Kedgeree started as khichdi, a rice and lentil dish eaten across South Asia for centuries. The East India Company took the lentils out, put smoked fish and boiled eggs in, and carried it home to British breakfast tables. Eliza Acton was printing a fish version by 1845.
What got lost on the way was texture. Kedgeree is soft the whole way through: soft rice, soft fish, soft egg, butter. Bombay Chilli Crunch puts the crunch back and the India back at the same time. Curry leaves and crispy chickpeas straight over the top, doing the job the curry powder was only ever gesturing at.
40 mins. Serves 4.
Ingredients
- 300g Basmati rice
- 400g Smoked cod, or hot smoked trout
- 4 Eggs
- 2 dessertspoons Plateit Bombay Chilli Crunch
- 1 Brown onion, finely sliced
- 50g Butter
- 1 tsp Ground turmeric
- 1 tsp Garam masala
- 2 Bay leaves
- 400ml Milk, only if you are poaching cod
- 1 Lemon
- Coriander and flat leaf parsley, a large handful of each
- Salt
Method
- Smoked cod gets poached: into a wide pan with the milk and bay leaves, barely simmering, 8 mins, until it flakes at a fork. Lift it out and keep the milk. Hot smoked trout skips all of this. Just flake it.
- Eggs into boiling water for 7 mins. Straight into cold water, then peel and quarter.
- Butter into a heavy pan, onion in over low heat, 10 mins, until soft and sweet with no colour.
- Turmeric and garam masala in for a minute, until they smell cooked rather than dusty.
- Rice in, stirred through the butter until every grain takes the colour. 600ml of the poaching milk topped up with water, or plain water for the trout version. Salt it properly.
- Lid on, lowest heat, 12 mins. Off the heat, lid still on, another 10. Do not lift it to check.
- Fork it through. Fish in, big flakes, folded once. Handle it twice and you have made fish paste.
- Eggs on top, herbs over, lemon squeezed across. 2 dessertspoons of Plateit Bombay Chilli Crunch spooned over the lot at the table.
Do this: The crunch goes on at the table, never stirred through. Fold it in and the chickpeas soften in the steam inside a minute, which is the one thing this dish cannot afford.
Tip: Seven minute eggs. Hard yolks are the traditional version and they are drier than they need to be. A jammy one breaks into the rice and does half the work of the butter.
Swap it: Smoked haddock is the original. Finnan haddie is what made the dish in the first place, if your fishmonger can get it.