Serve with crusty bread and don’t use a fork: Özge Kalvo’s recipe for Turkish menemen

Cooking was not Özge Kalvo’s first career choice: “My original plan was to be a doctor or a dentist.”
But a chance encounter with the head of the gastronomy program at Yeditepe University was enough to convince Kalvo to pursue her culinary passion and enrol in the undergraduate gastronomy course instead.
“This is a typical story, I always cooked. Always with my mother, my grandmothers, and Sunday breakfasts with my father, and always learning, always watching Ready Steady Cook, even though I couldn’t understand the English,” says Kalvo. It was a good way to learn.
After finishing her degree, Kalvo worked for two years at restaurant Gram in Istanbul. In 2015, as the result of a year-long Australian cultural festival in Turkey, a number of Australian chefs and hospitality players visited Gram, including chef Matt Stone, Joost Bakker (founder of Future Food System) and Ross Close (founder of wine company Battle of the Wines). “So I went to them, I said: I want to work in Australia.”
Close invited Kalvo to cook in Melbourne for an event showcasing Turkish and Australian wines.
“We cooked for 100 people in three days in a town hall kitchen with no equipment. It was wonderful,” says Kalvo. “I moved to Sydney a few months later.”
In the harbour city, Kalvo worked at modern Turkish restaurants Efendy and Anason before joining wood-fire restaurant Ester in 2019.
“Ester was a dream. It was my real school for cooking,” says Kalvo. “They combined so many cuisines, styles, ingredients, techniques, and the wood fire. It was so much fun. It was so free.”
For staff meals, Kalvo would serve up Turkish flavours, where the predominant protein – lamb – earned her the moniker “lamb queen”. She co-opted that affectionate nickname for two pop-up dinners at Ester.
“It might look like Ester but it is Turkish,” says Kalvo.She put lamb sweetbread borek with hot sauce on the menu, and chicken rice mussels with smoky whey and fermented wheat sorbet – a spin on midye dolma (Turkish stuffed mussels). Meanwhile for vegetarians she made “içli köfte”, fried dough balls stuffed with fermented mushrooms instead of the traditional ground meat.
“There is always the question: what is the story? What do I want it to mean?… It can be my grandmother’s recipes but it is also from here, from my experience,” Kalvo says of her dish development process.
She left Ester in 2023 to take up the role of sous chef at Marrickville’s Baba’s Place, and her pop-up project has taken a pause – but her passion has not. Kalvo takes great pleasure in seeing diners taste Turkish flavours remixed and redefined in new and playful ways. “Hopefully this is the path to opening a restaurant. I can’t call it Turkish. There is no other name for it except my food.”
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Kalvo’s menemen is her own play on the classic Turkish dish. The ingredients are similar to shakshuka, however the eggs are scrambled into the base instead of cooked on top, which means there’s no need to transfer from stove top to oven. “Everyone in Turkey has their unique recipe and preference. How I like it is more on the tomato side, less eggs, with a small amount of onion, garlic and Turkish pastrami [pastirma],” she says.
It is a simple, homely recipe that is designed to be cooked quickly and shared. “It is best with fresh crusty bread. Tear a piece, dip it in. Don’t use a fork.”
To turn it into a proper Turkish breakfast spread, she suggests inviting over friends and family and stocking up on sides and condiments. “You will need a couple of different jams, extra feta, kefalograviera [cheese], black and green olives, sliced tomato and cucumber, butter, honey with kaymak clotted cream, simit sesame seed Turkish bagels – and of course black tea.”
Prep 10 min
Cook 15 min
Serves 2
20g unsalted butter
30ml olive oil
1 red shallot, chopped1 yellow banana pepper, chopped1 garlic clove, minced50g pastirma (Turkish pastrami), sujuk or chorizo1 tin chopped tomatoes or 2 ripe tomatoes, chopped4 eggs
1 tsp aleppo chilli
50g feta
2 crusty bread rolls
Place a medium fry pan over medium heat. Warm the butter and oil for about one minute, until the butter has melted and begins to foam.
Add the shallot and saute for three to four minutes, stirring, until soft and translucent.
Add the banana pepper and saute for another three to four minutes until softened.
Add the garlic, stir, and saute for one minute.
Add the pastirma and saute for two minutes until the fat has rendered.
Add the tomatoes, stirring to incorporate. Simmer for two to three minutes, then season with salt and pepper.
While the tomatoes are simmering, whisk the eggs in a large bowl.
Increase the pan heat to high. Add the eggs and stir them through the tomato mix, allowing them to scramble, and cook for two minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Sprinkle the aleppo pepper and crumble the feta over the eggs. Serve immediately in the pan, with crusty bread on the side for dipping.