R040Nadan Kozhi Curry
The everyday country chicken curry
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
The re-engineeringThe traditional dish is egg and coconut. This one is 200 g of amaranth greens, 250 g of egg and 80 g of coconut — the vegetable raised until it is the larger part, which drops the energy density of the whole dish without removing anything.
A thoran is a grated-coconut stir-fry, and the grammar allows almost any solid ingredient to be treated this way. Egg thoran is what a Kerala kitchen makes for breakfast when there is no time to make anything, and adding greens to it costs three minutes and turns a side dish into a meal. Amaranth — cheera — carries 3.29 g of protein and 4.41 g of fibre per 100 g at 31 kcal, which is why it is the green this book reaches for first.
Before you start: A thoran is a two-minute dish once the pan is hot, and there is no pause in it. Have the greens washed and chopped, the coconut mixture ready in a bowl, and the eggs beaten before you light the flame.
Egg Thoran
Active 15 minutes Total 25 minutes
Scale
4 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- ✓80 g (about ¾ cup) fresh grated coconut
- ✓60 g (about 6) shallots, roughly chopped
- ✓15 g (about 3) green chillies, chopped
- ✓2 g (⅓ tsp) ground turmeric
- ✓8 g (1½ tsp) coconut oil
- ✓3 g (½ tsp) mustard seed
- ✓15 fresh curry leaves
- ✓200 g (about 5 packed cups) amaranth leaves and tender stalks (cheera), washed and chopped
- ✓2.5 g (½ tsp) 70:30 salt (M07)
- ✓5 eggs (about 250 g shelled), beaten with a pinch of pepper
Allergens: Egg, mustard.
Equipment: 26 cm pan or cheena chatti; flat wooden turner. Substitute: any wide pan. A narrow one steams the greens and you will get a wet thoran.
Per serving (estimated)
| Energy | 215 kcal |
| Protein | 11 g |
| Fibre | 5 g |
| Net carbohydrate | 5 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 10 g |
| Sugars | 3 g |
| Fat | 17 g |
| Saturated fat | 11 g |
| Sodium | 280 mg |
From ICMR-NIN IFCT 2017 and USDA FoodData Central. Per-serving figures stay the same when you scale.
Method — tap a step to mark it done, tap a time to start a timer
- Crush the coconut, shallots, green chilli and turmeric together — with your fingers, a pestle or two pulses in a mixie. It should stay coarse and separate, not become a paste.
- Heat the oil in the pan over medium-high, add the mustard seed, and wait until it pops and the popping subsides, 30–45 seconds. Add the curry leaves and let them crackle for 10 seconds.
- Add the greens and the salt. Toss for , until they have wilted, gone glossy dark green and released their water.
- Raise the heat and cook more, until the water at the base of the pan has gone. Wet greens will make a wet thoran and nothing later fixes it.
- Add the coconut mixture and toss for , until the coconut smells warm and nutty and has taken on the turmeric's colour throughout.
- Pour in the beaten eggs. Now wait 20 seconds without touching them, then fold — do not stir — with the flat turner, lifting from the base every few seconds, until the egg is just set in soft curds and no wet egg remains, 90 seconds to . Take the pan off the heat while it still looks a shade underdone; it finishes in the residual heat.
Why this worksEgg proteins begin setting around 62°C (144°F) and toughen and express water above about 75°C (167°F). Folding rather than stirring, and stopping early, keeps the curds large and the water inside them — which is why this tastes creamy with no added fat. The coconut goes in before the egg because coconut needs 2 minutes of dry heat to smell of anything, and egg cannot spare 2 minutes.
Sourcing note
Any tender green works: amaranth, spinach, colocasia leaf (which must be well cooked), drumstick leaf, or the outer leaves of a cabbage finely shredded. Frozen chopped spinach is a legitimate substitute at 200 g, thawed and squeezed dry — an unsqueezed block will flood the pan. Frozen grated coconut is fine here and should be thawed but not dried.
If you are watching…
Blood sugar: 5 g of net carbohydrate per serving. As a breakfast with two puttu rather than four, this is one of the lowest-load Kerala breakfasts available.
Blood pressure: 280 mg, and half of that is the eggs' own sodium. There is only 2.5 g of salt in the whole dish.
Cholesterol: 11 g of saturated fat, and 7 g of it is the 20 g of coconut per serving. Cut the coconut to 50 g and you land at about 8 g, with a noticeably drier thoran. This is a real trade, not a free one.
Swap it
Cabbage, beans, carrot or raw papaya for the greens → all work; increase step 3 to 5–7 minutes for the firmer ones, and add 2 tablespoons of water and a lid.
Egg whites only → 8 whites for 5 whole eggs. Protein holds at about 11 g and fat falls to 9 g per serving. The texture is firmer and less rich.
Add 150 g of cooked vanpayar at step 5 → fibre to 9 g, protein to 15 g, and the dish becomes a complete plate.
No coconut → 30 g of roasted peanuts, crushed. A different dish, and not a thoran, but a good one. (Allergen: this swap introduces peanuts.)
Make ahead · store · freeze
Crush the coconut mixture up to a day ahead and keep it covered in the fridge; that is the only part worth doing in advance. Fridge 2 days. Freeze: no — scrambled egg thaws watery and the greens collapse. Reheat in a dry pan for 2 minutes, or eat it cold, which is better than reheating it.
Leftovers
Cold, between two pathiri, with a spoonful of R093 coconut chutney. Or stirred through leftover rice with a squeeze of lime as a five-minute lunch.
Troubleshooting
Wet, soupy thoran: step 4 was skipped, or the greens were not drained. Cook the water off before the coconut goes in.
Egg rubbery and weeping: cooked 60 seconds too long, or the heat was too high. Off the heat while it still looks wet.
Tastes of raw coconut: the coconut needs its 2 minutes in the pan before the egg arrives.
Serve with
R004 Puttu · R009 Oats and Matta Dosa · R012 Kanji with Vanpayar · R107 Sambharam
Tap a star to rate this recipe
