Category Archives: food and cooking

Indian cooking – Egg Bhurji

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On my first morning in India I ate a spicy scrambled egg dish that I loved very much. It had been cooked the day before by the housekeeper Kareena. Eggs that are delicious and cooked 24 hours ahead? That’s a recipe I need. I asked if she would show me how to make those “breakfast eggs” sometime, and she said she’d be happy to. Yesterday was my lucky day.

When I noticed how her kurta was the same color as the onions,
I knew I must take pictures.

And I took notes on the process, and the approximate amount of ingredients. It’s essentially a spicy Indian version of a vegetable scramble, with variations as many as there are cooks, as you can see for yourself if you want to browse recipes online.

My teacher went to the refrigerator to get one of the slender green Indian chilis, and was disappointed to find them all gone. She said she could make the dish with dried chili powder for us, but if she were making it at home she’d just wait until she went to the market again; because fresh is best.

 

This is the powder she substituted>>

I read that if you want to approximate this dried chili powder you can blend 3 parts paprika to one part cayenne.

 

 

This morning Tom went shopping and resupplied us with chilis, which are here drying after being soaked in a disinfecting bath.

It is amazing how many vegetables are in this dish. Kareena’s style is to make sure all the vegetables are in very small pieces by the time you mix the eggs in. The bright red color comes from the chili powder; what I ate that first morning had been made with a fresh green chili and it wasn’t red at all.

Kareena’s EGG BHURJI

3 small onions, diced small
1 tablespoon fresh curry leaves
2-3 tablespoons oil
1-2 teaspoons turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 small tomatoes, diced small
1 long thin hot chili, minced (or 1-2 teaspoons Kashmiri chili powder)
½-1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, minced
6 eggs

In a large broad skillet heat the oil, then throw in the whole curry leaves and stir them a few seconds to sizzle before adding the onions. Cook the onions over medium heat until golden brown. You may add the fresh chili pepper at this point, or wait.

Add the tomatoes, turmeric, (chili powder if you didn’t have fresh chili, fresh chili if you waited), and salt. Stir and cook together for a few minutes, then put a lid on and cook for another 10 minutes or so to break down the tomatoes. Mash them some more with the back of the wooden spoon.

Break the eggs into the pan and scramble with all the vegetables until partially cooked; add most of the cilantro, saving some for garnish. Scramble until all cooked and crumbly. Taste and adjust salt if necessary. Serve, sprinkling with remaining cilantro.

The best way to eat these eggs is with one of Kareena’s chapatis fresh off the griddle, but a pile of Bhurji is great all by itself, too.

When I return home, I’d like to have a tablecloth after the fashion of Kareena’s kurta for my dining table, so that when I sit down to eat my Anda Bhurji it would all add up to the perfect and colorful Indian breakfast.

Shopping with pani puri.

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Tom took me along on his shopping trip yesterday, to a few stores and shops including a multi-story big box that had features of a Super Wal-Mart, Costco, and a department store. The escalators were ramps that accommodated shopping carts, and we visited all the floors and departments, but never found a C-battery or anyone who knew what that was. Tom wasn’t very sure himself, but some new baby equipment wants them. Oh well.

I was fascinated by the many varieties of basmati rice, both packaged and in large bins where women in pretty clothes were scooping up their favorite type. I love basmati rice and used to buy it in 25# bags myself; I came home with a jar of the Brown Basmati.

The packaged rice is one of many products and ads that feature a photo of a famous movie star, often a Khan, or the “Big B,” Amitabh Bachchan. I don’t have a hope of keeping all these celebrities straight, but a couple of them have leading roles in an unusually good Bollywood movie we are currently watching here (over the course of three nights, because it’s close to four hours long): “Lagaan.” Oh, and on the route between the different shops, whose car did our driver point out but that of the very Aamir Khan himself. Mumbai is the center of Bollywood, did you know?

Women were also filling bags with large-crystal sugar from a great bulk bin.

 

 

We ate several pani puri snacks and another type of snack at a stand in the food department of the store. For us to take our fill of those savory treats cost less than 100 rupees which Tom said was about $1.10.

