Burmese Egg Curry, "Kyat-Oo-Hinn"

I cooked Burmese egg curry yesterday as I chose not to go food shopping in the drizzling rain after finding some eggs in the fridge and the basic ingredients at home. Egg curry is pretty easy to cook if you are not raw to Asian cooking. You just need a little patience and a love of spicy flavour. I learnt cooking from my Dad who is the family chef and egg curry was one of the first cuisines he taught me. 

Chicken eggs are my favourite food since I was very young. My younger brother is opposite to me in term of eating eggs. Two half-boiled eggs in breakfast always scared him when he was a little boy. I used to frequently request my Dad for egg curry and the menu would be lentil soup with vermicelli, egg curry and fried Chinese sausages on that day. Fried sausages were actually for my brother who doesn’t eat egg but I was privileged to eat those as well. These foods remind me of my happy simple childhood. 

Egg is nutrient rich for the third social-classed Burmese people who barely afford just to live a day-to-day life. I remember that when my mum worked in the Falam general hospital in Chin state as a physician twenty-five years ago, her then patients used to bring to her some chicken eggs as the thankful present. I was the happiest child ever counting the eggs in the kitchen cupboard (we didn’t have the refrigerator by that time).

This is the recipe of egg curry for four people. 

Ingredients

8 hard boiled eggs

2 tablespoon of fish sauce

1 tablespoon of tamarind paste

150 ml vegetable oil

3 onions

3 garlic cloves

2 cm fresh ginger

a small bunch of coriander, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

1 teaspoon of chilli powder

1 teaspoon of paprika

1/4 teaspoon of turmeric 

1 teaspoon of garam masala

Tamarind sauce preparation

Put the tamarind pulp in a small bowl and pour some boiling hot water. Leave until the water is warm enough and remove any stones and fibres using your hand or fork. Then make the paste by mashing up.

Directions

Finely chop the onion, garlic and ginger or make the paste of these using blender. 

Half the boiled eggs and fry them until they become lightly golden. Remove them aside.

Add the chopped onion-garlic-ginger or the paste one and chopped tomato in the remaining oil then fry them until the mixture has caramelised. Stir the mixture regularly. 

Add chilli powder, paprika, turmeric, fish sauce and tamarind paste just before the caramelisation.

Add the fried eggs and some hot water to coat the eggs with gravy. Simmer until the liquid has reduced and the oil has come up. 

Scatter with chopped coriander and garam masala.

 

You can eat this curry with rice or bread.
Please let me know your experience of cooking Burmese egg curry by leaving a comment below. Bon appétit! 

 Su Su