Quick meals for one - an Anatolian omelette

"Vorpi jash" means "the orphan's meal", referring to its simple ingredients, says Arto der Haroutunian in Vegetarian Dishes from the Middle East, one of my favourite cookbooks. "For centuries the Anatolian peasants lived, and still do, on such dishes."

In the book the recipe starts with 8 eggs and serves 3-4. This recipe cuts it down to a single serving.

First make the yoghurt sauce. (You may wish to go very easy on the garlic, though I suspect even just a little makes a flavoursome difference.)

Mix a tiny clove of garlic, crushed, and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Add 75ml plain yogurt (full-fat Greek yogurt is the best, imho). If you have a spring onion on hand, finely chop it and add. Sprinkle with 1/8 tsp dried mint.

Now for the eggy part -

In a bowl, mix together 2 eggs, 2 Tbsp milk, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp black pepper; beat lightly until just blended. 

Melt 1 Tbsp butter in a frying pan over moderate heat. Carefully pour in the mixture, stir, and leave to cook for a few minutes till the top is just set. (I turned the heat to low and put a plate over the pan to help the top set.)

Transfer onto the nice warm plate - the photo shows it flipped over - and add the yogurt sauce. Eat.


Over the years the people I cook for have come to have yogurt with a lot of dishes - curry, chili, to garnish soups - but this is the first time I've tried it with eggs. I put in rather too much garlic and next time will finely grate just the tip of a clove.

Also I'll use a slightly larger frying pan, and will give the egg mixture a good stir at the start. The golden bottom does look lovely, so flipping it onto the plate is worth the effort.

The chopped spring onion (green bit) will also add to the eye-appeal.

This is really quick to make and has protein, calcium, and all sorts of other nutritional necessities. From the eggs:  "vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B12, vitamin D, selenium and iodine. They also contain vitamin A and a number of other B vitamins including folate, biotin, pantothenic acid and choline, and other essential minerals and trace elements, including phosphorus."

84 kcal per medium egg
5.7g fat, of which 5.6g saturated fat [and the butter will increase this!]
8.3g protein

From the yogurt (75g; based on these values for full-fat greek yogurt)
82 kcal
6.4g fat, of which 4.2g saturates
3.6g carbohydrates, of which 3.5g are sugars [milk contains lactose]
0g dietary fibre
2.8g protein

Perhaps a bit high in fat for the modern diet, but those calories would have been important to the hard-working peasant.