My friend Shamsad, who, I am sure, is painting up there somewhere, taught me a keema dish that I can never forget. You cook keema with masalas, and then, when it is almost done, you make holes in the keema. You break an egg into each hole, drizzle hot ghee over it, add chopped green garlic shoots on top, and cover and remove the pot from the stove, letting the eggs cook in the hot ghee. 

I have written about this most delectable dish, but I found myself thinking about it some days ago. I feel what made the dish so heavenly was the egg, which had to be runny. You mixed it with the keema and then ate it with rotis. 

I was reminded of all this when chef Madhumita Mohanta of The Lalit Great Eastern in Calcutta mentioned the West Asian egg dish, Shakshuka, while we were discussing different — and interesting ways — of cooking eggs. “Shakshuka is of Tunisian and Moroccan origin, but is popular across the Middle East,” chef Mohanta says.

It is essentially a dish of eggs, tomato and peppers, and is a great favourite among my chef friends. Chef Noah Barnes of Arriba, a Mexican restaurant in Delhi, swears by it too.

It’s also an easy dish to rustle up if guests suddenly drop by. Heat olive oil in a deep skillet. Sauté chopped onion till translucent. Add minced garlic. Then put in some finely chopped bell peppers. Add jalapeño if you wish to. Let it cook for a few minutes, and then add tomato puree and fresh, chopped tomatoes. Cook for a couple of minutes. Flavour it with bay leaf, paprika and cumin powder. Season it with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar. Cook on low heat for 8-10 minutes. Now take some eggs and crack them, gently and one at a time, on the surface of the mixture. Cover and simmer till the eggs are done the way you want them — runny, semi-soft or hard.

Eggs are versatile ingredients. They play the leading role in dishes cutting across cuisines. Sometimes, as in Shamsad’s recipe and chef Mohanta’s Metia Burz Dimer Keema, they have an equally talented co-star — keema.

“This is a layered omelette and minced meat dish, gratinated with beaten egg whites,” she explains. “This is one of the most popular street foods of Metia Burz.”

The all-time egg favourite of Calcutta’s much loved chef, Shaun Kenworthy, is the oeuf en gelée, a dish that he says goes back to the fine dining days of Georges Auguste Escoffier, a French chef, restaurateur and writer of the 19th century.

“It is a simple soft boiled egg set in a rich, double reduced beef consommé, flavoured with tarragon, turned out and served with Melba toast and a little watercress salad,” he says.

Chef Mohanta does oeufs en cocotte — or eggs in a pot. But while the traditional dish is an egg cooked in cream or butter in a small ramekin, hers is a variation in which the egg is cooked in beer dough rolls with cheese, olive and herbs.

Vegetarians will baulk at the thought of an egg raj kachori — but I must say I find it interesting. An egg, she says, is baked inside the kachori, and garnished with chutney and coriander leaves.

I love eggs — when they occupy the high table, or when they are served on the streets. That is why I can still remember the taste of the freshly boiled eggs, with salt and pepper on them, which I ate on the streets of Manali 30 years ago. And that is why — or one reason why — I won’t forget Shamshad’s egg-and-green garlic keema.

Photographs by Subhendu Chaki;
Location: The Lalit Great Eastern, Calcutta