The latest “Cookbook Confidential Cookbook Club” challenge was to prepare a dish from a classic Indian cookbook.

Madhur Jaffrey initially became a cookbook author, she wrote in the first line of An Invitation to Indian Cooking, “as a gradual maneuver in self-defense.” 

She wasn’t defending herself from anything more malevolent than the curiosity of her friends and acquaintances. It was the 1960s, a time when many Americans had never encountered Indian food.

Now, fifty years after the release of this groundbreaking cookbook, I’m going to make a dish from it as part of Bernadette’s terrific “Cookbook Confidential Cookbook Club!”

This is a photo of Chef’s “Kofta Masala Curry” – and since Kofta is the word for “meatball” – the recipe I chose to make from her cookbook is called “Chicken Scotch Egg Curry” – a “Nargisi” is a classic “Indian Scotch Egg”, which is an egg wrapped inside meat!

Let’s get cooking! Here are the ingredients being used for the recipe:

First, soft boil 4 eggs – the recipe suggested putting eggs in cold water, bring to a boil and cook for 6 minutes then cool – that worked perfectly. Peel them and they are ready to go.

After getting the eggs prepped, I set out to make the gravy:

1 large onion, diced

12 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup oil

1/2 cup full fat yogurt

1 tsp red chili powder

2 tsp salt

2 tsp coriander powder

2tsp cumin powder

2-3 cups water or stock

Saute the garlic and onion in a pan until they are golden…feel free to carmelize them a bit – after 15 minutes of so, take them out, put them in a blender and pulse them into a paste.

Put them back into the frying pan and add the yogurt on low heat to blend in, then add all of your spices and blend in again…

After it is mixed together, add the water / stock and mix it all together, then let it simmer on low. Important note: I didn’t add much of the red chili powder as I’m not a fan of spice….but as a result, the sauce is a bit creamier in color than it could have been.

Next, I made the chicken meatballs:

1 lb. ground chicken

1-1/2 tsp cumin

1-1/2 tsp coriander

1 tsp cardomom

1 small stick cinammon

2 tsp salt

1 tsp red chili powder

1/2 cup flour

4 eggs

1 tsp poppy seeds ( I didn’t have so didn’t use)

The recipe asks you to toast cumin, coriander and cardamom but I had it already ground so didn’t do that…instead I just combined all of the dry ingredients and folded them into the ground chicken…now watch what is next!

Using the palm of my hand, I made a nice little cup and put the soft-boiled egg on top, then wrapped the chicken mixture around it, making sure it’s sealed…that’s it and it’s easy!

Now, just brown them in an oiled frying pan so theydon’t come apart…turn regularly to get all sides browned.

After about ten minutes, they are ready to put into the sauce, then cover the pan and let them simmer for twenty minutes, turning every five minutes so all sides get submerged in the sauce!

Time to plate the dish:

Serve your “narcissi koftas” over rice or noodles with a liberal amount of the sauce and you are ready to eat.

So, how was it? Delicious.

First, the taste was great: strong curry flavors, and the chicken meatball tasted very good as well…I like seeing the egg inside, as it gave the dish the only color it had!

I should have sliced some green onion over it, or added some fresh green herb to the top because the dish looks very bland…which wasn’t the case at all.

I also noted when looking online that the sauce shown there is much more colorful, so my lack of “red” in the sauce is due to my hesitancy to add that chili powder which would have given it much needed color as well.

Is the cookbook worth buying?

For me the answer is yes, because I do want to attempt more Indian cooking, and a new 50th anniversary edition is out this month – with a foreword by Chef Yotam Ottolenghi!

I made his Vietnamese “Banh xeo” pancakes, and I think we are all getting a challenge from one of his cookbooks next!

You can see how I did with his food here:

I haven’t cooked much Indian food, although one effort involved a method known as “tiffin” cooking:

These eggplant rolls were part of my “52 in 22” cooking competition, and you can see the recipe here:

I admit my dish today looked bland, but it was full of flavor.

One of my disastrous efforts was when I tried to make Chef Michael Ruhlman’s “Mollet Egg”:

Is this the way it was supposed to turn out – and can you really bread an egg while cupping it in your hand?

Click here for the answers!

Also, for all of you foodies, I am saving all of the “52 In 22” recipes right here:

“Bite! Eat! Repeat!” is filled with recipes and so much more – please sign up to follow along here:

https://biteeatrepeat.com



If you enjoy this series, please share on social media – and make sure to follow Bernadette’s cookbook series for great recipes and reviews – thanks!

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