Kofta on course

NO one has ever answered, at least to our satisfaction, what came first — the chicken or the egg? The question stares us in the face as we begin to demolish a nargisi kofta or devilled eggs but then the mince is not chicken and the egg garnish on the chicken curry certainly doesn’t count. A cousin who is aware of our passion for eggs — yolks and all, scepter of cholesterol notwithstanding — delighted us recently by cooking for us nargisi numa kofta curry that paired the ‘mother and the child’ together. You can label the chicken and the egg as you please we are quite content with the end result. The chicken mince is much lighter on the conscience than the red meat and eggs more substantial than in a garnish still stop short of racing your heart unnecessarily.

As the old Urdu couplet has it, ‘Hazaron saal nargis apni benoori pe roti hai, barhi mushkil se hota hai chaman main deedavar paida!’ The beautiful flower is called Iris in English and Nargis in Hindustani recalls effortlessly the iris in the pupil of the eye. The nargisi kofta indeed resembles the human eye. The great painter Van Gogh has painted an immortal canvas depicting these blossoms in a tragic vein but we digress. There are few places that serve these days even a passable nargisi kofta.

Not only is the meatball meant to be soft, the chef should avoid creating a humongous meatball. The mince oval should just about envelope a medium-sized egg. The gravy should be aromatic, and not over-spiced with a flavour quite distinct from a qorma. But we are talking about nargisi numa kofta not nargisi so let our grumbling cease.

The kofta that delighted us were delicate mini-balls of succulent murg keema paired with hard-boiled egg halves draped in light sauce-like gravy. We are happy to share the recipe with our readers.

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