Egg Pepper Roast – A dish from Kerala 

This is not a dish for the faint hearted. It is spicy and hot. Note that I make a distinction between the two. What has spice may not necessarily be hot. If you think that that this will be too hot for you, drop in equal proportions the peppercorns, chilly powder, coriander powder and the green chilli (you could drop entirely the green chilli) Some recipes call for more crushed pepper powder at the time of adding the curry leaves. If you want a dark  colour  drop a tea bag into a cup of hot water and use it when you are  add the tomatoes. The same hack is used for chole masala. The tea does not alter the taste of the dish. 

Ingredients

Eggs – 4 (boiled)
Onions – 3 (finely chopped)
Tomatoes – 2 (finely chopped)
Pepper corns – 2 tablespoons (coarsely ground)

Grind these three items together separately
Cinnamon – 1 stick about an inch
Cloves – 3 or 4
Fennel seed – ½ tablespoon

Grind together these two items separately
Ginger – one inch piece
Garlic – 7 to 8 cloves

Turmeric powder – ½ tablespoon
Red chilli powder – 1 tablespoon
Coriander seed – 11/2 tablespoon
Mustard seeds – ½ teaspoon
Curry leaves – on sprig
Green chilly – 1

Salt – to taste
Coconut Oil – 4 tablespoons

Method
Boil the eggs for ten minutes and set aside. Remove the shell and cut the eggs in half. In a mortar or pepper mill, coarsely crush the pepper corns and set aside. Now grind the cinnamon cloves, fennel into a paste. You will need a little water. You need to form a paste.

Heat coconut oil in a pan (not smoking hot)add turmeric powder, salt and pepper powder give it a quick stir and add the eggs cut in half with the yoke touching the pan and fry till it colours a bit. Remove the fried eggs and set aside.

In the same pan add a little more oil and drop the mustard seeds and let it crackle. One sprig of curry leaves and the green chilly. Now and the onions. Sauté the onions till golden brown. To do this you need to keep stirring the onions so that they brown evenly. Add a bit of salt and then add the chilly and coriander powder. Stir well. Add the ginger and garlic paste followed by the masala paste made earlier. Stir and add the tomato which was chopped finely or pureed. Cook this mixture to form a thick sauce. You may need to add half a cup of water to achieve this.

Now add the boiled eggs which were friend earlier and cook for about five minutes on low heat. Remove and serve hot. Garnish with  fresh coriander leaves and a bit of mint.  

The colour of the dish varies from dark brown to red. This is due to a number of factors. How dark you fry your onions or the ration of onions to tomatoes etc. Also you  can  end up with a very dry dish or one with a bit of ‘sauce like gravy.’