Kedgeree has long been comfort food to me. As a child, we would make it simply with rice, smoked haddock, eggs and peas, always with ketchup on the side. Having tasted it at The Ivy restaurant in London, I am now inclined to spice it up a bit. This one has a mild curry flavour that you can moderate according to your kids' preferences. Whether or not use you have recourse to tomato sauce, we will never know...
What you need:
4 cups of brown rice
200g smoked haddock
4 cups of whole milk
1 bay leaf
4 eggs
30g butter
1/2 brown onion
1 clove of garlic
1 inch cube of ginger
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 pinch of saffron
1 teaspoon of cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of frozen peas
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (optional)
4 tablespoons of chopped parsley
Method:
Put your brown rice onto cook, ensuring there is a 1 cup per person.
While the rice cooks, pour the milk into a deep frying pan and place your bay leaf and haddock in too, so that the fish is immersed in milk. Heat up the pan until simmering and let it bubble gently for around 4 minutes, turning the fish half way through. It should then be cooked so remove the fish from the pan and flake it off into bite size pieces from the skin. Discard the skin and place the fish to one side. Keep the milk in the pan that you cooked the fish in as you will need it later, but turn the heat off for now.
Put 4 eggs onto boil for 5-6 minutes so that they are hardboiled.
Finely chop your onion, mince your garlic and peel then grate your ginger.
In another frying pan, melt your butter,
then fry your onion, garlic and ginger gently for around 5 minutes. Then add it to the milk in the previously used fish pan along with the turmeric, saffron, cumin, cayenne, salt and frozen peas. Heat up the milk again to cook the peas for a few minutes.
Peel your hardboiled eggs and chop or slice them.
Assuming your rice is cooked, drain it and add it to the pan with the flaked haddock and eggs. Stir through until all is combined and warm.
Taste then add more salt, pepper or cayenne and cumin to spice things up further. Just before serving, stir though the fresh parsley.
Despite the healthy brown rice, spice from the herbs and all the other goodness from it, I'll admit that it still goes pretty with a blob of ketchup....
Serves a family of 4.