Disappointment, Not Too Bitter, and Kedgeree

Disappointment. Not a great feeling and one that I hope you, dear reader, won’t have to experience any time soon.

I had a vision. A vision of kedgeree: slightly curried yellow rice, gleaming and buttery, with a few green lentils mixed through. Perfectly boiled eggs, a dollop (yes, smoked fish can be dolloped in my world) of mackerel, salty and smokey. A couple of cherry tomatoes whose carbon footprint probably exceeds that of my own and a dusting of Italian parsley.

Alas, when I made said kedge, ’twas not all I hoped for. Not enough oomph, not oniony enough.

Luckily, despite the fact that I am certainly not the sort of person who is inspired to greater heights by failure (no gumption!) and therefore will announce I hate said thing at the first hint of it, I seem to make an exception for food. Because this, my dears, is kedgeree. The kedgeree of my dreams.

It took two tries, but boy, it was worth it. Now, to try my hand at frisbee again…

Had any food flops recently?

Kedgeree

I lay absolutely no claim to authenticity here, but then, the English breakfast food is a bastardisation of the Indian “kitcharee” anyway, so I’m in good company. It would also be fine to fry the onions and spices in a pan and put them along with the rice in your rice-cooker but I wouldn’t want mine to be impregnated by the smell of the spices, like. This should serve at least 4.

First boil

and salt just before the end of cooking (this should take about 30 minutes, you want them to have a bit of bite) and drain.

Sweat the onions in the butter until translucent and add the spices and salt, stirring until fragrant.

Add the rice and stir to coat with the fat and spices.

Turn the heat up to high, pour in the stock and immediately cover with a tight-fitting lid. A glass one is preferable so you can see the bubbles but you can also put your ear to the pot to listen for boiling.

As soon as it boils, turn the heat down to its lowest setting (if you have a gas ring, you might need one of those trivet things so it’s not too hot) and cook for 17 minutes – at no point during cooking should you remove the lid.

Remove the lid and stir the lentils through.

Taste for salt.

For the fixin’s

Assemble by topping the lentilly rice with fish, boiled eggs, tomatoes and parsley and whatever else that might catch your fancy, give it a generous grind of pepper and squeeze a bit of lemon juice over.

Print this recipe

Tagged as: anglo-indian, lentils, own recipe, smoked fish, spices