Halal-conscious recipe
Turkish eggs with garlic yogurt and chilli butter
Elena Silcock's Turkish eggs for two: poached eggs on garlicky lemon yogurt, drizzled with chilli butter and finished with sumac and coriander, with a gelatine-free Greek yogurt and a note on the poaching vinegar.
Each method follows published technique for the dish, and every Halal substitution is checked against the ingredient pages we cite. Photographs come from our ingredient library rather than the finished dish.
Photo: Jumbocombo0811 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Why Halal checks matter here
The base is 200 g of Greek yogurt, which needs a gelatin check, and the eggs are poached in water with 1 tbsp of white wine vinegar, which is a scholarly difference.
Two eggs are poached and set on a bowl of Greek yogurt whisked with garlic, lemon juice and seasoning, then drizzled with butter that has been gently infused with sliced red chilli and finished with sumac and coriander leaves. The source calls them Turkish eggs. The yogurt should have no gelatin on its label, and the white wine vinegar in the poaching water is a scholarly difference (see vinegar), so our version makes it optional.
It follows Elena Silcock's Turkish eggs for BBC Good Food, which serves two and takes about 20 minutes. Start the chilli butter first, on a very low heat, so it infuses while you poach the eggs.
Serve with toast.
Halal-critical ingredients
- Greek yogurt Plain yogurt is milk fermented with cultures, but gelatin turns up in set, low-fat and dessert yogurts. Choose a yogurt with no gelatin on the label. See Yogurt.
- White wine vinegar Wine vinegar is a scholarly difference: the Hanafi school, Indonesia's MUI and IslamQA permit it, while the classical Shafi'i rule and Malaysia's 2006 fatwa do not. Use it only if your school accepts it. See Vinegar.
Safe substitutes
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar in the poaching water → Leave it out (our swap)
Allergens
milk (butter, Greek yogurt), eggs, gluten (the toast to serve)
Ingredients
Turkish eggs
- 1 red chilli, finely sliced
- 50 g butter
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 200 g Greek yogurt with no gelatine
- ½ lemon, juiced
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar (optional; see the Halal note)
- 2 medium eggs
- 2 tsp sumac
- small pack coriander leaves, picked
- to serve toast
Method
- Infuse the chilli butter. Put the chilli and butter in a small pan and melt on a very gentle heat so the chilli flavour infuses while you make the rest of the dish.
- Season the yogurt. Whisk the garlic into the yogurt, season well and add the lemon juice.
- Poach the eggs. Bring a large pan of water to a simmer and add the vinegar, if using. Make a swirl with a large spoon, crack each egg into the water and poach for 3 minutes until set, then drain on kitchen paper.
- Serve. Put half the yogurt in each bowl, add a poached egg to each and drizzle with the chilli butter. Season, top with the sumac and coriander leaves, and serve with toast.
How this recipe was researched
Method adapted from BBC Good Food's 'Turkish eggs' by Elena Silcock (serves 2: a finely sliced red chilli melted very gently with 50 g butter to infuse; a crushed garlic clove whisked into 200 g Greek yogurt, seasoned, with the juice of half a lemon; 2 medium eggs cracked into a swirl of simmering water with 1 tbsp white wine vinegar and poached 3 minutes, then drained on kitchen paper; half the yogurt in each bowl, an egg on each, the chilli butter drizzled over, 2 tsp sumac and a small pack of coriander leaves on top, with toast). We specified a Greek yogurt with no gelatine; the vinegar is optional on our page, as some schools do not accept wine vinegar. The second published step is split at its natural break between the yogurt and the eggs. Nothing else needed changing. The source tags it vegetarian. Timings follow the published technique rather than a kitchen test.
Technique and ingredient sources
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Turkish eggs — BBC Good Food
Retrieved:
By Elena Silcock, tagged vegetarian. Serves 2, prep 10 minutes, cook 10 minutes: chilli infused in melted butter; garlic, seasoning and lemon juice in Greek yogurt; eggs poached 3 minutes in simmering water with white wine vinegar; served on the yogurt with chilli butter, sumac and coriander, with toast. We specified a gelatine-free yogurt and made the vinegar optional.
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Yogurt analysis — isithalal.food
Retrieved:
Where gelatin turns up in yogurt.