Kedgeree - British Indian Food

"To eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day with Kedgere in it."
-Somerset Maugham-

I wish I could visit England to feel the vibes. So, this time I want to show you how to make Kedgeree. 

Kedgeree based on a British Indian recipe from colonial times.

I am so curious about old recipes that l have recently read about in readings for my oral exam. It made me so unbelievably hungry! I cannot wait to try out all these colonial dishes after my exam lol, or at the very least some popular dishes.

So, today, I made a kedgeree. Kedgeree is one of the famous dishes from Britain's colonial times and it's typically eaten as breakfast. 

There are two different recipes l learned from the article 'what the empire builders ate'. Firstly, a recipe from Kenye Herbert, boiled rice, chopped hard-boiled eggs, chopped minced fish heated with salt, pepper, and herbs like cress, parsley or oregano.

Secondly, a recipe from a women's magazine where  they used fish, rice, butter, mustard, eggs, salt and cayenne pepper. This recipe is really similar to the YouTube video of breakfast in Victorian Style .

Ingredients:

2-3 chopped boiled eggs 

250g of salmon (oven-cooked)

Fish-seasoning: little bit of marjoram, chili powder, curry, salt, and 2 lime leaves.

For the boiled rice:1 cup of rice, two cups of water, 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 chopped onion (middle), ca. 3 teaspoons of salt, ca. teaspoon of cumin, chili powder, turmeric, coriander seeds and one cardamon pod.

Steps:

Place the fish into a baking dish. Add spices mentioned above. Bake for about 15 minutes at 180°C.

While waiting, you can start cooking the rice. Firstly, fry the chopped onions in butter until gold brown. Add the spices for the rice above and stir them together. Add the uncooked rice to the frying pan and stir everything together. Set temperature to high (around 7 out of 10) . Add two cups of water. Btw, if you cook rice after the fish has finished cooking, you can also use the juices from the fish for rice water. The total amount of all fluid should be at least 2 cups. 

After adding water, cover the rice. When it boils, change the temperature to low (1/2). Check on the rice after 10 minutes to see if it's done. 

Tips for an induction stove when cooking rice:

This stove works differently from other stoves. If you change the temperature to low, there would be almost no heat.

So, after the rice boils, don't change the temperature to low immediately. Instead, turn it down little by little, first to 5, then slowly to 2. It also takes about 15 minutes for the rice to cook.

When the rice is done, mix it together with the chopped fish. Place the boiled eggs on top of the dish and you can add parsley or cress. 

Done!

Enjoy the dish!

PS: You can also make your own Kedgeree, of course! I am still waiting for the old cookbooks or recipes from colonial time because l want to recreate those dishes and want to know how the taste differed. I cannot wait to taste different kinds of dishes from that time! I hope, I can find it.

Xoxo, Rita

Stay helathy!