Kedgeree

I’d never heard of Kedgeree before, but found it in many of the British cookbooks that I have been collecting since moving here. It is a Scottish dish intended for breakfast, but I served for a nice supper last weekend. It was so delicious, and I made so much that we had it again for breakfast the next morning.
You will see that there are Indian influences in this dish. It is my understanding that this is so because the Scottish troops took the recipe with them to Indian during the British Raj; it was changed, enhanced and returned to the UK a better dish.
I took this version of Kedgeree from a Gordon Ramsay cookbook—changed just a little of it—it is lovely.


675 mls or 3 and ¾ cups chicken broth
Pinch of saffron threads
½ pound fresh salmon fillets
¼ pound smoked salmon fillet
¼ pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 knob (tablespoon) butter
1 large French shallot (or two round shallots) finely chopped
½ teaspoon mild curry powder
350 grams or 12 ounces basmati rice
4-6 fresh eggs (number of eggs depends on how many people you are serving)
Handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped

1) Heat the chicken broth and saffron to a boil. Slip the salmon fillets in to the boiling stock and bring back just to a simmer. Cook gently for 4 to 5 minutes. Remove fish to a plate. Bring the stock back to a boil and add in the smoked salmon and shrimp, bring to a simmer and cook gently for just 2 minutes, until the shrimp are just pink and firm but still very tender. Remove to the same plate as the salmon.

2) Pour the stock into a bowl and wipe out the cooking pot. Add in the olive oil and butter and place over medium heat. When the butter is frothy, add in the chopped shallots and sauté until translucent—just a few minutes. Add in the curry powder and stir. Now tip in the rice and cook the rice until all of the grains are coated in butter/oil/curry powder. Now, pour in the stock, stir and bring to a gently simmer. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, making sure that it is just gently simmering, neither cooking too low or boiling. Try not to lift the lid, if possible. After 10 minutes, remove from the heat, do not lift the lid, and allow the rice to steam.

3) While the rice is steaming, flake the fish into large chunks; leave the shrimp whole unless they are quite large.

4) At the same time, bring a pot of water to a boil and gently lower as the eggs in their shells—you are poaching the eggs to serve on top of the rice, poach as many as you have eaters. Once the water comes back to a very strong simmer, set a timer and cook for 4 and ½ minutes exactly. This will yield cooked, but runny yolks. If you do not like runny yolks you must be crazy, you can hard boil the eggs and chop them up to add at the end.

5) Now, when the rice is done, fluff with a fork and stir in the parsley, then gently stir in the flaked fish and shrimp. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Mound onto individual plates. Very gently, peel the poached eggs, placing one on top of each dish of Kedgeree, salt each egg with flakes of seas salt. Serve immediately, letting the diners break open the poached eggs allowing the yolk to seep down into the rice

Serves 4-6 depending on hunger of guests.