The Magic of a refilled Egg… Exquisite Egg Supremo

Hard boiled eggs deviled with Black Sesame, Red Onion, Coriander leaves, Tomato, Green chili, Egg yolk and Lime served on garlic bread- this is how snacks become more fun than main course

 So may it be afternoon, or evening or let’s say any time of the day, if you have the time to boil some eggs, this dish is almost there on your plate, and it screams healthy. There is such a need for recipes in our lives that is a balance of health n taste n this recipe exactly fits in there. Now according to me egg is the most versatile ingredient in the kitchen, thousand of things can be created out of it, starting from a simple omelette to a poached egg to French toast to a salad to a soufflé to cake n mousse to an ice cream…it’s a real long list. So when I say the magic of egg, it all starts with cracking an egg- before or after cooking.

Egg is a real wonder food, a powerhouse of nutrition- like if I have to compare it metaphorically it is the superman in the world of food or should I say superwomen! But you get it. Eggs have all the essential amino acids that we need which means it is bursting with protein n choline n vitamins n minerals….what more you can possibly ask for? Think about it.

I am in utter love with eggs right from the beginning, a simple omelette can make me feel all right in a bad day, it still thrills me…god knows why? Right from my childhood I have been eating eggs as egg curry- combined with tomatoes, potatoes, aubergine, onion and then fried egg with sunny side up and omelette, dumplings, egg rolls, egg-noodles, in ice creams and cakes and now after all these years I have eggs as scrambled eggs, soufflé, crème brulee, floating island, sauce hollandaise, pan cakes, soufflé omelette- I don’t think I can actually remember all of them now.

 I developed this recipe in the Foodush kitchen as part of our menu in Gurgaon, a wonderful kitchen and it was loved and wanted by everyone who tasted it. I bring together elements like roasted black sesame seed, lots of fresh coriander leaves, red onion, tomatoes, green chili in this recipe, the eggs are hard boiled, then separated, after that I mixed the egg yolk with pan fried red onion, green chilies, coriander leaves, roasted black sesame seed, finishing off with freshly tossed tomato chunks and freshly squeezed lime juice. After I devil the egg whites with this mixture I make them sit on a round piece of garlic bread topped with a crispy lettuce with a dollop of mayo mixed with mustard.

 If you want to make it very healthy skip the bread and the mayo, eat the eggs just like that or wrap each egg half with a crispy lettuce n eat up. Another option will be to mix a tbsp of extra virgin olive oil with the egg yolk mixture, it will boost them with the fresh olive flavor and make it more smooth n wet.

Now it is time for the recipe.

For The Recipe:  you will need

Eggs-3, hard boiled n yolk separated

Red onion-1 medium, chopped

Fresh coriander leaves n stalks- 7 tbsp, finely chopped

Black pepper- ½ tsp

Black sesame seed- 2 tbsp heaped

Green chili- 2 finely sliced

Butter- 1 tbsp+ ½ tbsp

Vegetable oil-1 tbsp

Tomato- 1 ripe, chopped into squares

Salt

Pink rock salt- 2 pinch

Lime- 1 medium

For serving on bread:

Garlic bread- 6 roundish slices, 1 bread for one half of egg

Lettuce (Green Leaf/ Iceberg) – 6 medium leafs, washed n kept in cold water for half an hour

Mayo- 6 tbsp mixed with 3 tbsp tomato ketchup

Mustard paste/sauce- 1 tbsp

Black pepper- to taste

1. Begin by placing the eggs in a small deep saucepan and cover them with water, then put them on low flame, let the water come to a boil which will take about 10 min on low heat, you can increase the flame after 4 minutes so that the water come to a quick boil, as the water comes to a boil, switch off the heat and leave the eggs in the water for 7 minutes. At the end of time drain them and cool them with new batches of cold water. When cold peel them, slice them lengthwise and carefully take out the yolks keeping the egg white shell intact.

2. Place a frying pan on medium low heat and add the black sesame seeds, shake the pan as you roast them on a low heat, they will take about 3-4 minutes, shake them every 30 sec, when done take them off the pan.

