Kedgeree

Kedgeree is one of my favourite meals… it can be as simple as anything or as luxurious as you please! Basically it is a saffron and spice curry rice dish with smoked fish flaked into it and hard-boiled eggs… I love it with sour cream and dill and a sprinkle of other herbs but really you can do whatever you like, add plain rather than smoked fish, use prawns, add butter or ghee or cream, make it wetter or drier, add flaked almonds, leave out the spices, add

I’m chopped herbs, chopped onions, sliced tomatoes… really it is that sort of thing.

It might seem that it is an Anglo-Indian dish dating from the years of the Raj, and you might find that it was originally called kichri or something similar… well it was popular at the time of the British Empire, but in fact it is a much older addition to English cuisine, dating from at least the fourteenth century!

I’m doing some research on Eliza Acton who published her cookery book in 1845 and she ahs a recipe for ‘Kedgeree, or Kidgeree, an Indian breakfast dish’.

Here is her way of cooking it:

• 4 oz cooked rice
• 4 oz cooked fish (turbot, brill, salmon, sole, John Dory or shrimps)’taken clear of skin and bone, and divided into very small flakes or scallops’
•  1- 2 oz butter (optional)
• cayenne pepper and salt to taste
• 2 beaten eggs (add another egg if missing out the butter)
• Mauritian chatney (chutney) to serve

1. melt the butter with the cayenne and salt over a low heat
2. add the rice and stir in gently until it is very hot
3. quickly stir in the eggs, taking it off the heat, and serve it when the eggs are just set

Mauritian chatney, by the way is made with fresh shrimps, oil, green chillies (or cayenne pepper) spring onions, salt, vinegar or lemon juice and powdered ginger…