Friendly Dragon Breakfast Bowl
A mix of brown rice fried in garam masala with curry and smoked paprika roasted chickpeas, and pomegranate seeds, avocado, mint, yoghurt and egg.
Last night I cooked a large pot of brown and wild rice. I was planning on making a quick and easy tinned fish version of kedgeree. But this morning I just couldn’t face doing it. It isn’t something I’ve made before. I have made kedgeree. Once. I wasn’t crazy about it. But it’s packed with protein. It’s got fish, eggs, peas sometimes, and sometimes yoghurt. And I’m pretty sure it was the way I made it that was wrong and not the dish itself.
But the thought of making it this morning… Because I will still eat a lot of a failed experiment. I sit there eating spoon after spoon thinking “No. No. It’s just not right.” As if eating more of the thing might make it better. Or suddenly it will be become clear how to fix it. In fairness, occassionally that does happen.
So this morning I was thinking about having to eat kedgeree. A failed kedgeree. And that was enough to put me off.
Especially since instead of doing that I started the day with a slice of the Fruit Salad Cake. Which I absolutely love. If you make that just leave it set overnight.
And it was so good that the thought of eating any “experiment” that used tinned fish – smoked tinned fish at that – I just couldn’t.
And then I thought about how a few years ago you’d see #MeatlessMonday tags on things. Maybe that still is happening. Anyway it made me think I should do something vegetarian instead.
I still had the big pot of rice. What about a vegetarian kedgeree? I could roast chickpeas in some curry powder and smoked paprika. And then fry up the rice with some garam masala and salt… And basically that is what I did do and added in some yoghurt mixed with avocado and mint, stirred through some pomegranate seeds and topped it with an egg. A microwaved poached egg. Is that a thing? Sometimes. Sort of. Sometimes though they just explode.
In this case one exploded and one didn’t. I tried to make the unexploded one look as good as possible. But then when I looked at the photos on the laptop the “good egg” seemed to have a friendly dragon on top of it. So that’s why this is called Friendly Dragon Breakfast Bowl.
And the protein?
I do regret starting this. I’m not sure how much protein is in this. And I don’t fully trust the online calculator. It says this has 26.2g per serving. So I think this must offer at least 20g of protein. I hope so anyway.
Whatever about the exact amount of protein this offers, one thing is sure – this is a protein packed breakfast and it also has a good shot of vitamins and minerals from the all its ingredients.
Ingredients
- 200g cooked brown rice, cooked with 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
- 1 tin chickpea, rinsed and drained
- curry powder
- smoked paprika
- garam masala
- 2 tablespoons whole natural yoghurt
- 1 avocado, peeled, stoned and diced
- leaves from 2 sprigs of mint, sliced thinly
- seeds from half a pomegranate
- extra virgin olive oil
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 200 C. Cover a baking tin with baking paper. Pour a teaspoon of oil over the chickpeas and mix around gently. Sprinkle over a generous amount of curry powder and smoked paprika. Bake for 10 minutes or until they've turned a little nutty looking. Take out and leave aside until ready to assemble. I only used half the chickpeas here - you can add the leftovers to any salad.
- Combine the avocado, yoghurt and mint.
- Add a tiny amount of oil to a frying pan. Heat on high. Add in the rice and stir around until it is heated all the way through and steaming. Turn off the heat.
- Stir the chickpeas into the rice. Divide between two bowls. Stir half the pomegranate seeds into each bowl. Top with a dollop of the yoghurt-avocado-mint and a poached - or fried - or hard-boiled - or microwaved egg.
- Or you can just mix the whole lot together in a glorious mess. It's good either way. Enjoy!
Notes
You can find instructions on how to poach an egg at thekitchn.com
To cook an egg in the microwave" Crack an egg into a cup. Place the cup on a saucer. Put 3 - 4 tablespoons of water in the saucer and cook for 1 minute. If it isn't cooked give it another 30 seconds. And so on until it's cooked. It should be cooked well within 2 minutes.
