Showing posts with label Eggs Bhurji. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eggs Bhurji. Show all posts

Thursday, 1 November 2012

Post Halloween Eggs Bhurji (fancy scrambled eggs)


Post Halloween Eggs Bhurji (fancy scrambled eggs)

Yikes.  What could be scarier than Halloween, with the frost deadened flowers and grinning pumpkins leering at all the Halloween Candy still left in the bowl?  Goblins, ghouls, zombies… They were all at my innocent door last night, but the worst scare was all the chocolate that I allowed myself to gobble down.  I knew I should have bought stuff that I wouldn’t like!

Luckily I watched the good Dr. Oz’s explanation of carb day staggering, where you eat carbs one day, and only proteins and vegetables the next.  So, out of a genuine terror of the five Reeces peanut butter cups and the one O Henry that I devoured last night, I created this scrambled egg dish to quiet my trembling…
This served just one, greedy guts old me, but you can double, triple or millionify for the number of people you are serving.

1 teaspoon mustard oil
¼ teaspoon dark mustard seed
¼ teaspoon cumin seed
1 tiny red onion, diced (you can use a partial onion)
1 hot chilli, finely diced
3 mushrooms, sliced
1 leaf of kale, washed and torn into bits, rib removed
splash of water if needed
1 sweet red pepper
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon dried fenugreek leaves
2 eggs
thin slice lemon, squeezed
fresh cilantro leaves


No photoshopping, the world was this colour this morning.
There’s something about roasting spices and then grinding them for a single person’s breakfast, mainly mine, that seems a little over the top.  But after last night’s debacle, I didn’t want a high salt intake, so a pre-prepared masala from a box was out of the question.  Instead, I went with this saltless masala.  You can add salt to taste if you like.

Woops I added too much turmeric here.
Tiny onions are out of my garden.
In a non-stick fry pan, add the oil and turn the heat to high.  Sizzle the dark mustard and cumin seeds for mere moments and add the onion and chilli, stirring to cool the pan, turning the heat to medium.  When the onions are translucent, add the mushrooms, and cook till soft, which will take three minutes or so.  Add the turmeric powder and dried fenugreek, then the kale and cover the pan.  Five minutes later, check for moisture and if it’s too dry, add just a little water, a splash might be equivalent of a tablespoon.  Let it boil off if you do use it.  You just need to cook the kale and spices without any scorching.  No liquid in the pan!  Once the kale is close to being soft enough to eat, about eight minutes, add the red pepper.  Put the lid back on the pan and cook for another three to five minutes.  No need to overcook these jewels to mush!  
Finally add two whole raw eggs.  Gently stir them into the dish, and they will cook rapidly.  The larger the number of eggs, the longer it will take.  Mine took less than a minute.

Squeeze the lemon over the eggs and serve with a little cilantro, knowing that this low carb high protein dish will set you on the right path, if you’ve gone astray.  I know that eggs don’t belong in my new vegan lifestyle, but today I had to make a serious adjustment to last night’s fright.  Best to just have some nutritious high protein, and avoid the carbs today.

Nyeee!
Nyeeeeeee!
Nyeeeeeeeeee! (Sounds from Psycho when Norman Bates enters the bathroom...)
What were your Halloween frights?
 

Thursday, 15 March 2012

Eggs Bhurji (Scrambled Eggs)


Eggs Bhurji (Scrambled Eggs)
Well, today* is a nasty day indeed.  70 k winds are blasting the tree limbs off their very trunks, the noon day sky is charcoal grey, and the temperature is above freezing, but with the wind chill… 
Of course it could be worse.  It could be January, and the wind chill could be taking us down to -50 C, but that’s another worry for another day. 
 Meanwhile I needed something to both fortify  and warm me up quickly.  In our household, these are actually known as ‘scramblified eggs’.  I'm afraid we have Salman Rushdie to blame for that.  You'll notice I  made enough for only greedy guts me.  If you’re more generous than I, you’ll want to multiply these ingredients accordingly.
Ingredients
1 teaspoon mustard oil
½ teaspoon dark mustard seed
½ teaspoon cumin seed
¼ teaspoon fennel seed
1/3 red onion, sliced
2 slices ginger, julienned and chopped
2 kale leaves, stems removed and chopped
2 Anaheim peppers, julienned and chopped
1 teaspoon favourite masala
¼ teaspoon hot paprika powder
½ large sweet red pepper, diced roughly
2 beaten eggs
1 tiny lime, juiced
Put the pan on high heat, and add the oil.  Drop in a few mustard seeds, and when they sizzle, add the rest.  Add the cumin and let sizzle, then the fennel.  Turn the heat down to medium and quickly add the onion, ginger, chili, masala and paprika and cook, stirring for a minute or two. Add kale, and stir.  Put a lid on the pan.  Give this about five minutes for the kale to soften a bit.  It still wants to be green, with some fight left in it. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, beat the eggs.  Add the eggs and chopped sweet red pepper, tilting the pan to spread the eggs out.  After about three minutes, very gently break the eggs up, flipping them by bits, to get large pieces of scrambled egg, which I think look nicer than the broken tiny bits you see in a more traditional bhurji.  Pour the lime juice over it at the last minute, and stir that gently through the eggs.  This scrambled egg dish has so much substance you can skip the toast and marmalade!  The additional heat and pop of fennel seed will warm your soul.  Enjoy!
*Actually, I wrote this up on Monday.  Today promises to be warm and sunny!  Temperatures all the way to 15 C.  Hooray!