3. Place the same frying pan on medium heat and place 1 tbsp butter n 1 tsp oil in it, as the butter melts add the chopped red onion along with the green chili and chopped coriander stalks and half of the leaves, reduce the flame to low n soften them slowly over a time of 5-7 minutes, we just want to soften them, so don’t brown them, take the pan off the heat in between if heat is high in your hob, when the onions have softened, season with black pepper, salt, pinch of pink rock salt and add the chopped tomato n half of the remaining coriander leaves. Mix well and give it 2 minutes, after that put the flame off, add the remaining coriander leaves and remaining butter and mix.

4. Put the egg yolks and all the contents from the frying pan together onto a plate and add the roasted black sesame seed and begin smashing the egg yolks with the back of a fork, mix all of them until it is well mixed, now squeeze half of the lime juice in the mixture n mix, taste, if you feel you need more add the other half, I normally squeeze a whole lime into the mixture so that it is on the tangy side. Finally taste and adjust the salt. Then make small balls from the mixture by rolling onto your palm and place each ball onto each egg white shells to refill them.

5. Mix the mayo with the tomato ketchup and mustard sauce/paste and freshly ground black pepper, then shake off excess water from the lettuce leaves, pat dry, place a little dollop of mayo onto each bread slice, smear it over the surface, then place one lettuce leaf over each bread slice, place another dollop of mustard mayo on top of lettuce. Then carefully place each half of egg white shell onto each bread slice and we are ready to serve.

So there it is, egg-supremo is all ready for you, deviled eggs with the goodness of eggs, black sesame, coriander leaves n lime. Share them with everyone around you and see what a crowd pleaser it is, enjoy every bite of it slowly, so now I am gonna say Bon appétit.

Stupid Mayonnaise

                                                                                                                There in the middle of the night I was whisking like mad! Like a lunatic who has the hope of finding the true meaning of his existence by whisking egg yolks with oil with his range of secret ingredients and the truth will emerge out of the churned mayonnaise! Huh!  I was hoping to get it absolutely brilliant as i imagined it will be! Darn it! My mayonnaise finally curdled, so there at 12.30 in the night I threw everything away and went to sleep. Damn the mayonnaise!  And I told myself before going to sleep that I won’t touch that stupid mayonnaise again tomorrow; it got the patience jump out the window of me.

                                                                                                                                                      Next morning I realized I have neck pain, as if it could not have gone better. My mood was good surprisingly, I didn't dream of the mayonnaise. The mayonnaise has now become literally a pain in the neck; I tried to recall what I was thinking when I decided to make mayonnaise, I couldn't recall. So with a neck pain I finished my sketches and then went back to the curdled mayonnaise to fix it. I stared with a new egg yolk, adding my curdled mayo drop by drop while whisking. Now the thing  is I wasn't using any electric hand beaters, being energetic and young I took the challenge of doing it literally with my hands without any double thinking and even Julia Child suggests not to make mayo with beaters because the mixture gets so stiff it puts an enormous amount of toil on the motor. So imagine what my shoulders went through! But then if I think isn't that what electric motors are supposed to do? They are supposed to reduce the stressful repetitive work for humans, and there I was choosing the other way around. God knows why!

                                                                             I think I have solved the problem if I look at the process of making mayo from another point of view, rather than approaching  to make mayo with the mindset that “Oh I am gonna make home-made mayo with my own hands with the oscillating fear in mind that any point of time the mayo might curdle ruining all my hard work”, we need to approach mayo making with this mindset “ well I am gonna have a heavy arm workout, I need to some solid arm workout and after the workout I will have mayonnaise in my hands !” Walla! Do you see what a difference it makes!

