Eggs for dinner, and make it spicy

Eggs and curry make a tantalising combination, writes Melissa Clark

EGGS have not been part of the regular dinner rotation at my house nearly as often as they should be. But now that I have access to a steady supply of fresh eggs from a local farm, and I’ve finally mastered the technique of cooking them so their yolks turn marigold yellow and just barely set in the centre (the secret: simmer for 9 minutes, then plunge into an ice bath), I’ve been trying to change this.

Recently I had a craving for an egg curry (ande ki kari), a dish of hard-boiled eggs swathed in a spicy tomato gravy. So I dug out one of my favourite Indian cookbooks,

by Julie Sahni, published in 1980, to look up the recipe.

I hadn’t made it in a while, but reading the ingredients on the tomato-stained page immediately brought the flavours A tomato-based curry sauce for the Indian dish Ande ki Kari

into focus: the stinging pungency of garlic and ginger, the smokey earthiness of the cumin, the sweetness of cinnamon and tomato. The spiced sauce smelled divine while it was simmering, and tasted even better when it was served over halved hardcooked eggs.

There are many variations of this basic recipe across India, using different kinds of fats as the base, and slightly different spices. Sahni’s calls for a generous amount of vegetable ghee, a solid vegetable shortening. In my version, I cut down on the quantity, and use a mixture of butter and coconut oil, which lends a distinct mellowness to the fresh tomatoes in the pan. But feel free to substitute all-vegetable ghee or oil if you prefer.

Her spice technique is also worth noting. As is typical in curries, most of the spices are simmered in the sauce along with the aromatics until the flavours meld. However, in this recipe, she saves the garam masala for last, stirring it into the thickened sauce right at the end for maximum verve.

After the sauce is simmered, the cooked, halved eggs are arranged in the pan and gently heated so they can absorb that heady liquid. Just be careful not to stir too enthusiastically; you don’t want the eggs to tip over and lose their yolks in the sauce. A gentle shake of the pan is the safer way to go.

Pair this robust curry with rice or flatbread, and you’ve got dinner. Ande ki Kari, an Indian dish of hard-boiled eggs swathed in a spicy tomato gravy.