Kedgeree-Doo

With our heat wave finally breaking, I was in the mood to concoct something for dinner tonight. As usual, we were lacking in perishables, but there was some frozen fish in the freezer and leftover rice. So, I thought I'd take a stab at kedgeree. This is a colonial English "interpretation" of an Indian dish, usually made with smoked haddock, rice, curry, butter, and eggs. Instead of smoked haddock, we had tilapia, which worked nicely. I based my creation on Jamie Oliver's recipe in The Naked Chef (which is a surprisingly good cookbook, by the way), making substitutions as necessary. Also, being Asian, I like my rice dishes to be more rice-heavy than most other people, so I used almost four times the recommended amount.

Here's the recipe I ended up with:

• 3 eggs, hardboiled for 10 minutes and sliced
  
• 1 lb frozen tilapia
  
• 5 bay leaves
  
• 2 cups uncooked rice, cooked in a rice cooker with 3 cups water
  
• 4 T butter
  
• 1 T curry powder
  
• 1 large onion, chopped
  
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• ½ cup white wine
  
• 3 T apple cider vinegar
  
• 1 cup frozen peas
  
• 2 t salt
  
• freshly ground black pepper
  

1. Put the tilapia in a saucepan with the bay leaves and about ⅓ cup water, bring to a boil and cover to steam/braise for 5 minutes or until the fish is cooked.
2. Remove the fish and break it into chunks.
3. Remove the bay leaves and reserve the cooking liquid.
4. Melt the butter in a large non-stick pan. Briefly fry the curry powder, then add the onion and garlic, and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the fish-cooking liquid, wine, and vinegar, and reduce by half while deglazing the pan.
6. Add the cooked fish and frozen peas and heat through.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Stir in the rice and hardboiled eggs, and serve with a simple green vegetable.

The result was an attractive bed of yellow rice dotted with bits of white (egg whites) and green (peas). The tilapia was mild and clean-tasting but it was so soft that the chunks broke apart and became completely incorporated into the rice. I think smoked haddock would withstand the stirring better. If I had had some fresh herbs, I would have thrown some in with the rice and eggs. Jamie uses cilantro, although I think parsley and/or scallions would also be nice. Nonetheless, the combination of butter, cider vinegar, curry, and fish made a rich-tasting supper that managed to satisfy this starch-hungry appetite.