                          I must tell you this dear reader that I have found the perfect way to make mayo and not getting you mad and shouting at everyone at the end of it. The secret is to “FAIL FIRST, CURDLE FIRST”. Once you have failed first the fear of curdling had got out of your mind which is relaxing. So begin by whisking adding oil drop by drop to the egg yolks, but then don’t forget that you are supposed to fail in this, you are supposed to curdle it by doing it wrong. So once you have done the wrong thing, take a little break and start with a fresh new egg yolk! In that way you will get less irritated and less mad at yourself, which is so cool. What will still be the same is the amount of hard hand-work, the mixture gets so stiff the whisk literally stand in it! So whisking becomes a real challenge.

 Anyways I am not gonna suggest you to make mayo by yourself because if I do you will end up cursing me! So just read it and forget it, don’t try to make it.

By the way my mayonnaise turned out to be very tasty, that’s the only positive against 4 negatives. I flavored my mayo with tamarind chutney which gave it a light brown color and amazing tanginess, roasted cumin powder, some asafetida/ hing adding its beautiful flavor and lastly a touch of honey. So it is a very special mayonnaise. If you were here I would have given you to taste it. Bon appétit!       

The recipe: you will need

2 egg yolks

1 tbsp of Tamarind pulp or Tamarind Chutney

1/4^th tbsp of Asafetida/Hing

1 tsp of honey

½ tsp of cumin powder

1 clove of garlic, crushed

Pinch of red chili powder

225 ml of soybean/groundnut /sunflower oil

¾ tsp of salt

½-1 tsp of white wine vinegar

Freshly milled black pepper

Plus 1 extra egg yolk for the FAIL FIRST process

TIPS: Use a small basin with a narrow base, also try to choose something heavy which will move less as you whisk.  Place the heavy basin or mortar and pestle (I did it in mortal and pestle itself) over a damp cloth so that it will remain steady. Warm the basin or bowl slightly before you start to make the mayo, it ensured that mixture won’t curdle easily.

1.      1.. First crush the garlic in the slightly warmed mortar n pestle with a little salt, then add the egg yolks, freshly milled black pepper, tamarind chutney, cumin powder, hing, red chili powder, salt. Mix this entire together very well.  Then with the whisk in one hand, and the jug of oil or sauce dropper filled with oil in another hand add a drop of oil and mix it in.

2.    2.   Then add another drop of oil and mix in it. The key to successful mayo is every drop of oil must be well incorporated before the next drop is added. Now you might ask this will take the whole day! No it won’t, half an hour. After you do this for a couple of minutes, you can add the oil in a very thin steady thread while whisking and it will be fine. Mayo mostly curdles in the beginning when you add too much oil too quickly. Also as in my case my mayo curdled at the last stages when I was thinking Oh! Now it won’t curdle but it did too much oil too quickly. Also mayo will curdle if you surpass the maximum proportions of ¾ th cup of oil per egg yolk. So the oil has been added in droplets until the sauce is commenced to thicken. So the key words are “WARM BOWL”, “DROPLETS OF OIL WHISKED EVERY TIME UNTIL THE SAUCE THICKENS”, and “MAX. ¾ TH CUP OF OIL PER EGG YOLK”.  So after some minutes when you have added several drop of oil to the mixture, it will go very stiff, when it gets there add the white wine vinegar, it will thin the mixture down.

3.      3. Now start pouring the oil in a very very thin and steady steam while whisking all the time, take a little break in between. We are humans not some motor! Stop sometimes, whisk really well making sure all the oil is incorporated. So like this when you have finished all the oil, taste it, season with salt if you think it needs. Now add some more freshly milled black pepper and the honey and whisk in. if you think your mayo is very thick just add 2 tbsp of boiling water and whisk in.       

          

             

            

         So now if your mayo is curdled like mine, be happy, this is what we aimed for remember. Take a break, come back and start with a fresh egg yolk in a warm bowl. Beat it well, then add 1 drop of the curdled mixture, whisk and add one more drop, whisk. Do it for a couple of minutes and just keep doing until all the mixture is used up. There you have it! So if you have done it and in your hands you have the perfect mayo I am gonna pat your shoulders and shout “you are a hero, you have made mayonnaise! Bravo!”

That’s all folks. Don’t forget FAIL FIRST.