Egg Curry with Blessy

A couple of months ago, Tim was in London for a week on a site visit.    Autumn was "babysitting" me, and Blessy's husband, Tony, was in Germany. Blessy has been wanting to learn how to make bread, and I have been wanting to learn how to make egg curry.  So the 3 of us teamed up with Yohan and made a ridiculously delicious meal.  

So now--two months later-- I am sharing egg curry with you.  At least the best that I can remember.  Let's get started, shall we?

Pioneer Woman like to start her recipes with a "cast of characters."  Sounds like a good plan to me!

This is Blessy (on the left) and her son Yohan.  She is beautiful and wonderful.  Sometimes I forget to switch the camera back to Auto-Focus after I do a white balance, and it takes me awhile to realize it.  Sadly, that's what happened here. 

This is Autumn.  Since she was taking most of the pictures when we were cooking, I don't have any of her, so I used this one from Honduras.  Tim was holding the camera and said "is there something on the lense?"  She leaned in to look, and he snapped the picture.  Autumn's pretty great... she stays with me when Tim's gone so I don't get scared :)

And here I am!  Cooking away.  It was Christmas Spirit Day, so I wore my fa-la-la-la-la shirt.

Start by heating a few tablespoons of oil in a pan, along with some mustard seeds, to flavor the oil.  Start cooking about 3 cups of chopped onion in the hot oil, until they start to soften and become translucent.

Next we add these ingredients:

Chopped garlic, one jalapeno, sliced, and a few bay leaves.  Once those are mixed in and have started to cook, get your spices ready.

From the left: salt, coriander powder, turmeric, garam masala (this is actually a spice blend you can find in the spice section of most grocery stores), and chili powder.  Now, you might be thinking "I don't like those spices."  You know something?  Neither do I.  But when we put it all together and cooked it really well... wow.  It was just so, so good. 

Add about this much turmeric...

...this much chili powder...

...this much coriander powder...

...and this much garam masala.

Stir and cook on medium heat for a little while.

Then add chopped tomato, and some cilantro. 

And give it another good stir.

A few shakes of the salt shaker.

Then add some peeled and chunked potatoes.  These have not been cooked.

Add some water to help the potatoes cook, and let it simmer.

Blessy switched to a bigger pot, then covered it and let it simmer until the potatoes were cooked.

Here's what it looks like when the potatoes are done! You can stop here, and have a delicious potato curry. This would be a great vegetarian dish and, (if I'm not mistaken) vegan.

Blessy added a can of coconut milk, to make it saucier and richer.  She said she doesn't usually do this, but since she had guests, its kind of a special treat or something.  

We wanted egg curry, so we added some hard-boiled eggs, stirred them in (gently!) then let it simmer just long enough to warm them up.

I'm no expert on curries, but this is what I have gathered from Blessy:

• Change up the spices any way you want.  I this one looks a little red, because we went heavy on the chili powder.  Heavy on turmeric would be more yellow.  Heavy on the coriander might be more green.  Just adjust the spices as you like!  I've thought about messing around with it an using "Mexican" spices, like chili powder, cumin, and garlic powder.  I'll let you know how that turns out... it might be a bad idea.
• Eat your curry with some sort of grain, to sop up all of the wonderful juice.  Rice, bread, or Indian flat-bread are always great options.
• Traditionally it is eaten with your hands.  There's actually a little trick to eating rice with your hands that Tony and Blessy taught us.  Maybe I'll show it to you sometime.
• Curry is very healthy for you!  So many vegetables and spices, and just a couple tablespoons of oil.  It is very easy to keep it vegetarian, or even vegan!  This fits nicely with my desire to eat less meat.
• Like I said, you could leave out the eggs if you wanted.  You could add chicken or fish, if that's what your heart desired.  This is more of a method of cooking than a recipe, so all amounts are approximate and can be adjusted to your taste and diet.  However, since I know some folks like a recipe to follow, I have done my best to try to write this up and give you amounts below.

Egg Curry

• 3-4 Tbsp Oil
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 3-4 onions, chopped
• 4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, sliced
• 4-5 bay leaves
• 1 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 heaping tsp coriander powder
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 3 stems cilantro, chopped
• salt to taste
• 3-4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 c water
• 1 small can coconut milk (optional)
• 6 hard-boiled eggs, cut in half

Heat the oil and mustard seeds in a pan over medium heat.  Add the onion and saute until they begin to become tender and translucent.  Add the garlic, jalapeno, and bay leaved.  Stir and cook for a minute.  Add spice powders, tomato, and cilantro, then stir. Salt to taste.  Cook a few more minutes, then add the potatoes and water.  Transfer to a larger pot if needed.  Cover and cook until potatoes are soft.  Add coconut milk if desire and stir until well mixed. Remove the bay leaves.  Add eggs, gently stir, and heat for a few minutes until eggs are warm.

Served warm with rice or bread.