Welcome!
21 August 2022
Welcome to Cappadocian Chronicles!
Bilbo Baggins reminds us that adventures can be nasty, disagreeable things that make you late for dinner, so before we get too far down the road, we should probably eat a good meal. Though we can’t all share a table, we can at least share recipes. How does Menemen (Turkish Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes) sound?
I (Leah) will admit, I was looking for tomato-based recipes because of the current superabundance of that fruit in our backyard garden. Who knew that eight August-happy tomato plants could give you more tomatoes than you needed? (We should have probably seen it coming.) The recipe I found is a simple one, ready in twenty minutes or less. Courtesy of The Mediterranean Dish, here it is:
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion chopped
1 green bell pepper (Anaheim or Holland peppers will work as well), cored, seeded and chopped
Kosher salt
2 vine-ripe tomatoes
3 tablespoons tomato paste
Black pepper
½ teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon Aleppo Pepper more for later
4 large eggs, beaten
Crushed red pepper flakes, optional if you like spicy
1 French baguette for serving thickly sliced (optional)
Instructions
In a 10-inch skillet, heat 2 tablespoons over medium heat. Add the onions and peppers and season with kosher salt. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring regularly until softened (being careful not to brown the onions).
Add the tomatoes and tomato paste. Season with a little more kosher salt, black pepper, oregano, and Aleppo pepper. Cook for a few minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes soften but still hold their shape (5 to 7 minutes).
Push the tomato and pepper mixture to one side of the pan. Lower the heat to medium-low. Add the beaten egg, and cook briefly, stirring gently as needed, until the eggs are just set. Fold the tomato mixture into the eggs.
If you want a bit more of a challenge—or if you’re similarly swamped with garden tomatoes—you can also make your own tomato paste. The following instructions come from Anatolia, a delicious and richly photographed cookbook:
Slice 1 kg of over-ripe tomatoes into quarters and let them rest for a day under a cloth. Then push them through a coarse sieve to get rid of the skin and most of the seeds. Wrap the pulp in a muslin cloth (cheesecloth) and put a weight on the parcel to squeeze the water out overnight.
Stir 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 teaspoon of rock salt through the pulp, and simmer for 1 hour, stirring regularly. Put the paste in clean jars, with some more olive oil on the top, and tightly seal the lids. You can keep the paste in the fridge, topping up with more olive oil each time you dig into it.
A few notes—I used a food mill instead of a coarse sieve, which allowed me to press the tomatoes more energetically. Also, I used cherry tomatoes because they were on hand. Larger tomatoes would have a better seed-to-pulp ratio. Lastly, this paste is very flavorful and quite salty. If you do make it for the eggs, I’d recommend using less than the recipe requires. 2 Tbs did the trick for me.
And there you have it! If the internet has not deceived us all, we’ve just enjoyed an easy Turkish dish. But it doesn’t have anything to do with 4th century Cappadocia. (At this point, Becca’s jaw dropped and she exclaimed, “Well, what have we been doing this whole time?” She quickly recanted upon tasting the dish.)
Tomatoes and peppers are New World fruits, introduced fairly late in the life of the Ottoman Empire. I have to edit them out of Turkish recipe books when I’m looking for the flavors and aromas of Macrina’s world. Such is the wacky work of historical novel writing: tomatoes are out, but fish sauce from the nearest Asian store is in.
Romans were passionately fond of a fermented sauce called garum. Analysis of a production facility excavated in Pompeii apparently indicate a flavor profile similar to modern-day Vietnamese fish sauce. (And, just for fun, below is a picture of Lixus, one of the cities that produced garum when Morocco was a Roman province. My parents and I went there years ago, but it wasn’t until I jumped down the historical rabbit hole tonight that I learned about its fishy past.)
If you’d like to spread some 4th century fare out beside the modern-day Menemen, read on for Cato’s Lentils! (You might want to go easy on the fish sauce, for all its storied past.)
Lixus, Morocco
Ingredients:
8 oz green lentils
2 small leeks/ 1 onion
1 handful fresh cilantro
2 tsp fresh/ I ½ tsp dry mint
1 tsp rue (a bitter herb)
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp ground coriander
2 pinches asafetida (usually found with Indian spices)
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 Tbs honey
1 ½ Tbs fish sauce
1 Tbs reduced grape juice (or another splash of wine and honey)
1 Tbs olive oil
Instructions:
Soak lentils overnight. Rinse.
Barley cover and bring to a boil; simmer gently.
Chop and add leeks and cilantro.
Combine dry spices; add along with liquids. Cook until lentils are tender.
Who knew that eight August-happy tomato plants could give you more tomatoes than you needed? (We should have probably seen it coming.)
Making Homemade Tomato Paste: Leah sliced a kilo of over-ripe tomatoes into quarters and let them rest for a day under a cloth.
Making Homemade Tomato Paste: Leah pushed tomatoes through a coarse sieve (or this excellent food mill) to get rid of the skin and most of the seeds.
Making Homemade Tomato Paste: The frothy result of pressing the prepped tomatoes through a food mill.
Menemen with homemade bread and brie: the delicious results of Leah’s labors.
A feast with friends last January, which featured Cato’s Lentils (top left), along with Athenian cabbage slaw, Korean cucumber salad, ham, and yeasty rolls.