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Kedgeree
3/4 lb. (1½ cups) cold cooked fish 2 ozs. (4 tablespoonfuls) butter or drippings 1/4 lb. (1/2 cup) rice Salt and pepper to taste 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley 2 hard-cooked eggs Flake the fish, taking care to remove all the skin and bones. Wash and boil the rice, then drain and dry it in the oven. Melt the butter in a sauce-pan, add the whites of eggs, chopped, the fish and rice, and stir over the fire all together until quite hot. Take care that the mixture does not brown. Season with salt and pepper and pile in a mound on a hot dish. Decorate down the sides with the hard-cooked yolks of eggs, previously rubbed through a sieve, and the parsley. Serve hot.
A straightforward reheating dish that lives or dies on the rice: dry, separate grains are the whole point, and the pan must never brown.
- The hingeKeep the heat gentle and stir only until the mixture is hot through. The recipe warns explicitly that the mixture must not brown.
- Drying the riceThe recipe says only to drain the rice and dry it in the oven, giving neither temperature nor time; spread it on a shallow tray in a low oven until the grains no longer clump.
- Quantities3/4 lb cooked fish is roughly the yield of 1 lb of raw fillet. The 1/4 lb of rice is raw weight, about 1/2 cup dry, giving 1 1/2 cups cooked.
- Which fishSmoked haddock is the fish most associated with kedgeree, though this recipe asks only for cold cooked fish; salmon, hot-smoked trout or leftover white fish all work. If using smoked fish, hold back on the salt until you have tasted.
- DrippingsThe rendered fat saved from roasting meat. Butter is the better choice here for flavour, though a neutral oil will do if you want the fish to lead.
- The eggsHard-cook seven to nine minutes for yolks that are set but not chalky, then cool in cold water. Push the yolks through a fine sieve rather than grating; the sieved crumb is what gives the mound its finish.
- ServingServes three to four as a light main, more at breakfast. It cools fast in a mound, so warm the serving dish properly and take it to the table at once.
- SeasoningThe period recipe stops at salt and pepper. A little cayenne, curry powder or lemon juice is entirely within the tradition and lifts an otherwise plain plate.
Kedgeree descends from khichri, the Indian dish of rice and pulses that British households in India adapted by dropping the lentils and adding fish and egg. It came home with returning colonial families and settled onto the Victorian and Edwardian breakfast sideboard, where it could be made from the previous day's fish. This version is notably restrained: many contemporaries added curry powder, a reminder of the dish's origin, while others, like this one, kept it to butter, salt and pepper.