Kedgeree is a dish surrounded by apocryphal creation myths that don't always add up. Nonetheless, it's arguably one of the earliest real fusion dishes. More importantly it's delicious and really easy to make.
According to Larousse Gastronomique, what we now know as kedgeree originated from a dish of spiced lentils, rice, fried onions and ginger known as khichiri dating back to the 14th century and eaten across India. The early European arrivistes in India developed a taste for it, because it reminded them of "nursery food". Yeah, well that's the French for you.
The more common British narratives about it—and to be fair to old Larousse, there is a self-important element of playing a central role in its birth to the British legends that makes them a little suspect—are was that it was born when Indian cooks tried to interpret what British officers bewailing a lack of British breakfasts in India actually wanted. According to the British legends, the bully boys of the British Raj, appalled at the Indian propensity for rice and sweet fruits as breakfast, tried to explain the Great British Breakfast to their Indian batmen and chefs; eggs, kippers, and so on.
Kedgeree as we've come to know it was seemingly born out of the imagination of Indian cooks trying to imagine these bizarre foreign breakfasts described to them by the British through their own filter of what breakfast is.
There's probably something more accurate in the Larousse version. The British military did not become a sizable force in India for many decades after an early, technically pre-colonial, presence of Europeans. Let's not forget, for example, that the devious French may have ended up being the dominant European influence on the Indian subcontinent if it weren't for the even more devious British East India Company duping the UK into believing that its interests conveniently aligned with their ruthless commercial interests. So, it wasn't just the British in India who first developed a taste for Indian food—or adapted versions thereof—but also French, Dutch, Portuguese and European merchants from numerous other nations long before the British Army occupied India.
Despite throwing Larousse a bone, it's certainly true that the most numerous sources writing about kedgeree in detail and in glowing terms by the late 19th century are notably British and frequently military. By the 1870s, for example, kedgeree was a staple in almost every reputable gentlemen's club in London, often a feature of breakfast, in keeping with the tales of how and why it was served in India.
But, I remind myself, this site is supposed to be about food and not history. So let's press on.
Today, when eating it, it's hard to imagine it as a breakfast dish, the role it long held in the hands of the upper echelons of British society. It's very filling. That said, anyone who's had it as breakfast before venturing out into the freezing British landscape in the early morning—even more so if recovering from the particular boozy hospitality of a country seat the night before—will understand exactly why it can be the perfect breakfast. And, certainly, it's one of the dishes I always look forward to every time at my friend Claire de Jong's (in)famous Sunday brunches in Antwerp.
On the whole though these days, I make it as a delicious dinner (or filling lunch) with an appropriate side dish. Here's my go-to favourite version.
Before you even start, please note the following: you will need to adjust your ingredient measurements according to the number of diners. Given what goes into this dish, it's delicious cold, but really not a good idea to reheat it. Rice? Fish? Do I need to explain?
Furthermore, there are more traditional versions that involve cooking the fish in liquid then using its "liquor" to cook the rice. Mine involves cooking it in a different way (with its own foibles) but meaning that you can cook elements even up to a day earlier and store in the fridge before putting the dish together in no time at all.
Similarly, while my go-to option is usually to serve it with a tasty salad, it's also great with the Indian-style vegetable dish that I'm including as an alternative.
The quantities in this recipe will serve 2 to 3 diners. But, it's fairly easy to scale up or down.
Shopping list
for the kedgeree
Ideally undyed smoked haddock (see variations below), 1 large fillet per diner
Approx. ¾ cup of basmati rice per diner. Do NOT use long grain rice and don't even mention those "instant" and "microwave bags" rice types. I personally use half of the total rice white basmati rice; half brown basmati mixed with black and red Camargue rice. Yes, I know it's not traditional. But, hey, this dish practically invented fusion cooking.
