Mom's Special Shashranga

The first time I remember having this was at my Dadi's house. My mom learned the recipe from my Dadi years ago and she took it one notch higher. Ever since I can recall this has been a favorite in my house and many a memorable dinner party menu featured this dish. Shashranga is an amazing amalgamation of sweet, sour and hot. When I was young, my biggest complain was why Shashranga had to be cooked only when there was a party in the house; why we could not have it on a regular basis! I guess my mom wanted to keep this very special yummy dish as a special treat thus cooking it not more than 5-10 times a year.

When I got married and moved to my in-laws' place, one of the first recipe I took from my mom was this one. I have had a number of version of this at a few people's house but nothing comes close to the one my mom made. This egg dish is surprisingly easy to make and when nowadays I cook this for my dinner parties, I get the same kind of complements that my mom used to get before. Some of my friends like it so much, when I call them over for dinner they often ask if Shashranga will feature in the menu. A few months ago, I had to cook a dish for my friend's shaad. When I called her to ask what dish I should bring, the reply was "why, Shashranga of course!" I thought after a few days of low-cal dishes and Oriental experiments, why don't I share this age old recipe with everyone. I hope some people would try it and make some yummy memories around this delectable egg curry.

Shashranga
Serves 6-8

Onion - Finely sliced 2 cups
Oil - 1 1/2 cups
Onion paste - 2 tablespoons
Ginger paste - 1 tablespoon
Chili powder - 1/2 - 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder - 1 tablespoon
Whole Cardamom - 4
Cinnamon stick - 3" pieces 2
Brown sugar - 1/2 cup (you could use white sugar but brown one gives a nicer color and flavor)
Tamarind pulp - 2/3 - 1 cup (more if you want it a bit sour)
Salt to taste
Whole Egg - 8
Water - 1/3 cup

1. Heat the oil in a deep small wok over medium heat. Gently fry the onion slices until they turn crisp and golden brown. The trick is to remove the wok from the heat when the onions start to brown, since the time between the turning brown to burning is very fast. Make sure you do not burn the onion as then the taste will be bitter. Remove the fried onion from the oil and spread over a few layer of kitchen napkin to drain the oil and cool.

2. Take 2 tablespoon of the oil used to fry the onion and heat it in a wok with a fairly wide surface. Add the cardamom and cinnamon and fry them for 1 minute until the aroma of the whole spices come out.

3. Add the onion paste, ginger paste, coriander and chili powder and gently fry the spices mixture for a few minutes. If the mixture starts sticking to the pan, add 1-2 tablespoons of water to the spice and fry. While frying every 1 minute or so, crush about 1 tablespoon of the fried onion slices to the spice mixture. Continue doing this until you have used up half of the fried onions.

4. Add the tamarind pulp and sugar and salt let the sauce come to a slight simmer. Taste the gravy. It should have a sweet and sour tang with slight after taste of heat. If required you can add some more tamarind/sugar/salt to get adjust the taste. Add some water if the gravy is too thick. At this point you should have about 3 cups worth of gravy. If you don't have enough, add some water and let the gravy come to a boil to ensure all ingredients are well mixed.

5. Crack the eggs one by one and gently drop the eggs into the simmer gravy the way you would drop into a frying pan to make poached eggs. Make sure you arrange them in a manner so that all of them are neatly arranged in the wok.

6. Crush the rest of the fried onion and sprinkle them over the eggs. Gently sway the wok to get ensure that the eggs do not get stuck to the side of the Wok and get some of the gravy to come up to the surface.

7. Cover the wok and let it cook over medium-low flame until the eggs are fully cooked through. Make sure you avoid stirring the egg while it cooks as it will ruin the texture of the curry. I have seen too many attempts at Shashranga come to ruins because the eggs were stirred during the cooking process.

8. Once the eggs are cooked through gently push the eggs down to get some of the gravy on top. By this time most of the gravy would have been absorbed and you would have about 1 cup or so gravy left.

9. Serve Shashranga at room temperature or cold. It tastes yummy no matter how you serve it. You can have it with Rice, Pulao, Naan, Partha or Roti.

Enjoy!!!!