Turkish Eggs Get A Toasty Upgrade With Store-Bought Brown Butter

Turkish eggs, aka çılbır, are like the dairy-heavy counterpart of eggs in Purgatory or shakshuka — instead of your eggs being embedded in spicy tomato sauce, they're instead plopped onto a plate of garlic-flavored yogurt. This Turkish eggs recipe from Mashed developer Carlos Leo may look rather simple as the ingredients list is a short one, but Leo is pretty picky about those ingredients. For one thing, he insists that either smoked chili flakes or Aleppo pepper be used, describing the former as "a bit spicy" and the latter as having "a wonderful smoky flavor but mild [and] not spicy." He does not accept the use of one more easily-sourced substitute, however, as he insists that "Smoked paprika won't be the same."

Leo also likes to use store-bought brown butter as he says it "tastes much better than homemade" and claims, "The flavor is more complex: sweeter, more toasted, and richer." He also touts the fact that he can just use the amount that he needs and says the stuff doesn't even need to be refrigerated.

Depending on where you shop, you may not be able to find brown butter in your grocery store. Yes, you can order it online, but it can be pretty pricey there — the brand Leo uses, Black & Bolyard, sells for over $13 for a 5-ounce jar on Amazon. There is a much cheaper alternative, however: Brown it yourself.

DIY brown butter is really pretty simple. One fairly easy way to make it is to melt a stick of butter in a pan on the stovetop (it helps to cut it into chunks first). After the butter melts, you keep cooking and stirring it over medium heat until it's browned. An even easier method involves browning your butter in the microwave. Again, chop the butter into chunks, put it in a bowl, cover it, and cook it. As Leo's Turkish eggs recipe only calls for 2 tablespoons of browned butter, a ½-cup stick should be more than enough and will leave plenty for you to use in baking or to melt over your popcorn to make it all fancy and stuff.