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Kedgeree with Smoked Fish & Soft-Poached Eggs
A rare sight on breakfast menus saturated with millennial catnip like avocado toast and dessert masquerading as “French Toast”. Kedgeree is hearty, warming and a one-pot wonder. It suits breakfast, lunch or dinner. Kedgeree is one of my favourite breakfast dishes. This recipe is a lighter version of a heavier classic. A classic smoked fish dish originated in India as kirchir likely adapted by the Scottish regimen and mispronounced as kedgeree returning home.
You can access all of my recipes here.
Written by EatGoSee
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Ingredients: Kedgeree with Smoked Fish & Eggs
80-100g uncooked basmati rice per person
800g smoked fish (e.g. undyed smoked haddock, kippers or smoked salmon fillets)
1-litre chicken or fish stock, warmed
A yellow or white onion, medium dice
1 free-range, organic egg per person
A fresh lemon
50g unsalted organic butter
2 fresh bay leaves or 1 dried
3 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
2g turmeric
15g chopped parsley
Sea salt (I use Maldon)
50g frozen peas (optional)
800g smoked fish (e.g. undyed smoked haddock, kippers or smoked salmon fillets)
1-litre chicken or fish stock, warmed
A yellow or white onion, medium dice
1 free-range, organic egg per person
A fresh lemon
50g unsalted organic butter
2 fresh bay leaves or 1 dried
3 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
2g turmeric
15g chopped parsley
Sea salt (I use Maldon)
50g frozen peas (optional)
Tools: Kedgeree with Smoked Fish & Eggs
1 saute pan with a lid
A pot
1 cooks knife (I use global knives)
A wooden chopping board
1 silicone spatula or wooden spoon
A ladle
A pot
1 cooks knife (I use global knives)
A wooden chopping board
1 silicone spatula or wooden spoon
A ladle
Method: Kedgeree with Smoked Fish & Eggs
Step One: Clean Your Rice
Wash your basmati rice in a bowl under cold water and agitate the rice by stirring the ‘rice water’ and rubbing the grain in your fingers as you pass. I like using a clear glass bowl. The water will be cloudy. Empty the water but leave the rice behind. You will probably need to do this 2-3 times until the water is clear. You should empty the water and leave the rice in the bowl.
Step Two: Get to Spicing
Place your saute pan on medium heat and allow it to warm for 2-3 minutes. Place your butter in the pan and allow it to melt but not burn. The butter should melt gently but not foam. Lightly crush your cardamom pods so they crack but do not burst. I use the blade of my cook’s knife. Place the bay leaf, cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks in the melted butter and allow the ingredients to sizzle away for 2-3 minutes. You can bundle the cinnamon sticks and bay leaf with butchers twine if you want. Add the turmeric and chilli flakes and stir the ingredients together with your spatula or spoon. You do not want the ingredients to ferociously cook. They just mingle in the butter lightly cooking away (see notes for rationale).
Step Three: Prep Your Stock
You should start warming your stock at this point. See notes for the rationale section concerning the warm stock. I usually keep this in a small pot adjacent to my main saute pan with a metal ladle.
Step Four: Introduce the Main Ingredients
This is where you add your diced onion and allow it to cook slowly until they soften and start to become translucent. Stir every minute or so to coat the onions in your spiced butter. You are not trying to caramelize the onions. You want them to soften but if they caramelize, these things happen.
Add your rice to the butter, spice and onion slurry. You want to turn the rice to coat it in the spiced butter mixture. Allow the rice to stay on the heat for 1-2 minutes.
Step Five: Get to Stocking
You want to ladle in the warm stock at this point. You should pour enough stock to ensure the rice is covered but not drowning in stock. You should stir the ingredients once you reach the point where they are coated and turn down the heat to a low-medium. Add the lid and wait. This process should take about 8-10 minutes. You want the rice to slowly absorb this delicious spiced butter, sauteed onion and stock mixture.
Step Six: Prep Your Fish
You want to prepare the fish so you can place this on your spiced rice mixture. I like keeping the skin on the fish (see notes) but you can remove the skin at this stage if you do not like fish skin. Tear, pull or chop your fish into nice mouthful or bite-size portions.
Lift the lid on your saute pan and place each portion of fish on top of the rice and gently press down. Your rice may still be a little ‘wet’ which is fine. You want to put enough space between the fish portions so they will steam and cook on the rice. This will start to look like a paella dish.
If you have frozen peas this would be a good time to scatter a few around the fish and on the rice.
If the rice looks too dry then add a few tablespoons of water (or stock if some is left). Place the lid on the saute pan and leave it until the fish is cooked. This will likely take around 6-8 minutes depending on the thickness of the fish.
Step Seven: Boiling Eggs
Gently place your eggs into simmering water. I use the same pot used for the stock (assuming there is no stock left). You should boil the eggs to your liking. I prefer a soft-cooked yolk with a little give left in it. You should see the notes if you have not boiled an egg before and you would like including substitute options. Cool the boiled eggs under cold water so they are easier to handle. Shell the eggs leaving a shell-free boiled egg and cut your eggs into halves or quarters (as you prefer).