 

From this store we drove to that quiet neighborhood Tom introduced me to on my first day here, where is found their favorite market.

The shopkeepers know at least the names of vegetables and how to count in English so I was able to complete the purchase of some carrots, zucchini, peppers and broccoli while Tom went to the next stand where we found leeks and potatoes from which he is going to make soup.

Are those red carrots really carrots? I’ll cook them today and find out.

We brought all our loot home and then Tom cooked up a big delicious dinner featuring mutton chops, pesto green beans, tomato salad and more. It was the first meal of not particularly Indian food that I’ve had in ten days.

Baby “Raj” had stayed home with his mama. They are eating well and building strength and we are all enjoying the early Getting to Know You period. Well, not quite all: Huckleberry Cat has led a very sheltered life until this point and he doesn’t feel entirely positive about the strange creature who suddenly showed up.

As I write, it is a lazy Sunday afternoon. I’ve been holding a sleeping baby for an hour while chatting with Kate and Tom about so many things India, seeds that could germinate into future blog posts. Now I’m back here typing with two fingers to finish this one. My mind will immediately and irresistibly start gathering threads of images and impressions to weave into the next scrap of cloth I hope to share with you, of this colorful tapestry that is Bombay.

Christmas is always today’s gift.

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For Christmas decor, I give you these lighted redwood trees in my town.

Because at my house, there is a wreath on the front door, and one on the playhouse door, and that’s it! I am so busy planning and packing for a long trip, starting with Christmas at Pearl’s in Wisconsin, that I had no room in my mind or schedule for more than that.

I’m not even baking! Soldier and his family were just here for a couple of days and I found a Sugar Plum Cake from last Christmas in the freezer, to eat for breakfast. It’s a stöllen sort of bread, the recipe for which was handed down from my Aunt Bettie; the grandchildren particularly liked the little colored bits in it.

If I were going to be home this year, I’d certainly find a new cookie recipe in this book which was gifted to me by one of the children:

But I’m not, so I’ll share a few cookies and cookie stories from the past:

Two recipes from my cookie tray

A traditional seedy one

I don’t think I love Christmas as much as my late husband did, but I enjoyed all the aspects of preparing and shopping better when he was still around. And his voice leading us in carol-singing! Oh yes.

For almost twenty years I’ve been learning about the riches of the Orthodox Church, which include an appreciation for the Incarnation on a level I never found elsewhere. It’s thrilling to focus on Christ’s Nativity this month, but the story of a baby in a manger would become boring after a few years if it were merely a historic event to think about. The soul requires more than thought, more than history, and this holy feast is an event that we can abide in the way the branch abides in the Vine. It makes possible our participating in that Life, in the ever arriving Today.

What happens in the present is connected in lovely and helpful ways to the past by what we retain and remember. Here are two more articles from the archives, on Christmasy things:

What Christmas trees teach

Reading the Nativity icon

Tradition is a word that comes up a lot during holiday seasons. Some people find great comfort in keeping customs like baking cookies and visiting Santa, but at the same time try to craft their own individual version of fundamental human personhood. I found this little Facebook posting to be thought-provoking:

Every human being born into this world starts as a traditionalist. What we have, what we begin with, is handed down to us from everyone and everything that has gone before. The rejection of that tradition is not only absurd, it is ungrateful. [Tradition is] also inescapable. We cannot become self-created. What we have is a gift. What we are is revealed as we fulfill that gift.

Be thankful. You are God’s gift to the world.

-Father Stephen Freeman

From each Christmas to the next, and every day in between,
“God is with us!”

I toss in some Lebanese.

food and cooking

This morning when I assembled my skillet breakfast it was more colorful than usual, and that gave me the idea of sharing with you its picture, along with the key ingredient that made it also more brightly flavored than is typical for me these days.

The primary part was some ground meat that came from half a lamb I bought from farmer friend Esther last year. I remembered to defrost it yesterday!

Sautéed with carrots and Lebanese Spice Mix, frozen chopped spinach stirred in at the last (and steam blurring the image). The spice mix really makes it – click on the link to read the recipe I posted eight years ago.