Çılbır with Quark and Herbs
Poached eggs on garlic quark, with chilli butter and a heavy herb mix
Çılbır is a Turkish breakfast dish. Poached eggs sit on thick garlic yoghurt. Hot chilli butter goes over the top. This version uses German Speisequark in place of strained yoghurt. Quark holds more protein than yoghurt for the same weight, because the whey is drained out. This version also adds a large quantity of fresh dill, mint and coriander to the quark base. The dish is built to a low salt target: the quark is the only salted component, and the bread is served at the side and not under the dish.
Why the first revision
First version. Recorded a quark build of çılbır that was made to a low salt target and to a high protein target. The herb quantity is much larger than a garnish, so it is written into the quark base and not into the topping.
Quark base
5 steps- 1 A
Take the quark out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before you cook. The quark must be cool, not cold.
Cold quark makes the egg yolk set where it touches the base.
Time 30 min - 2 A
Add the garlic, the milk, the olive oil and the salt to the quark.
- 3 A
Whisk the quark for 60 seconds. Stop when the quark falls off the whisk in a ribbon.
Time 1 minWork whisking - 4 A
Taste the quark now. The egg makes the taste of the quark weaker. Add salt only if you must.
- 5 A
Add the dill, the mint and the coriander to the quark. Keep 2 g of each herb for the top.
Eggs
4 steps- 6 B
Fill a wide pan with water to a depth of 60 mm. Heat the water to 82 °C. No bubble must break the surface.
Temp 83 °C - 7 B
Break each egg into a fine sieve. Let the thin white run out. Put each egg into a small cup.
Time 1 minTool fine sieve - 8 B
- 9 B
Lift the eggs out with a slotted spoon. Put them on kitchen paper. Wet eggs make the quark thin.
Chilli butter
2 steps- 10 C
Melt the butter in a small pan on medium heat. Heat it for 3 minutes, until the milk solids are brown.
Time 3 min - 11 C
Take the pan off the heat. Wait 5 seconds. Add the pul biber and the dried mint. Stir one time.
The butter must not be on the heat. Dried chilli burns above 150 °C.
Work Blooming
To serve
3 steps- 12 D
Put the quark in a shallow bowl. Spread it wide. Make a hollow in the middle with the back of a spoon.
- 13 D
Put the eggs in the hollow. Pour the chilli butter over the eggs.
- 14 D
Add the last herbs, the sumac and the black pepper. Serve now. Serve the bread at the side.
The dish must be eaten in the first 2 minutes. The quark releases water after that.
Notes
5A common method puts the sieve across the top of the pan, above the water, with a lid on. Do not use it for this dish.
Water poaching has a temperature limit. Water at 82 °C cannot make the egg hotter than 82 °C.
Steam has no such limit. Steam is at 100 °C. Condensing steam also moves heat much faster than water at 82 °C. The white goes past the set point before the yolk is ready.
Drops of condensed water also fall from the lid at 100 °C. Each drop overcooks one spot on the white.
If you want to use the sieve as the vessel, put the sieve into the water. Oil the mesh first. Egg white bonds to bare steel when it sets.
Reduced sodium table salt is mostly potassium chloride. It is sold in Germany as Diätsalz. Do not use it in this dish.
Potassium chloride tastes salty, but it also tastes bitter and metallic. The taste is clear against a plain dairy base like quark.
Stock powder and reduced salt seasoning blends often hold potassium chloride as well. Read the list of contents.
To cut salt in this dish, use acid and chilli instead. Lemon juice and pul biber both raise the perceived salt level without any sodium.
Both work. The fat level changes the method.
Speisequark at 20 percent or 40 percent Fett i. Tr. needs about 15 ml of milk for each 250 g. It whisks smooth in about 60 seconds.
Magerquark needs about 20 ml to 25 ml of milk for each 250 g. It needs longer whisking. Magerquark is chalky because it has almost no fat. Particles above 25 micrometres are felt as grit on the tongue. Shear breaks them down and milk gives the water phase back.
Strained yoghurt is the original ingredient. It holds less protein for the same weight.
Nobody measured this dish. These figures are calculated from the values printed on the packs.
With 250 g Speisequark and 2 eggs, and no bread: about 43 g protein and about 340 mg sodium.
With one slice of sourdough at the side: about 48 g protein and about 550 mg sodium.
The quark holds about 80 mg sodium in 250 g. The salt in the recipe holds about 120 mg. Bread is the largest single source of sodium in the dish.
Weigh a batch and log it as an experiment to replace these numbers.
Additions that carry almost no sodium:
- Garlic cut into thin slices and fried in the butter before the chilli goes in.
- Pomegranate molasses, 5 ml, poured over the top.
- Urfa biber in place of pul biber. It is darker and tastes of smoke and raisin.
- More soft herbs. Raise the dill, mint and coriander to 15 g each.
- A second egg yolk, raw, put in at the end.
- Toasted pine nuts, 10 g.
Additions that raise the protein:
- Cold cooked chicken thigh, torn, 100 g. This takes the dish above 60 g protein.
- Chickpeas fried hard in the same butter, 60 g.
Additions that cost a lot of sodium:
- Sucuk or pastırma, fried and put over the top. This is the standard Turkish addition. Cured beef holds more than 1000 mg sodium in 50 g. Plan the rest of the day around it.
- Smoked trout, 60 g. It is cured, so count the sodium.
- Za'atar. Most blends hold salt. Read the list of contents.
Other uses for the same quark base:
- As a marinade for chicken. Quark holds more protein and less water than yoghurt, so it stays on the meat better.
- Whisked into hot mashed potato at the end.
- Quark-Öl-Teig: quark, oil, flour and baking powder make a dough that needs no proving.
The science
4What is actually happening in the dish, and why the techniques work.
Quark is an acid-set fresh cheese. The culture takes the milk to pH 4.6. This is the isoelectric point of casein. At this pH the casein has no net charge, so the protein comes out of suspension and makes a gel. The whey is then drained out.
Heat makes the casein network contract more. Water is pushed out of the gel. This is syneresis. The quark then looks wet and feels like wet sand.
Fat globules break up the casein network and slow this down. Speisequark has fat, so it resists better than Magerquark. Magerquark holds about 0.2 percent fat and has almost no protection.
Serve the quark at room temperature. Do not warm it in a pan.
Egg white has two parts. Thick albumen is a gel. Ovomucin fibres hold it together. Thin albumen is mostly water with protein in it.
An egg gets more thin albumen as it ages. The ovomucin complexes come apart. This is why an old egg poaches into loose threads.
The sieve removes the thin albumen. Only the part that holds its shape stays. This makes a vinegar addition unnecessary. It also makes a water vortex unnecessary. Both of those methods only correct the same problem.
The proteins of an egg set at different temperatures. Ovotransferrin sets between 61 °C and 65 °C. Ovalbumin sets near 80 °C. The livetins of the yolk start to set near 65 °C.
Water at 82 °C acts as a thermostat. The egg cannot become hotter than the water. This gives about 30 seconds between a set white and a solid yolk.
Water at a full boil removes that margin. The white becomes rubber before the yolk is correct.
Capsaicinoids and the carotenoid colour of pul biber dissolve in fat. They move into hot butter in seconds.
Dried chilli also holds sugar. Sugar burns above 150 °C. Dried mint holds menthone and carvone. These are volatile and leave the pan as vapour.
Browned butter off the heat sits near 120 °C to 130 °C. This is hot enough to take out the colour and the heat. It is not hot enough to burn the sugar or to drive off the mint.