2 bay leaves
1 egg per diner
Approx. half a cup of fresh or frozen peas OR broad beans (optional)
A generous amount of butter (approx. 40g). You can use a mixture of butter and peanut or sunflower oil or, ghee if you're a purist
1 large brown onion (per two diners), chopped, but in larger cubes than usual
1 heaped tbsp curry powder
1 heaped tspn garam masala
1 heaped tspn madras masala
1 fish or vegetable stock cube or jelly
Single cream, approx. 75ml per every 2 diners
A generous clutch of chopped fresh flatleaf parsley
½ lime, juice only
for the side salad
Approx. 200g fresh fine green beans, cut into 3cm segments
1 large ripe mango
Half a cucumber
1 heaped tabspn lime pickle
lime juice to flavour
1 tabspn of peanut oil (or coconut oil if you're feeling frisky)
OR
for the Indian-style vegetables
1 small-to-medium broccoli, washed and broken into florets
1 large sweet red pepper (or red bell pepper) cut into slices
2 small yellow courgettes (green is fine if you don't have yellow, thickly sliced
A handful of small brown chestnut mushrooms, sliced
2 small red chillies, chopped
2 tspns garlic, finely chopped
1 tspn turmeric
2 tspns yellow mustard seeds
A little peanut oil (or vegetable oil)
water
Cooking method
Cook all the bits you can before: hard-boil the eggs, cook the rice, steam the beans for the salad etc. You can even do this the day before and store in the fridge overnight. Yes, it may all look like a palaver below, but don't confuse the verbose for a really simple method to cook a great dish.
The salad
Do the salad first since it's even more delicious if it "settles" for a few hours. At whatever point you steam the green beans, drain and dress with a little lime juice and oil (if using coconut oil, don't add this until just before serving)
Cube the fresh mango and mix gently with the beans, ensuring you use all the juice
Add the cucumber cut into julienne strips or cubes
Fold in the lime pickle
Store in an airtight container if preparing well in advance, or allow to rest if preparing directly before serving
OR
The Indian-style vegetables
In a fairly deep frying pan with a lid, heat the oil—enough to coat the bottom—on a medium-to-high heat. When hot, add the garlic and allow it to sizzles for a few minutes. Add the turmeric and stir in, releasing its aroma, followed almost immediately by the yellow mustard seeds
When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add the red chillies and stir in. If the ingredients start to stick, add a little water—3 or 4 tbspns—and simmer the ingredients, stirring. When the garlic has turned golden and the chillies softened, add thre red sweet pepper, stirring for 5mins or so; until they show signs of softening. Add the mushrooms and stir in
After about another 5mins or so, when the mushrooms soften, add the courgettes and broccoli, folding them in so that they are coated in all the juices in the pan. Cook on this still fairly high heat for about 5 or 6mins—effectively stir frying—and stirring regularly.
Add approx. ⅓ of a cup of water to the pan. If by now the pan has practically no moisture in it—as should be the case—the water will bubble and steam almost immediately. Stir all of the ingredients so that they are "protected" by a layer of moisture. Cover and immediately reduce to a low heat
Allow the ingredients to effectively steam in the juice for a further 6 or 7mins—or until the broccoli is cooked to your preferred consistency—stirring occasionally and adding little bits of water if needed. Once cooked, turn all of the ingredients to ensure they absorb whatever remaining "juice" remains in the pan. Remove from the heat and cover to keep warm until serving
The kedgeree
Assuming you can manage to hard-boil the eggs in advance, let's move on to the rice. Boil the rice in water with diluted vegetable or fish stock. The basic hack is to put the rice into a pot and to cover with exactly the same amount of liquid (e.g. 1 cup rice + 1 cup liquid). Cover and bring to the boil on a high heat. Allow to boil furiously for no more than 5 mins, turn the heat down low, cover and allow all the liquid to simmer off. Sir frequently to ensure that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot, topping up with a little water at a time if needed until the rice is cooked
Keep covered and turn off the heat. Ideally, when practically no liquid is left, drain. (Cool and store in an airtight container in the fridge if cooking the day before)
Steam (in a microwave or using the traditional method) or poach the smoked fish. Do NOT poach in milk as if preparing it for other dishes. Drain and cool slightly. Flake into generously sized flakes on a plate using a fork. Skin on? Skin off? Your choice.
