Goan Mild Egg Curry In A Coconut Based Curry

This is a dish my kids absolutely love. This dish is extremely versatile. You can make it with chicken instead of eggs. And if you want to give this dish a more eastern feel, serve it over some noodles and garnish with fresh chopped spring onions and coriander leaves, sprinkled over with some chilli flakes and a squeeze of lemon. You could use this base to make a nice fish curry as well by adding some kokum (a dried berry fruit used in goan cooking) and some tamarind. The possibilites are endless.

 Even though I've called this dish mild, I have used 2 green chillies in it. But you can barely taste them there, and they just give a background hint of spice to the dish.

I have made this curry with coconut powder, but you could also use canned coconut milk. When I use canned coconut milk, I prefer to also add to the dish, about 4 tablespoons of coconut powder (mixed with a bit of water) to give it a richer, thicker consistency.

Although I generally like to use tomato paste in my curries, I haven't used any tomato paste in this recipe, as I wanted to keep the colour of the curry a nice rich, golden yellow.

Goan Mild Egg Curry in a Coconut Based Curry

Ingredients:
6 eggs
1 onion chopped fine
2 whole green chillies
1 tomato chopped fine
8 tbsps of coconut powder
salt to taste
1tsp ginger garlic paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp curry powder (I prefer to use Shan's curry powder rather than the Madras one, as it has a nice spice level to it as well)

Method:
In a casserole, heat some oil. Sautee the onions and ginger garlic paste and then add in the whole chillies. I have split and deseeded them and then cut them into 1"pieces.

NOTE:
 the spice of a chilly lies in the seeds and membrane inside the chilly.
To get the most heat out of your chilly, leave the seeds on and chop it fine.
If you want a milder heat level, slit the chilly lengthwise and remove the seeds. You can then chop it fine or in one inch pieces.
For the mildest result, just throw in the slit deseeded chilly whole into the dish.

Once the onion mixture is nicely brown, add in the tomatoes, salt to taste and the spice powders. Sautee this masala mixture for a little while, then add in a little water so it doesnt burn. Prepare your coconut milk. In a small bowl, add the coconut milk powder and about a cup of water, and mix till you get a smooth consistency without any lumps.
Add this coconut milk into your onion tomato mixture, adding about a cup more of water to get a nice gravy. Let the coconut milk simmer on a medium heat, taking care not to boil it. If you over boil coconut milk it could split. Check for seasonings at this point, and then gently add in the eggs. I've broken the eggs straight into the curry, and poached them for about 5 mins.

If you do not like the poached version, you can hard boil your eggs and then add them at the end to the curry. Give it a minute or two more on the fire and its done!

To hard boil your eggs, you must:

First you need to boil the eggs. I wash the eggs and then put them in a small saucepan. Fill the saucepan with room temperature water till it covers the eggs, add a teaspoon of salt (I find this helps you to peel the shell much faster).

Put the saucepan on the fire on full heat and bring to a boil. Once at boiling point, lower and time for 8 mins. When finished, remove immediately and run the eggs through cold water or dunk them in ice water. This keeps the yolk of the eggs nice and yellow and not that horrible grey colour. Peel immediately, run it under water again, just to remove any stubborn piece of eggshell and slice in half.

Goan Mild Egg Coconut Curry