Smoked Salmon & Quail Egg Kedgeree

Smoked Salmon Kedgeree with Quails Eggs:

I don’t do eggs.  Well, actually I do, in omelettes and soufflés, in all sorts of egg based sauces and in mayo for starters.  But I don’t generally like chicken eggs that look like eggs.  It’s irrational and I don’t think it has anything to do with the flavour, more to do with a childhood angst that the yellow bit was a fluffy chicken sort of liquidised and packaged in a shell.  And perhaps because it was one of the few foods I was forced to eat/try by my parents fairly regularly.  Perversely, I do like quail eggs.  I think there’s a higher ratio of yolk to white and the white never seems quite so rubbery to me, because the tiny eggs can be cooked much faster

Despite my egg-phobia, I love kedgeree – even the the real McCoy version made with proper smoked haddock and chicken eggs.  When I was little I’d pick out the boiled egg bits and usually get made to sit at the table till I ate them all, but now I don’t mind them so much.  However In this case I happened to have a smoked salmon fillet from delishfish and I wanted to do something a bit special with it.  This isn’t sliced smoked salmon, it’s a whole piece of salmon that has been hot smoked and would make a substantial meal for one person.  But, treated this way it will stretch to a posh lunch for two or three with no problem.  If you can’t find hot smoked salmon fillet, then you would be better using a fresh salmon fillet here than slices of the cold smoked variety.  It needs nice flakey chunks of fish.

Smoked Salmon and Quail Egg Kedgeree

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Serves	2-4
Prep time	5 minutes
Cook time	20 minutes
Total time	25 minutes
Allergy	Egg, Fish
Meal type	Breakfast, Lunch
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Hot

Smoked Salmon and Quail Egg Kedgeree works well for a posh breakfast dish, or a light lunch. This take on a classic colonial British/Indian dish is beautifully flavoured and very easy to prepare.

Ingredients

• 150g Basamati rice
• 2 teaspoons Madras curry powder (I used barts medium, you may prefer more heat!)
• 6 Quails eggs (hard boiled and peeled then halved)
• 1 Hot smoked salmon fillet (100-150g)
• 1 tablespoon Chives (chopped finely)
• 1 tablespoon Coriander (chopped finely, a few leaves reserved for garnish)
• 1 Shallot (chopped finely)
• 1 Lime or Lemon (cut in half, with one half then cut into segments)
• 30g Butter
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

	Boil the rice in 350ml of water till just soft, drain any remaining water
	Melt the butter in a large frying pan and add the curry powder. Sizzle for a minute or so over a low-medium heat then stir in the shallot and cook for a further 5-10 minutes over a low heat till soft
	Add the rice and mix thoroughly
	Stir in the flaked salmon, the herbs, the juice of half the lemon or lime and the quails eggs cut into halves. Then warm through gently over a very low heat
	Add salt and pepper to taste, serve garnished with the remaining coriander leaves and with segments of lemon or lime.

Note

You can prepare everything in advance, leaving out the fresh herbs and lime or lemon juice, then reheat in the oven in a covered dish for about 15 minutes before stirring through the herbs and lime or lemon juice.

I am very pleased with this dish – it’s made a fabulous lunch and I think it would also work well served as a dinner party starter in smaller portions.  The need for coriander annoys me because it’s one of those herbs I have little success trying to grow and I hate paying for those tiny packets of herbs you get in the supermarket.  I don’t believe it would work as well with anything else though you could try using fennel and flat leaved parsley, perhaps adding some crushed coriander seeds to the curry powder at the start.

I think it has quite enough herbs in it to qualify for Herbs on Saturday over at LavenderandLovage so I am sending this to Karen, especially as I won my fish from her blog giveaway!