Egg Curry (Muttai Kuzhambhu)

Ingredients

Eggs - 4

Coconut - 1/4 of  a whole coconut
Red chillies - 3
Cumin (jeera) - 1/4 sp
Fennel (perunjeera) - 1/4 sp
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Garlic - 4 pods
Big onion - 1/4
Tamarind - 1 1/2 pods
Tomato - 1
Coriander powder - 1 sp
Red chilli powder - 1/2 sp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 sp
Salt - To taste
Seasoning:
Gingelly oil - 5 sp
Mustard - 1/4 sp
Urad dhal - 1/4 sp
Onion ( finely chopped) - 2 sp
Curry leaves - 10 Nos.

Method

1. Soak the tamarind in hot water for 10 min and prepare tamarind extract.
2. Grind coconut, red chillies, cumin, fennel, ginger and garlic to a fine paste adding required water.
3. To this add the onion and again grind to make a paste.
4. Transfer the masala paste to a vessel adding sufficient water.
5. Add the tamarind extract, coriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt and tomato.
6. Let this boil in a medium heat till the masala and masala powders are well cooked.
7. Keeping in a low heat, break open the egg shells and add the eggs to the curry one by one. This will give the original egg flavor to the curry.(OR) The eggs can also be boiled previously, removed from shells and can be added (if the smell of break - open egg is not preferred).
8. Allow the eggs to cook in the masala for 5 min.
9. Do the seasoning and add to the curry. Let this simmer for another 5 min to reach the required consistency.
10. Serve with white rice or with idli, dosa / bread varieties.

 Note

1. If raw eggs are added directly to the curry, they tend to dissolve so easily into the curry. Hence avoid frequent use of ladle / spoon in the vessel.
2. Slits can be made in the boiled eggs before adding, to enable the masalas to penetrate to the inside of the egg.
3. Egg curry w/ any indian bread variety is not tried so far (by me).