Dim Posto ~ Egg Curry with Poppy Seeds from West Bengal

I can't believe this is the last day of this month long marathon; Indian Food Odyssey. It was an incredible journey and I am glad I took up this challenge. I learnt a lot about various Indian cuisines and at the same time was pretty surprised how similar some of the dishes from a state are, despite being miles apart. Today won’t be doing an intro and will be getting straight to the recipe as I am a little under the weather. Since morning I was getting myself to right something but was blank. Since I already had uploaded the pictures and had a bare bone skeleton of the post and also had roughly written the recipe in my word doc when I prepared the egg curry a month ago, I thought I might as well publish it before midnight. If I was feeling better, I would have edited the recipe a bit but no energy at this point. I will do it in a day or two when I am feeling better.

Dim Posto - Bengali Egg Curry and rice in a blue plate.

It was difficult to pick a recipe for this state as there are so many recipes I wanted to try. I thought of doing a sweet or a fish recipe as these are an integral part of the Bengali cuisine. When I saw Dim Posto (egg and poppy seeds), it was an easy decision. Moreover, I have not done an egg recipe during this marathon. This is one recipe husband (Mr.U) loved a lot. He thought it was the best dish of all all the recipes I had cooked for this challenge! It wasn't a surprise to me that he loved this curry as he loves eggs, and off course the curry was delicious too. In fact he wanted me to make it again the next day. It was very spicy and he wanted to me to make it exactly the same way, with same level of spice. With all the cooking I have been doing, I never got to redo this recipe again but definitely make it again in the coming days.

Source: Bengali Home Cooking

Ingredients:

3 – 4 tbsp. Poppy Seeds (I used 3) soaked in ½ cup hot water. (Microwave 30 seconds and let it soak)
4 Eggs
1 tsp. Turmeric Powder
1 – 1 ¼ tsp. Salt (I don’t remember how much I used) ½ t for marinate and ½ in the curry
3- 5 Green Chilies I used 5)
4 tbsp. Mustard Oil (any oil can be used but mustard oil is recommended )
1 Dry Red Chili
3-5 Cardamoms (I used 4)
3- 5 Cloves (I used 4)
1-1 ½ “Cinnamon Stick
1 cup chopped Onion
1 ½ – 2 tsp. Ginger Garlic Paste (Recipe called for 1 tsp. Ginger but used GG instead)
1 – 1 ¼ tsp. Chili Powder (I used 1 ¼ and it was spicy)
1 ½ - 1 ¾ cups Water

Pre-Preparation:

Soak poppy seeds in ½ cup of hot water for one hour. Or it can be soaked overnight at room temperature water.
Hard boil the eggs, peel and cut each egg it into two halves.
Marinate the cut egg pieces with ½ tsp. of salt and ½ tsp. of turmeric powder. Rub the mixture evenly all around the egg halves.
Chop the onions and keep aside.
Once the poppy seeds are soaked grind to paste along with the water in which it was soaked. I have a small wet grinder and I ground the poppy seeds with little water. Once the seeds are ground, add chilies and run the grinder once more. Pour the remaining poppy seeds soaked water in to the poppy chili paste and keep it aside.

Preparation:

Take 1 – 2 tbsp. of oil, I used 2 tbsp. of oil in a pan and add the eggs with yolk side down. Fry it for about ½ - 1 minutes on medium – medium high flame. Turn it around and fry the eggs on the other side until it is golden brown in color. If required, turn the eggs around and fry until both the sides are evenly fried. Remove from the pan and keep it aside.
Add rest of the oil to the pan, keeping aside 1 tbsp. oil. Once the oil is hot, add dry chili, cloves, cardamom, bay leaves and cinnamon stick. Let the spices roast in the oil for about 1 minute.
Add onions and sauté until translucent, 2-3 minutes.
Add ginger or ginger garlic paste and sauté for another ½ a minute.
Add chili powder, salt, turmeric and fry the spices for few seconds.
Add water, give it good stir, cover and cook for few minutes until gravy boils and little longer.
Add poppy paste and bring it back to boil and let simmer on medium heat until the desired consistency is reached. This will take about 5-8 minutes.
Taste the gravy and adjust seasoning.
Add egg halves with yolk side up.
Pour the reserved 1 tbsp. of oil on the eggs and cook for few seconds.
Turn off the heat and transfer to a serving dish.
Serve hot with steaming rice.

Note: