Anda Malpua (Poached Egg Curry)

By the time we got home after a quick literary interlude, the husband was hungry and wanted to eat asap. While I had finished cooking the vegetable and kneading the dough before I left, I knew that making dhal would take a bit of time.

Thats when I remembered a recipe I had seen on the web recently for a Bengali dish called Dimer Malpua Dimer means eggs and the end result looks like an Indian sweet called a Malpua or a Malpuri in Konkani. Hence the name.

Its an egg curry with a bit of a difference. Normally one would add boiled eggs to a curry, but this called for fried eggs. I decided to try this novel dish. I doubled the quantities called for in the recipe so we could each have 2 eggs. I used just 1/2 a tsp of oil when making the curry sauce and I fried the eggs in a non stick pan without oil, so that brought the oil content down. You can even poach the eggs if you prefer, but the crispness of frying it adds layer to the textures.

I didnt have mustard oil at home and used regular oil, so I suspect it lost a bit of the bite that the mustard oil would lend it.

My gravy looks angry red, but thats because the Moroccan chilli powder I used has more color than fire (finding stuff in my kitchen is still a bit of a treasure hunt because of the move)

It can be served hot with rice or rotis. Husbands verdict "Its interesting, but I would prefer it with boiled eggs

My verdict, its very simple and quick to put on the table when in a hurry (faster than boiling and shelling eggs)