In a large pan with a cover, add a generous amount of butter or ghee (slightly less generous if using oil)
While the butter/oil is heating, steam the peas/broad beans so that they will be ready at the right stage
Once heated, chuck in the onion, turn the heat down to medium and sweat. As soon as the onion turns transparent, add half of the curry powder, garam masala and madras masala. Immediately add at least a couple of tabspns of water to enable the spices to become "liquid". Stir constantly and play it by ear: add a little more butter/oil and a tabspn single cream at a time to ensure that it remains fluid and does not stick
Add all of the thoroughly drained rice, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon or spatula to ensure that it separates and does not "clump" or stick
Almost immediately, add a substantial part of the single cream and all of the remaining spices, stirring continuously to ensure the mixture doesn't stick. Use your instinct to decide if you need to add a little additional butter/oil and/or water to keep the mixture moist enough to allow the spice to properly cook in, reducing the heat a fair bit if needed
Bit-by-bit, add water or single cream to keep the mixture moist until it starts to reach your taste preference. When it is near "done", add the drained peas/broad beans and gently stir in. Add the vast majority of the chopped flatleaf parsley at the same time. Fold in gently so as not to "crush"
Finally, add in the flaked smoked fish, folding into the kedgeree so that the large flakes retain their texture. Turn off the heat entirely, cover and allow to rest
Peel the hard-boiled eggs (make sure they have been allowed to return to room temperature if you prepared them in advance). Cut vertically into quarters or sixths
Plate the kedgeree, dress with the egg segments and garnish with the remainder of the chopped flatleaf parsley
Serve up with the side salad and enjoy.
Alternatives
A fishy subject — I'm acutely aware from years of trying to make this dish for friends on mainland Europe that undyed smoked haddock (and its more recent affordable white fish substitutes such as basa) is a curiously British thing that can be very, very hard to source. However, the Best European substitute is actually smoked trout, hands down (in fact, I often like to do this version even when smoked haddock is available because of its particular delicacy). Obviously, you need to compensate on quantities since a smoked trout fillet is approx. half of the size of a bog standard smoked haddock fillet.
If you fancy a Celtic variation that hits it out of the park, upgrade your haddock to real Arbroath smokies and discover what beauty both a subtle fish and fiercely woody smoke can do — and please don't waste the privilege by removing all the skin.
Other types of smoked fish that work well are smoked mackerel, kippers and smoked snoek from Southern Africa's western coasts. But, all of these (technically healthier) fish are oilier, saltier and more prone to bones. For one thing, don't add any salt. You may have noticed that this recipe and others published don't include added salt. It's not an omission.
You will also need to take a little time to weed out the bones before adding to the kedgeree and, most importantly, use less butter and cream and cook it into the kedgeree for slightly longer to ensure that the fish oils are integrated into the overall flavours. It's delicious nonetheless.
Bluntly, the only truly viable vegetarian options I've produced to date used either smoked tofu, cut into longer, thinner slices than the usual cube shapes or smoked tempeh, cut in the same way, which I thought actually worked better.
There are so many variations of what you can add as your primary spices to this dish. They include using korma mixture to give a "creamier" flavour. And, although this is supposed to be a delicately spiced dish rather than a hot one, you can add chopped fresh chillies and/or chilli powder if you want it hotter; turmeric if that blows your skirt up or cumin seeds or even cardamom. Work it out for yourself. Similarly, on the green herb front coriander and/or fresh mint make excellent complements to (or substitutes for) the flatleaf parsley.
This recipe is for my favourite spring/summer side dish. But, in winter, for example, I prefer to substitute it with cooked, hot okra, ginger and tomato or brinjal bhaji, the classic Indian aubergine side dish. Whereas the side dish of broccoli, courgettes, sweet sweet red pepper and mushrooms (see above) is season-agnostic. Knock yourself out.
Similarly, you can play around with the rice. For example, I often make this dish with basmati rice with a little red Camargue and wild rice mixed in, such as in the example below.
Pairings
We'll have to get Karel on the case. Weirdly, this is a dish that I have often made on "good behaviour days" when it works beautifully with making a kind of schorle using the excess mango and lime juice with a little freshly squeezed orange topped up over ice with sparkling water. On a naughty day, I remember it being delightful with a worthy Costa de Campu Cantina Cinque Terre, but God knows which.
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