Andhra egg curry (Curried poached eggs)

I learned this recipe from my roommate at CSU, Joshna, who was from Andhra Pradesh. This poached egg technique can be applied to any of your favorite traditional egg curry recipes. Sorry the picture looks like mush :-( but I promise it tastes good :-)

Method:
1. Take some oil in a skillet and add whole jeera (cumin seeds) & dried red chillies
2. Add chopped onions, chopped green chillies and ginger-garlic paste and saute till onions are golden brown.
3. Add  haldi (turmeric), chilli, dhania (coriander) and jeera (cumin) powders followed by tomato paste. Mix them together and cook till oil begins to separate from the masala.
4. Now add some water to make it a rather watery consistency. Add some garam masala and salt to this watery gravy, get it to a boil. We are now ready to add the eggs.
5. Take the eggs and crack each one directly into the gravy. Each one should be dropped slowly into the gravy to try and keep it as intact as possible. Each egg should be placed away from the previous one so they don't touch each other.

6. Cook the eggs for about 5-7 minutes and then flip the eggs over. At this point the portion of the egg submerged in the gravy will be cooked and the top half will be raw. Cook the second side for another 7 minutes or so.
7. Serve with some fresh cilantro.

Note: 
1. Use a rather flat kind of  vessel so you can drop the eggs away from each other.
2. You can choose to cover and cook on the first side and not flip the eggs over. This is really a personal egg choice. Some like their yolk runny, I like to cook the yolk till they are well done.

Egg Biryani

This is my favorite quick recipe. It doesn't take much effort or time, and ends up tasting pretty good. For about 1 1/2 cups of rice, use atleast 6 eggs, from here on the more the eggs the merrier :-)


Hard boil 4 of the eggs and soak 1 1/2 cups of rice in 3 cups of water.

Heat some oil in a pan and add whole garam masala (i.e. some jeera, 1 black elaichi/cardamom, a stick of cinnamon, couple of bay leaves, few whole black peppercorns, couple of whole star anise).

Now add half an onion (julienned), whole slit green chillies, ginger-garlic paste and saute them till onions turn brownish. Add haldi, chilli powder, biryani masala and tomatoes.

Once the masalas are fully cooked i.e. you can see the oil leaving the sides of the pan, crack open 2 eggs into the pan and stir it vigorously so that it cooks in a scrambled fashion. Quickly add your pre-soaked rice along with its water, the 4 hardboiled egg halves and salt to taste.

Let the rice cook through and serve with your favorite raita. (I just used yogurt + diced onions + green chillies + salt + water).

Tips: 
1. Use fresh pudina/mint leaves if available, it gives a wonderful aroma
2. Use chicken bouillon if you have some at home and accordingly use less or no salt. It adds to the flavor of the biryani.
3. I used a pressure cooker to cook this so it took me very little time. You can cook this in your rice cooker or on your stove, anything works :-) 
4. I use Everest Biryani masala, probably because Mom uses the same. Prefer its flavor over MDH and Shaan