Milagu Muttai Kuzhambu

(Egg with peppery gravy)

Prep time: 8 min          Cooking time: 5 min               Servings: 2

I wanted to begin the blog with this one since this is my first original recipe. I had travelled from my place of posting to my home for the weekend and reached just around dinner time. V was about to start from his office and I wanted to make a quick dinner for us before he reached home. I looked in the fridge and what was there.. Just a couple of eggs and 2-3 not-so-fresh onions. No veggies or tomato or coconut to even lend that usual gravy base in typical South Indian cooking. 

 It's usually the case since V hardly cooks for himself. Mostly just a bread-omelette or so. So, I had to whip up a dinner with this challengingly deficient set of ingredients plus dry grocery that I have in stock always (at least they don’t get stale within a week or two – flours, pulses, spices and the like).But as you know, necessity is the mother of invention and here is the delicious kuzhambu that came up. 

Ingredients:

Eggs – 2, hard boiled and shelled

Onion – 2 medium sized (sliced thin and long)

Cumin seeds – 1 tbsp

Coriander seeds – 1 tbsp

Khus khus (poppy seeds) – ½ tbsp (optional)

Dry red chillies – 2

Black pepper, whole – 1 ¼  tbsp

Cashew nuts  - 4

Curry leaves – 1 sprig

Oil – 2 tbsp

Method: 

Set aside about half an onion (sliced). Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a kadai and add the remaining onion. Fry till it turns a little brown and is very light by weight (just short of caramelisation). Remove to a plate and set aside. In the same kadai, heat ½ tbsp oil and add the five spices one by one and roast till you get a nice aroma. Put off the flame when pepper starts to crackle. When cool, grind the roasted spices along with the browned onion and cashew nuts to a thick fine paste, adding water as required. (Do all this while the eggs are cooking so you can save time)

Heat the remaining ½ tbsp oil in the same kadai and sauté the set aside onion. Add curry leaves and then the masala paste. Add about 1.5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste and then slide in the boiled eggs, preferably halved so that the masala seeps in. Let it simmer undisturbed for just a minute or so and then put off the flame. If desired, garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot with cooked rice and relish!