Antakya, Turkey, is 20 miles from the Syrian border, and while planning my trip, the U.S. Department of State had issued a dire travel advisory. Not discouraged, I flew in from Istanbul and found a charming, sleepy Turkish town.

A town with ancient bakeries producing dimpled flatbreads called pide ekmeği. Shops in the central market specializing in kunefe (bird’s nest threads of dough cooked with cheese and sugar syrup), homemade marshmallow for dipping shortbread-­style cookies, a version of maamoul cookies with an impossibly thin crust and a perfumed date filling, and tepsi kebabi, a meat pie that resembles a pizza minus the crust.

When it comes to breakfast in Turkey, one immediately thinks of menemen, eggs scrambled with tomato and peppers. In any breakfast buffet or café, this is a standard offering. But on my last day in Antakya, we stopped by the restaurant Antakya Kahvalti Evi and sat in a charming leafy courtyard with a dozen different dishes on offer—from olives, tomatoes and cucumber to breads, fruit, cheese and greens.

Brunch at Antakya Kahvalti Evi involves a spread of a dozen dishes served in a sunny courtyard.

The star, however, was yoğurtlu yumurta, eggs scrambled with a salty yogurt. I stopped into the kitchen and watched one of the cooks start with oil and a lot of yogurt. He then whisked in two eggs in a nonstick pan over high heat. Done. And delicious.

Over the years, I have come to love the Basque recipe for scrambled eggs, which cooks them in extra-virgin olive oil—I use 2 tablespoons for four eggs. Butter, given its water content, does not heat up as quickly as oil. This higher heat turns the water in eggs to steam quickly, providing a light, curdy style of scrambled eggs that cooks in seconds.

With that lesson in mind, we began our version of yogurt eggs with a mix of oil and butter, the former for heat and the latter for flavor. We loved the yogurt, but used just ½ cup for eight eggs so as not to overpower the main ingredient.

Finally, we whisked the yogurt (you could use crème fraîche, sour cream or even mascarpone) into the eggs before cooking since the cooking time is not long enough to thoroughly combine ingredients in the pan.

The result is a richer scramble—one with a nice tang—and eggs that have a soft, creamy texture. In Turkey, almost everything goes better with yogurt.