Kedgeree: totally underrated. I only discovered it about six or seven years ago and made it only a handful of times since, but last night I somehow discovered I had precisely everything I needed to make it, so make it I did. And I tell you what: I'm going to be having it again and again and again, and not just because I'm becoming a student next week and it costs almost nothing to make.
If you've never heard of it, which isn't entirely unlikely, it's a dish that was taken over to India during the Raj and adopted as breakfast fodder by the English colonnials, although for some reason I think it might have originated in Scotland, so I suppose maybe we really have the Scots to thank. Anyhow it was so popular over in India that the recipe returned to Victorian Britain and here we are still eating it today, so hurrah all round. I can't admit to ever having eaten it for breakfast but I bet it would kill a hangover if you could bring yourself to be poaching bits of haddock first thing on a Saturday morning.
This particular recipe is adapted from a Rick Stein one (why would you want fish recipes from anywhere else?) and it's exceedingly simple and very tasty indeed. You are welcome to add a bit of curry powder to spice things up a bit if you fancy it.
750g smoked haddock (although I didn't have enough so I added salmon fillets too - frozen fish is reet cheap)(and there's no reason why you can't chuck in some prawns too)
450g basmati rice
A couple of handfuls of fresh chopped parsley
1/4 tsp tumeric
1 cinnamon stick
3 cardamon pods, split
1 or 2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp salt
50g butter
3 eggs
1 lemon
1 onion, finely chopped.
First things first: poach fish. First, because you need to let them cool off so you can flake them, and secondly (first) because you need the stock you've made from the poaching in order to cook the rice. So cover your fish with cold water, bring it to the boil and then simmer it for about 8-10 minutes unless you're using frozen fish like I was, in which case you need to cook it a bit longer, say 12-15. You'll possibly find that lots of really horrible frothy white stuff floats to the surface: skim it off and try not to think about how you'd have eaten all of those impurities if you were baking/frying/grilling it instead. When the fish is done, remove it from the water with an appropriate slotted instrument and put it on a plate. Then measure out a litre of the fish stock and set it to one side.
Rice time. Melt the butter in a big saucepan, soften the onion for five minutes (you don't want any colour) and then add the tumeric, bay leaves, cardamon pods and cinnamon stick and leave it all for a further minute. Add the rice, stirring it around to coat it nicely in all the butter and mix it with the onion and spices, and then pour in your stock. Last night I had trouble getting a whole litre of fish stock from the fish-poaching because although I had plenty of it, the Germans don't have a sieve for some reason and I really didn't want any white frothy stuff getting in. Rick Stein in fact I think suggests chicken stock anyway, so I used half a litre of the fish stock and half a litre of chicken instead (Knorr, know-how etc).
But I digress. Put the lid on the saucepan, turn it to a low heat and let it cook for 12 minutes. Don't bother putting your feet up with the paper whilst you're waiting, though, you can busy yourself hard-boiling and chopping up eggs and flaking the fish. When the rice is done you can stir the eggs and fish in (using a fork: easier and less damaging to the rice) and let it all heat through for a couple of minutes. Finally it's salt, pepper and parsley time, and since I'd already harvested our entire parsley supply this week I threw in some peas as well for a bit of colour.
Serve with a wedge of lemon to a very impressed German who's never eaten it before, and since this recipe serves 6 you can have a friend round for lunch the next day and eat it then, too. Which reminds me, she'll be here in fifteen minutes so I had better get out of bed.
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