Eggs abound in springtime! But Mash-Ups don’t have to resign themselves to egg salad or matzo brei to enjoy the bounty. If you’re suffering a mid-Passover food slump, we got you covered. Here, our Indian-American Mash-Up Nishta Mehra shares her mom’s delicious kosher-for-Passover egg curry recipe. This is especially handy if you still have egg leftovers from your (duh) interfaith Easter. Get your masala on, kids.
Curry is one of those terms that has come to stand for so many things that now it means almost nothing at all. Or, maybe, it means lots of different things to lots of different cultures, though people outside of those cultures tend to think that “curry” always means the same thing — a soupy-ish sauce served over rice. But I’ll save the soapbox for another day! Here’s my mom’s version of egg curry, only the tiniest bit adapted by me. By “adapted by me” I mean mostly “actual measurements provided by me,” since my mom, like every Indian mother and grandmother in the world, never measures a thing and instead tells you, “enough,” when you ask her how much seasoning to add to a dish. [Editor’s note: No seriously. Why do no Mash-Up moms use measurements?]
Nishta’s Mom’s Egg Curry
Ingredients
Curry Sauce ingredients
- ½ of a Serrano pepper seeded & roughly chopped
- 2- inch piece of ginger peeled & roughly chopped
- 3 cloves garlic peeled & roughly chopped
- 2 small yellow onions peeled & sliced
- 4 Roma tomatoes roughly chopped
- pinch of cumin seeds
- 1 bay leaf
- 2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil or ghee (clarified butter)
- 1-2 tbsp butter
- salt
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp ground coriander
- ¼ tsp garam masala
Egg Curry ingredients
- Curry sauce that you just made (see recipe below)
- 6 hard boiled eggs peeled and halved
- A couple handfuls washed and chopped greens such as kale, chard, arugula, collards, or spinach
Instructions
First, make the Curry Sauce
- In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat the oil or ghee over medium to medium-high until quite hot but not smoking.
- Toss in the cumin seeds — they should splutter and crack immediately.
- After 30 seconds, turn the heat down to medium-low and toss in the Serrano, ginger, garlic, onions, and bay leaf.
- Cook, stirring periodically, until everything has softened a bit, for 4-5 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes, along with the butter and sprinkling of salt.
- Smush the tomatoes with the back of your cooking spoon, then cover the pan and leave it alone for another 5-6 minutes.
- Check the curry by dragging your spoon along the bottom of the pan — if it makes a clear trail, then you can take the pan off of the heat.
- Cool for a bit before removing the bay leaf and tossing everything else into the blender.
Then, make the Egg Curry
- Sauté the greens in a bit of the fat of your choice, adding a splash of water and salt, and, if they’re on the bitter side, a drizzle of honey.
- Then fit the pan with the lid and let the greens wilt for 5-8 minutes.
- Add the prepared curry sauce to the pan, thinning with a little water, if needed.
- Stir and warm over medium-low heat until simmering, then season with the ground cumin, coriander, and garam masala.
- Taste for salt adjust as necessary.
- Gently place the hard boiled egg halves in the pan, and nudge the sauce around to cover them. Allow everything to heat through before serving.
