I cooked this recipe - inspired by the recipes I found for Kedgeree - last night. I don't know what all of the boundaries are for an authentic recipe for this dish, which appears to have enough variety in the various descriptions of it that nearly anything with fish flaked into rice and spiced with Indian spices could be close.
- 2 cups rice cooked in 4 cups water
- safflower oil; some recipes call for ghee
- 1 onion, chopped small; garlic if you like it
- spices: curry powder, mustard seed, and similar
- vegetables: chopped tomatoes, peas, etc
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- salt, pepper
- fish: cooked or canned fish, fresh or smoked; we used canned boneless salmon
- greens: minced parsley or cilantro; dried OK in a pinch
- hard boiled eggs for garnish
The method runs roughly as follows.
Cook the rice first; if you happen to have enough leftover rice, you can use that.
Heat the oil in a large pan, and saute the onion (and possibly garlic) for 3-5 minutes until soft. Add the spices which will give the onions a wonderful color and smell when thoroughly mixed.
Mix in the vegetables so that they are heated through or cooked; again, suitably prepared leftovers would work here.
Add the rice to the onion mixture, stirring well. Add lemon juice.
Flake the fish and mix in with the rice. Mix in chopped parsley or cilantro. Stir well, and transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with hard boiled eggs if desired.
- end -
Some deviations from this basic approach are useful.
Jamie Oliver's kedgeree recipe is what I started from.
Becks and Posh kedgeree recipe has cardamom and saffron as spices, and lemon wedges and toasted almonds as garnish.
The Great British Food Trust kedgeree recipe is very simple, but it notes that cumin seeds and lentils are optional extras.
