Hello, boys and girls!
Welcome to cooking with Varun. On my first trip to Istanbul, Turkey, my colleague, Ms. Technically Gifted Rebel, would take me around to see what there was to see, and eat what there was to eat. One Saturday evening, we went to the Galata area to eat at one of the many seafood restaurants there. We found a nice (and very busy) restaurant and waited for what felt like a few years until there was a table available. After eating some great mezze and lovely shrimp (among other things), we headed out to walk around the waterfront until we were joined by one of her friends who was taking the ferry down from the Asian side. After introductions were made, we headed to Taksim to have a drink, and because I like to pretend I'm still young and hip, then hit a club. Since we'd just had a really fun time, (and beer induced bravery) I asked my colleague's friend for her number to see if she wanted to hang out some time. Digits exchanged, we called it a night and went our separate ways.
The following weekend, I gave her a call and we met up for drinks on Saturday night. We met at the head of Istiklal street and made our way through the throng to a little winding offshoot lane that was lined with little restaurants and cozy little cafes. After turning down the pleas of invitation from half a dozen establishment owners, we finally found a place she liked and made our way to a table by the door. Once we were seated, the waiter handed us menus as we ordered our drinks. Since the menu was in Turkish, I left the ordering to the expert, and in a few minutes, the waiter plopped a platter of assorted cheeses on our table. From stringy to crumbly to strong to downright strange, we sipped our drinks and worked (she worked, I plodded) our way through the cheese platter all the while typing into Google Translate to make conversation. Once we were done (I was quite relieved at this point; it's really hard to communicate without a common language!), we made our way to the club we had hit last week. This was a big plus, since the club was really loud so making awkward broken conversation wasn't even an option! As we walked to the club through the orange glow of the dimly lit lanes, she began to hum and skip merrily down the cobbled path and soon had me skipping too. A couple of hours later, Hums-as-she-skips and I fell out of the club, and we made our way to the taxi stand on shaky legs and parted company.
Needless to say, my hangover the next day was something fierce and all the water and orange juice in the world couldn't make it go away!
This recipe, would have been the perfect hangover breakfast (with the added advantage of a nice mature cheddar instead of the Turkish alternatives), and it is regretful that I did not have access to it at the time. You, on the other hand, can now have it whenever you please!
For my Cheesy Butter Eggs, you will need the following:
| Eggs | 4 |
| Butter | massive blob |
| Cheese | big chunk/6 slices |
| Milk | big splash |
| Salt | to taste |
| Pepper | to taste |
Prep:
- Crack the eggs open in a bowl.
- Beat them until fluffy.
- Grate/cut the cheese into smallish pieces.
Method:
- Turn on the gas.
- Bung a pan on.
- Plop in the butter.
- Watch it melt into a gorgeous golden pool.
- Splash in the milk.
- Toss in the cheese.
- Move the contents around until the cheese melts.
- Pour in the eggs.
- Mix to combine the cheese sauce with the eggs.
- Add salt and pepper to taste (careful with the salt, the cheese is already salty!).
- Cook until the eggs reach your desired level of cooked.
- Turn the gas off.
- Serve with toast (and bacon, and sausages, and hash browns).
- Stuff face.
- Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.
Tip: I prefer a nice mature cheddar cheese for this, but most cheeses will work as long as they are not stringy (like mozzarella).
And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!
