Lountza me Avga Recipe (Cypriot Smoked Pork with Eggs)

Lountza is a Cypriot cured and smoked pork tenderloin, brined then finished with a smoke that gives it a flavour somewhere between good bacon and a mild ham. Fried in its own rendering fat until the edges crisp, then used as the cooking medium for eggs in the same pan, it makes one of the most straightforward and most loved Cypriot breakfasts.

There is barely a recipe here, which is exactly the point. Buy lountza sliced reasonably thick, from a Cypriot or Greek delicatessen, and the technique is simply knowing to fry the meat first, alone, until it has given up its fat, before the eggs go anywhere near the pan.

It sits alongside strapatsada and halloumi with eggs as one of the standard savoury breakfasts across Cyprus and Greece, eaten any time of day rather than strictly in the morning.

Key preparation steps

1. Fry the lountza slices alone first, until the fat renders and the edges crisp.
2. Push the meat to one side of the pan.
3. Crack the eggs directly into the rendered fat.
4. Cook the eggs to your liking and serve straight from the pan.

Buying lountza

Lountza is sold sliced, usually a little thicker than bacon, from Greek or Cypriot delicatessens and some larger supermarkets with a good deli counter. It should look pale pink with a visible ring of fat and smell faintly smoky rather than sharply cured.

If you cannot find genuine lountza, a good quality smoked pork loin bacon, cut thick, is the closest reasonable substitute, though the flavour profile will be milder and less distinctly smoked.

Why the meat goes in first, alone

Lountza has enough fat running through it to render properly in a dry pan over a few minutes, and that rendered fat becomes the cooking medium for the eggs. Adding oil defeats the purpose, since the whole appeal is eggs that have taken on the specific flavour of the smoked pork fat.

Fry the slices over a medium heat until the fat has visibly rendered and the edges have started to crisp and colour, which takes about four to five minutes. Only then does anything else go into the pan.

Cooking the eggs

Push the lountza to one side, or lift it out and keep it warm if your pan is small, and crack the eggs directly into the fat left behind. Fry them exactly as you would any other fried eggs, to soft or firm yolks as you prefer.

Return the lountza to the pan alongside the cooked eggs for the final minute simply to bring everything back up to serving temperature together, and serve straight from the pan with bread to mop up the yolk and fat.

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