Nadan Egg Roast- Kerala Egg Roast | An egg delicacy from Kerala cuisine

Last year, I had an opportunity of visiting Kerala twice. Before taking this vacation, I had checked with my Malayali friends about the food items that I must not miss having during my trip to Kerala. I had a list of must-try dishes ready in my possession and Nadan-Egg Roast was one recipe that was on top of that list. During my first trip, I tried several restaurants but they did not have this recipe on their menu. On fourth day of my trip, when I was in Alleppey, enjoying my every moment of stay on the houseboat, we were in company of a very warm and courteous crew.

They were 3 of them, two of these gentleman whose name I fail to recollect were driver and a helper. However, I very clearly recollect the name of the chef who was responsible for managing kitchen. Abhilash was a perfect host. He greeted us with a warm smile on his face, and served us a perfect lunch which he had very diligently prepared in the on-board kitchen. Afternoon lunch was a very simple affair with most of the dishes being vegetarian and the only non-veg dish that he had prepared was a simple Karimeen (geen chromide) fish fry. However, as I had come to learn in Kerala, the real taste of food lies in its simplicity and spices used, and both are found in abundance in God’s own country. In evening, Abhilash, like a perfect host told us that he could prepare the dinner of our choice. We decided to make use of this opportunity and asked him if he could serve us Nadan Egg Roast for dinner. He promised us with a smile that he would make the egg roast for us.

In the evening, when the boat was anchored, and we had lot of time to bide, we hopped onto the shores and decided to wander about in that quaint and silent lane, lined up with palm trees on either side and leading us into a beautiful Kerala village. The village seemed to be pleasantly quiet with occasional chirping of birds breaking that silence. The other highlight was mud pots lined up on these palm trees which are used for toddy-tapping. We had never tasted toddy before and thought trying some local toddy would do us no harm. However, since we had never bought toddy before and had absolutely no idea about making its purchase, we asked our helper friend on our boat to help us buy “small quantity” of toddy. Meanwhile we wandered meaninglessly for quite some time and finally when the darkness began to fall upon us we decided to head back to shores. Our friend had already got a liter of toddy for us for 100 bucks. I think we should have been more specific when we asked him to buy “small quantity” which he conjectured to be 1 liter. Though we had no issues with binge drinking, but no matter how hard we tried we could only finish quarter of liter and passed on the remaining bottle to our newly formed on board friends.

Dinner was ready and Abhilash had prepared a dinner which was nothing short of extravaganza. Karimeen fish fry, Nadan mutta (Egg) roast, Lobster fry, chicken curry, Cauliflower veg gravy, Rice and appams. I persuaded Abhilash to share his Nadan egg recipe and promised him that I would not forget to mention his name whenever I make this recipe. He smiled listening to me and agreed to share his recipe. I must mention here that our medium of communication with Abhilash was the universal language of food. We could not speak in each other’s tongue but with some actions, pointing at the items and occasional help from the translator on board (our helper seemed to know enough of our language to play the role of translator) we were able to write down this recipe of Nadan Egg Roast. This recipe reaffirms my belief that you do not always need a language to communicate or understand each other.

What I like about this recipe is that like several other Kerala dishes you can prepare Nadan-egg roast very quickly and with few basic ingredients that are easily accessible. If you do not want to make use of coconut oil due to your personal preferences, you can substitute it with any other cooking oil. This recipe tastes great with Kerala Parotta, appam, pathiri or even plain fulkas. Share your thoughts about this recipe in the comment section below.

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Nadan Egg Roast- An egg delicacy from Kerala cuisine

Prep time:  15 mins

Cook time:  30 mins

Total time:  45 mins

Serves: 2-3

For each step we follow cooking on low flame, unless explicitly stated otherwise

Ingredients

• 4 hard boiled eggs.Make slits on them
• 150 grams onions sliced into lengths.You can choose to use shallots if available
• 200 grams tomatoes finely chopped
• 2 green chilies slit into lengths
• 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• 2 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tsp garam masala powder
• curry leaves
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 and ½ tsp black peppercorn powder
• 1 tsp fennel seeds powder
• Coconut Oil (Or any other other cooking Oil)
• Salt

Instructions

1. Heat 4 tbsp coconut oil in pan.
2. Fry eggs in oil until they become light brown.
3. Eggs become slighly brown in 3 mins on low flame. Take them out from pan.
4. Now add sliced onions and chilies in same oil and fry them till onions turn light brown.
5. Onions become light brown in 6-7 mins. Now add tomatoes and cook until they become mushy.
6. Add little salt for faster cooking of tomatoes.
7. Tomatoes would get cooked in 6-7 mins. Now add ginger-garlic paste and fry for 3-4 mins.
8. Now add red chili powder,fennel seeds powder, black peppercorn powder.
9. Add garam masala, coriander powder, curry leaves and salt as per taste.Mix them all well
10. Allow the masala to roast for 5-6 mins. Now add ¼ cup water.
11. Add Eggs and coat them nicely with masala.
12. Now cook eggs covered for 5 mins.
13. Eggs get cooked in 5 mins.Turn off the flame.
14. Nadan Egg Roast can be relished with kerala parotta, appam, pathiri,fulkas

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