Madurai Egg Curry

After dodging the bullet for 2+ years, which included us living in NYC in the middle of the pandemic, me and my husband got COVID in July of 2022 :/ We decided to inform our neighbors in case we needed any emergency help, as we were in pretty bad shape on Day 1 and 2. My extremely sweet neighbor, Vinobala, insisted on sending us food and left a boatload of food for us. Including the tastiest south Indian mixed-veg curry I have EVER had!! I am not exaggerating.. We were at the point in being COVID positive where Gatorade orange was tasting like bitter metallic water to me and Neel could barely taste it at all.

One bite of Vino’s curry and we both looked at each other like we had just won the lottery! I literally had tears in my eyes.

Weeks passed, we recovered by the memory of this delicious curry was so vivid, we had to have it again! I bugged Vino until I got the recipe from her 😛 she told me its her mother’s home recipe, and although it didn’t have a speific name, she decided to call it Tamil Nadu Madurai curry. Her recipe included this steallr curry paste, which has now become a staple in my fridge. I make it in buld and use it in multiple things! This is an egg curry made with the same curry paste. I will be sharing the original Mixed veg curry soon.

This recipe serves 4

You will need:

10-12 hard boiled eggs

2-3 shallots (depending on size)

5-6 cloves of garlic

2 inch piece of ginger

4-5 byadgi red chillies, deseeded and soaked (or any other dried red chilli that is not too spicy – as this is mainly for color and flavor)

1-2 green chillies (you can add more/ less of this depending on the spice level)

1 whole star anise

1 pod of green cardamom

1 small piece of cinnamon

6-8 cashewnuts

1/2 cup of fresh shredded coconut (I have used frozen thawed coconut)

1 medium-large onion thinly sliced

half a tomato finely chopped or 1 tsp of tomato paste

1/2 tsp of turmeric powder

1/2 tsp of garam masala (I used Everest garam masala)

Half a cup of coconut milk (I use Trader joe’s canned coconut milk, its the best!)

Salt (use kosher or sea salt, avoid using table salt, especially iodized salt)

a little bit of Sugar, if the coconut milk is not sweet

Oil (Any neutral veegtable oil)

Process:

Hard boil the eggs, peel them, make cuts on all four sides (so that the sauce can seep in) and set them aside
Making the curry paste – you can make this in bulk and freeze or refrigerate it – as its delciious, versatile and easy to grind when you have more volume in your blender.
Grind togeteher the shallots, ginger, garlic, soaked red chillies, star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, green chillies, coocnut, cashewnuts and salt to a fine paste. Add little water as needed

in a pan heat 2-3 tbsp of oil – add the sliced onion and saute until golden
Next add the curry paste and saute until aromatic
Add curry leaves, turmeric powder, garam masala and tomato paste/ chopped tomatoes – continue sauteing on medium flame until it changes color slightly – about 2-3 minutes
Next add a little bit of hot water to deglaze the pan and cook the paste on low flame, covered, until oil starts to leave from the sides. this will take about 5 minutes.

Add hot water water, little at a time, until you achieve a consisency that you like. Mix well and let simmer
Once the mixture comes to a simmer and looks homogenous, add the eggs and mix well.
Adjust salt and Add more water of needed (remember you still ahve to add about half a cup of coconut milk which will thin it out further.