out so much better than I expected and I was pleasantly surprised at how well the tempered cumin seeds worked so well in this dish.
What is cilbir and how to make it?
Cilbir is a Turkish breakfast that has a yoghurt base, with poached eggs, topped off with a chilli oil and garnished, usually with Dill. The yoghurt base is primarily infused with garlic and lemon and the chilli oil is made usually with paprika and chilli flakes.
My variation some of this, but takes it up a notch by adding cumin, garlic, turmeric and chilli powder to the warmed butter or extra virgin olive oil. Not only that, but I also temper the spices, instead of simply warming them up in a fry pan or saucepan.
Traditional cilbir uses dill, whereas my version garnishes this with coriander, and instead of using chilli flakes, I used chilli powder.
Indian people usually temper their spices in order to extract the full flavour from them. This tempered infusion is usually topped off on our dhal’s and then stirred in. It gives the dish a distinct flavour and fragrance of those spices and is termed as ‘tadka’.
You make this classic Mediterranean dish by combining your yoghurt with garlic, lemon and a little grind of salt, poaching your eggs and topping off with the tempered spices. One of the reasons I love cilbir is because of how simple and delicious it is.
Cilbir ingredients?
- Three teaspoons of yoghurt – you can use Greek, normal, or non-dairy, just make sure it is not sweetened!
- Two eggs – you can use less if you would prefer, but just make sure to adjust the yoghurt ingredients accordingly.
- Teaspoon of vinegar – This is to ensure that the eggs poach appropriately. As my recipe card outlines, you want to make sure that the water comes to a rolling boil, add the vinegar and then add your eggs.
- Half of a teaspoon of chilli powder – adjust this according to your preference.
- Half of a teaspoon of turmeric – added for colour and will make your chilli oil super nice and golden.
- Half of a teaspoon of cumin seeds – adds such a great depth of flavour to the tadka, and so highly recommended.
- Three cloves of garlic
- A lemon slice – this is to season our yoghurt, we season it with both lemon and garlic.
- Extra virgin olive oil or butter
What to serve with your cilbir?
Crunchy toasted sourdough goes excellently with this, but really, you can use any type of bread that will scoop up the yoghurt garlicy goodness. I can imagine naan going really well with this dish too! It will also go really great with some karak chai, or iced chai or my iced chai latte.
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Spicy garlic Çılbır: Turkish eggs
My own spin on the classic Turkish breakfast, infused with lovely Indian flavours, like cumin, turmeric and coriander. At its heart, it still remains, fundamentally as cilbir, just infused with spice and lots of garlic!
Equipment
- Tadhka pan optional and you can use a small saucepan instead
- small saucepan to poach your eggs
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp Yoghurt you can use Greek, normal, or non-dairy, just make sure it is not sweetened!
- 2 eggs poached
- 1 tsp of vinegar
- 1 ½ tsp of salt
- 1 ½ chilli powder
- 1 ½ turmeric
- 1 ½ cumin seeds
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 slice lemon
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil or butter
- 1 slice sourdough or your bread of choice!
Instructions
For the yoghurt mixture
- Add three tablespoons of yoghurt to a bowl
- Grate in one or two cloves of garlic
- Squeeze in some lemon
- Grind in a little bit of salt (less than a tsp) and give that a good stir
Poach eggs
- Pour a cup of water into a pan and place on a high heat until the water is rolling. Reduce the heat to medium and wait for it to reach a rolling heat.
- Crack an egg into a siv and strain the excess egg whites. Do this twice if you want to have two poached eggs
- Create a swirl into the saucepan, drop in the egg and let that cook for around 2 mins 30, for a runny egg
- Carefully remove the egg and place on to a plate. Gently pat any excess water off and place into the yoghurt mixture
Tadka / Spicy garlic chilli oil
- In your small tadka pan (or if you don't have that a regular pan is fine), heat some extra virgin olive oil up, ghee, or butter. Temper your cumin, garlic, turmeric and chilli powder.
- Once that is fragrant and combined well, lather that mixture on top of your garlic yoghurt eggs. Optionally you can also further garnish with coriander.
Notes
the nutritional information is an estimate automatically calculated using the WPRM recipe maker and I am not responsible for its veracity.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
