Kedgeree is a variant of an Indian dish, Khichdi, which has been developed to suit British tastes and is influenced by geography, social change, and the tides of history. How did Kedgeree become s staple of the British Country House breakfast? Unpacking this is a fascinating exercise.
A tale of two dishes
Kedgeree is an Anglo-Indian dish, derived from Kichdi, an Indian breakfast dish which is sometimes also made as a restorative for poorly tummies. I alternate between the two, preferring Kichdi in winter, and Kedgeree in warmer weather.
Though the origins of Khichdi (as I know it) may be uncertain, we do know that Seleucus Nicator, a Greek ruler around the time of India’s Mauryan Empire in the third century BCE, refers to the combination of rice, lentils, and spices prevalent in North India at that time. Two hundred years later, at the dawn of the Roman Empire, Strabo also describes a similar dish.
Recipes for Khichdi have been recorded with some certainty as far back as 1340 CE. Mughal records refer to various versions of Khichdi during the reign of the Emperor Akbar, verified by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s reports, and much later at the dawn of the 18th Century at the end of Aurangzeb’s reign. Interestingly, it is this latter description which is closest to the version we know in Britain and involves eggs and fish.
Might the variant we know as Kedgeree be based on a Mughal preparation?
In a context where British encounters with 18th Century India involved them bending to a then dominant fusion of Mughal India’s Hindu and Persianate cultures, customs, dress and cuisines, it’s perfectly possible.
Making Kedgeree
Khichdi was a nursery dish as I recall, usually prepared when one was ill. This version was composed of rice, lentils, peas, or sometimes green beans too, fennel, cumin and coriander seeds toasted and ground, and some salt and pepper, and was liberally drenched in melting butter.
A more robust version of Kichdi dressed with crisp fried onions, more spices, fresh chilli, fresh coriander, and a squeeze of lime juice was had with Kadi, a flavoursome Yoghurt curry laced with spicy gram flour dumplings.
Method
- To a couple of cups of brown rice add half a teaspoon of mild curry powder and half of turmeric, with six cracked cardamom pods and cinammon bark, and some fish stock ( a stock pot or cube is just fine).
- Cook the rice using the absorption method (around 25 to 30 minutes)
- Once the rice is cooked, add some lightly smoked haddock and butter
- Dress the lot with lots and lots of finely chopped parsley, scallions and chives, with a healthy spritz of lemon juice
You can add eggs of course – I chose not to on this occasion.
I’ve encountered Kedgeree since settling in the UK and I quite like it, especially for the way this version blends local ingredients so well with the South Asian base.
Food is a palimpsest – a way of seeing the layers of histories locales, geographies, ecosystems and cultures. Recipes handed across generations and between cultures bear the imprint of all those who meet it; new ingredients, new ways of preparation and new names.
These alterations, or layers, might obscure the original dish. However, they also reveal how people’s tastes, economy, language and relationships evolved over time.
The story of Kedgeree, and its origins as Khichdi, is just one example of the way human histories are connected across space and time.
Sanjit Chudha 