What spices go with eggs

Recorded for enriched dough generally, which is where mahleb lives. Tsoureki, choereg and kahk are all egg-and-butter doughs, and the pairing is structural rather than decorative: an enriched sweet dough is rich and one-dimensional, and mahleb’s bitterness gives it something to push against. A bread made without it tastes flat rather than merely less almondy.

How: Ground into an enriched Easter bread dough; In choereg and other sweet breads

Add alongside: Green cardamom, Aniseed, Orange

• Grind it fresh — the gap between freshly ground and shop-ground mahleb is unusually wide, because the oil carrying the aroma is also what goes rancid.

Shakshuka, huevos rancheros, devilled eggs and Spanish tortilla all land here. Egg yolk fat carries the fat-soluble carotenoids well, so paprika colours and flavours in one step — but it must go into the oil or the sauce first, because sprinkled on at the end it is raw.

Add alongside: Onion, Tomato, Cumin

The defining Basque use and the clearest illustration of what this chilli is for. Piperade is eggs with peppers, onion and Espelette, and the chilli is seasoning the eggs the way black pepper would elsewhere in France — visible as flecks, warming rather than hot. Eggs are bland and fatty enough to carry a mild fruity chilli without any of it being lost.

How: Piperade; Dusted over fried or scrambled eggs; In an omelette

Add alongside: Paprika, Garlic, Black pepper

Eggs are rich and mild and take a visible finishing spice well. Scattered over fried or poached eggs with butter or oil, Aleppo pepper gives colour, a slow warmth and a fruitiness that ordinary chilli flakes cannot.

How: In the butter poured over Turkish poached eggs; Scattered over fried eggs with yoghurt

Add alongside: Yoghurt, Mint, Sumac

The masala omelette base. Turmeric bloomed in the pan before the egg goes in adds an earthy depth and deepens the yellow; stirred into raw egg it stays bitter and chalky, which is the commonest way this goes wrong.

Add alongside: Cumin, Chilli powder, Coriander leaf

• Bloom it first. Raw turmeric in a two-minute egg dish tastes raw.

Both traditions that spice eggs with pepper choose white over black — French for the appearance of a pale scramble, Chinese for the clean sharpness in an egg drop soup. In a dish this pale, black pepper reads as burnt specks.

Add alongside: Nutmeg, Parsley, Sesame seed