Turkish Scrambled Eggs: Menemen

This is not a typical dish of eggs with some vegetables mixed in, but rather a dish of scrambled eggs more heavily laden with finely chopped vegetables. The "heat level" should be tolerable for just about everyone, except for those who like lots of heat; in which case, you can use the seeds in the chili pepper, and double the amount of cayenne pepper. Turks have this dish with pita bread (Turkish: "pide") or round sesame seed bread (Turkish: "simit"), and additionally, they may serve the eggs with black olives, feta-like cheese, or garlicky yogurt. The Turkish name for this dish is, "menemen," pronounced as if, "meh-nah-men."

Ingredients:

6 eggs, beaten
1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 green or yellow bell pepper, finely chopped
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 jalapeño or serrano chili pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground Aleppo pepper* or 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2/3 cup tomato, chopped (or drained canned chopped tomatoes)
2/3 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons chopped parsley (+ sprigs for garnish, if desired)

In a skillet, heat the oil over low heat, add the butter. When the butter is melted, mix it well with the oil, then add the onion, the bell peppers and the chili pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes, then add the garlic and the tomatoes. Cook until the vegetables are soft, about another 6 to 8 minutes, stirring as necessary to keep any of the mixture from burning. Add the ground Aleppo or cayenne pepper, the oregano, the chopped parsley and the salt. Add the eggs and mix them into the other ingredients. Keep stirring the egg/vegetable mixture with a fork or a spatula until the eggs are cooked. If, by chance, you live near a Turkish bakery, you can buy some "simit bread," also called, by some, "Turkish bagels." I used two types of bread in the photo below, but neither is Turkish.

* Aleppo pepper is a ground chili pepper used in some Middle Eastern and eastern Mediterranean cooking. It is reddish or orangish in color and typically it is not mouth-blistering in heat. Aleppo is available in some supermarkets, spice shops or shops handling Middle Eastern food products.

WORD HISTORY:
Range-This word, related to "rank," ^ has a very complicated history in terms of meaning developments, but it goes back to Indo European "krengh," which meant "to turn or to bend," seemingly derived from Indo European "sker," the principle meaning of which was "to cut," but with a secondary meaning of "to bend, to curve," perhaps from the notion of cutting something off and then forming it into a particular shape, and thus seen as the result of "cutting." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "khrengaz," meaning "that which is curved, a bent object." This gave Frankish, a Germanic dialect, "hring" ("ring," an object bent into a circular form), which was then borrowed into Old French as "reng," which then became "ranc." At this time it took on the meaning "row, line," but exactly why this meaning developed is unclear. This then gave Old French the verb, "rengier," meaning, "to arrange in a row, to place in order." This was borrowed into English in the early 1200s as "rengen," which "seems" to have been influenced in spelling by the French spelling change from "rengier" to "ranger." The noun, too, was borrowed in the early 1200s, with the meaning, "row of hunters, row of soldiers." This then began to develop into the meaning, "hunters 'ranging' over an area," and it further influenced the meaning of the noun to, "a large area (initially for hunting)," but the meaning of, "in a row," did not die out, but rather came to be applied to mountains and hills, "a range of mountains; mountain range." The noun also developed the sense, "from one point to another point ('a range');" thus, the modern use in, for example, "range of options." From the 'distance' idea also came the meaning, "the distance (the range) a shot from a gun could go;" which then provided the basis for, "place for gun firing practice (rifle or gun range)." Why the cooking device/appliance is called a "range" is not known, although initially many fireplaces had "rows" of hooks for pots, and the idea might have transferred to the stove with openings on the top to cook food.    

^ "Rank" was derived from Germanic, but it was borrowed by English (and by German as, "Rang") from French, which had gotten it from Frankish, the language of the Germanic tribe, the Franks.