Step Eight: Serve
Remove the saute pan from the stove. Both your fish and rice should be cooked at this point. The peas should be warmed through if they were frozen when you put them in. Serve a generous portion of the kedgeree on each plate together with your eggs. Slice wedges of your lemon and serve with each plate.
Notes and Rationale: Kedgeree with Smoked Fish & Eggs
Why do you cook the spices as recommended?
There are two key points with the spices. Firstly, the order they are put into the pan and, secondly, the temperature at which they are cooked. I recommend adding the woody spices like the bay leaf, cardamom pods and the cinnamon first as these can take a long time to build and release their flavour. They can also endure longer cooking periods with resilience to burning. The aromatic spices like chilli flakes and turmeric are more delicate, burn more easily and therefore should be added towards the end. The same would be true for garlic if it was that kind of dish (which it is not!). You want to cook spices in butter on a lower heat for longer periods of time. Unclarified butter and softer, aromatic spices burn at higher temperatures.
Why do you recommend a warm stock ladled in?
So there are two points here too. The first is that stock lends more flavour than just water. Like a paella, the rice will absorb whatever it is cooked in so you want the rice to absorb both the spiced butter and a stock rich with flavour. You could also add a bone broth which would bring additional richness but then you may want to use a more robustly smoked fish like kippers.
You want to warm the stock for two reasons: it will help with your cooking times and I find I yield more stock when it is warm. A cold stock will only slow your cooking time as the stock needs to get back up to temperature.
I also recommend ladling the stock into the kedgeree because it helps more precisely assess the stock to rice levels. You could simply pour the stock in slowly and see when to stop or continue. I like knowing these levels for future recipe making and calculations.
Why do you recommend keeping the skin on the fish?
Fish skin is divisive even within my household. Mrs EatGoSee hates the stuff and I usually remove and discard it when making dinner for her. I recommend keeping the skin on the fish for the cooking because it will help keep the fish intact during the cooking process. There is a risk that the fish flakes will collapse and disappear as you cook then turn the rice. Admittedly, this is a presentation concern and not something that “ruins” the dish. Kedgeree is best with mouthfuls of certain ingredients at a time together with the rice. You get a bite of fish then peas then eggs. Each bite is slightly different adding layers instead of a homogenous jambalaya or fish stew.
Lastly, I occasionally make a more ‘sophisticated’ version of kedgeree. I cook the smoked fish fillets whole, remove the skin and delicately flake the dish. The rice is decanted into a metal round in the centre of the plate with flakes of fish served on top in a clockwise circular pattern. I add pea shoots if I can find the things.
The point is that keeping the fish on the skin allows you to control the flakes during the cooking and assembling process given you options when it comes to the final presentation and serving.
What kind of fish can I use?
Pretty much any smoked fish would suffice. A smoked haddock is a classic choice for most recipes. You can also use smoked salmon but I caution against using sliced smoked salmon as this will disintegrate quickly in the kedgeree during turning. You can get smoked salmon fillets and this would be easier to manage during cooking. I like to use a small variety of fish if possible including pungent kippers in butter. The richness and assertive smokiness is what I long for with kedgeree. Remember there are a lot of layers in this dish with turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, butter, slow-cooked onions and lemon juice. The fish should be able to stand up in the dish and stand out.
I do not want to boil an egg, what else can I do?
I hear you. Boiling an egg is remarkably intimidating for most people. The simplest things can turn people off a dish. I would encourage you to persevere if it is that you are anxious about boiling eggs.
However, if you simply do not like boiled eggs (and this is fair) then you soft poach an egg. The burst yolk cascading over rice and fish is, in some ways, preferable to the traditional boiled egg version. Alternatively, a sunny-side-up fried egg (cooked in butter and touch of oil) with a running yolk would be another option. The slightly nutty flavour of the fried egg compliments the slow-cooked onion and the woody spices like cinnamon and cardamom.
You could also venture out into different types of eggs such as a duck egg (delicious) or quail egg (fiddly but beautiful).
Why do you recommend the tools you use?
Cook’s knife / Global knives: I like the weight of a cook’s knife and it is versatile enough to do fine dicing, medium dicing as well as the rest of the chopping techniques in this recipe. I like the Global knives because they are excellent, sharp and you do not need to worry about the handle breaking from the blade after many years. They do not slip in the hand even when wet.
Wooden chopping board: wooden chopping boards are durable and they are better on your knife’s longevity. Never buy a glass chopping board. They look nice but they will dull your knife very easily. The alternative would be to buy plastic but there are many articles about wood vs plastic, which is more sanitary etc. Wooden chopping boards require washing by hand and drying thoroughly. Plastic boards can go in the dishwasher in an appropriate setting so there are points for convenience.
I personally buy wooden boards. You do not need to go buy expensive boards. I have a GIANT wooden board about 5 feet wide and just under two foot tall and about 3 inches thick. It is made from recycled wood bought in a hardware store. The store’s carpenter made and treated it for me. It is brilliant as you can cook a whole meal on the same board without washing, drying or flipping over between prepping items.
Notes and Rationale: Kedgeree with Smoked Fish & Eggs
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