The recipe: p12, "Smoked Haddock Kedgeree"
Ah, my WeightWatchers cookbook. You can take your jokes about lockdown weight gain and shove them, because anything that gets us through this weird time is frankly to be commended, even if that thing is several metric tons of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy (try saying that with a mouthful of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy).
Anyway, this book was underused before the original Random Kitchen series and remained underused even then, cropping up just the once as part of a near-endless run of pies and pastry. I'm pleased it's come up so soon this time - and random.org has dictated that we're in the "Start The Day" chapter, which should give us something a bit different to work with.
Except it doesn't really, because in this crazy world of ours, the category of "breakfast dishes" is deemed to include kedgeree. You can thank those enterprising Victorians, whose desire for cultural appropriation extended to taking the staple Indian khichdi and bastardising it into... a weird fish and egg concoction, apparently. (Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.) Still, I can't entirely blame the Victorians here - the opposite page of Deeply Delicious offers up a bacon and mushroom risotto, which seems... even less breakfasty? Not actually breakfasty in the slightest?
Ah well, never mind. I could have been making banana muffins, I could have been preparing what the book optimistically describes as a "big brunch" (essentially some potato and beetroot with a slice of cooked ham - be still, my beating heart), but instead we're diving into the cuisine of the Raj, kind of. Only in a healthy and - because recipe book titles never lie - "deeply delicious" form.
I decide we're going to have it for lunch, of course. Partly because that seems more sensible and partly because I'm hardly going to spend an hour in the kitchen first thing in the morning when my belly is calling out for cornflakes.
The prep: Obviously the first thing I need to buy is the titular smoked haddock. Constrained by Asda's pack sizes, I get a bit less than the recipe wants, but then this is supposed to feed four people (albeit four calorie-counting people) so scaling things back probably isn't the worst idea. Basmati rice is something I do have in the house even in lockdown shortage mode, and there are eggs in the fridge that need using up soon-ish, so it's just a question of buying some parsley, a tub of fromage frais (this feels a bit retro in a way I can't quite put my finger on?), and some saffron.
I'm initially a little sceptical as to whether the local Asda will stretch to the latter, and it feels like a bit of an indulgence considering the recipe only calls for a pinch - but I find what I need, so I make a mental note to justify the purchase by knocking out some Swedish saffron buns just as soon as I can get my hands on more flour.
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| Introducing the band |
The making: Spoiler alert: This recipe involves more faff than is strictly necessary. For example, I start by placing the haddock fillets skin side up into a pan of milk with some bay leaves and peppercorns. The milk is brought to the boil then left to cool, after which the fish is soft enough to be easily flaked. Which is fine, but all this really does is make it lose some of its lovely yellow smoked colour - no notable flavour is imparted. Could've just skinned it and chopped it up really.
Anyway, next up I'm required to coat a frying pan or wok with that WeightWatchers staple, low-fat cooking spray. (In fairness, I'm a big user of it too. Mostly to rescue roasted vegetables that are drying up and sticking to the tin, but still.) I also appreciate the "wok" option here, as my wok - a TK Maxx random find, like most things in our kitchen that aren't from IKEA - is a German take on the classic oriental design that is easily as thick as a frying pan. (What was that I was saying about cultural appropriation?) This misses the point of a wok somewhat, but makes for an ideal implement for today's task. Swings and roundabouts.
Some onions get slowly fried in said wok/pan hybrid, then the rice, the saffron (having been soaked in a little bit of boiling water for a couple of minutes) and a tablespoon of garam masala are added. I stir to mix, then add 700ml of "chicken or vegetable stock" - I go with a mixture of both - and bring it all to the boil.
You can probably imagine how appetising this looks, can't you?
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| Deeply Delicious |
And things only get better when I realise the recipe wants me to strain the milk I used to poach the fish in, then add it to the wok. Which:
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| Please sir, I want some more gruel |
Yeah. Now I understand why the recipe calls for a large bunch of parsley - anything to detract from the grim grey-brownness of what's emerging here. Nevertheless, it would be unfair to judge a recipe before the main ingredients have even been added, so I continue.
Continuing means adding the fish and parsley "after about 15-20 minutes, when the rice is just cooked and most of the liquid absorbed". Even after 20 minutes, there are no real signs of full-on absorption here. It might have helped to rinse the rice first (Madhur would be fuming), but the recipe didn't call for that. Anyway, in go the stars of the show:
...and actually, other than being a bit on the soggy side, that isn't looking too terrible, not least because the saffron has finally given the dish some much-needed yellow colour by this stage (again, if I hadn't poached the fish...).
So of course now is when the recipe tells me to add 200g of fromage frais. Because what this needs right now is more liquid. "Very low fat fromage frais", no less, so it's going to be even sloppier than its full-fat cousin. Still, the cookbook never lies, so I proceed with the inevitable wok-based disaster zone:
Yep, that looks every bit as elegant as I expected from the instruction. Which is terrific, because that is also the dish finished and ready to serve. Hurrah!
All I need to do now is prepare a garnish by quartering some hard-boiled eggs and wedging some lemons (yes, I'm using "wedge" as a verb, what of it?), and then it's time to find some way of dolloping this up that doesn't make an actual "thwulp" sound when it hits the plate.
The eating: I'm doing the recipe a disservice there, actually. By the time I've plated up, the rice has sucked up even more of the liquid and we're at a point where you can actually make out the individual grains again. Not that this allows me to present the dish with any degree of style - and how exactly does one "garnish" a pile of rice slop anyway? - but still, it's recognisably something you might want to attack with a fork without a sense of actual concern.
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| The Korean flag, kedgeree-style |
The memory of the grim onion water from earlier in the process is firmly banished, let's say that much for it. And the eating... the eating is pretty good. The texture is still a bit clarty, as we say where I'm from, but there's just about enough flavour in there to satisfy, even if "deeply delicious" remains a wild claim.
It's taken a bit too much fuss to reach this point, and there's still a lot more that could have been done with the spicing and seasoning - watching your weight is no reason to make things actively boring - but the flavours are decent and it's a reasonable meal, albeit one that I have no particular desire to repeat. And certainly not for breakfast, for heaven's sake. The Victorians may have achieved a lot, but I wouldn't trust them in the kitchen.
Two-word verdict: Deeply acceptable.
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