Recipe of the week: Sri Lankan turmeric omelette

This is a favourite breakfast dish in my family, says Cynthia Shanmugalingam. It’s very easy and quick, and is best served with something fresh like a dill, lime and watercress salad, and perhaps some soft white bread.

Ingredients:

• A pinch of cumin seeds
• a pinch of black peppercorns
• 3 large organic or free-range eggs
• 1 tsp salt, plus more to serve
• ¾ tsp ground turmeric
• 2 tbsp coconut or vegetable oil
• ½ red onion, peeled and finely sliced (or a nice alternative is 2-3 spring onions, chopped into 2cm pieces)
• 1-2 green chillies, sliced
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced
• 7-8 fresh curry leaves

Method:

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• For the pepper-cumin mix, toast the cumin seeds and peppercorns together in a small dry frying pan on a medium heat for 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Transfer to a bowl to cool, then blitz in a spice grinder, mini food processor, or pestle and mortar, until fine. Set aside.
• In a bowl, whisk the eggs together with the salt and ground turmeric until frothy. Set aside.
• Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan around 20-25cm wide on a medium heat. Add the onion (or spring onions), green chilli, garlic and curry leaves. Allow to cook, stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes, so that the onion softens; don’t allow it to crisp, and don’t cook past the point that the chillies and the curry leaves are still a bright green colour.
• Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the pan, wait 30 seconds for the oil to get hot, and then pour in the eggs. Keep cooking on a medium heat and use a spatula to pull the edges in as they set, tilting the pan to spread the uncooked mixture around. Continue this motion of pulling the edges in and tilting all around the pan, until the omelette is almost set, which will take around 2-3 minutes.
• Fold in half and serve, dusting generously with the pepper-cumin mix and a little extra salt.

Taken from Rambutan: Recipes from Sri Lanka by Cynthia Shanmugalingam (Bloomsbury, £26). To buy from The Week Bookshop for £20.99 (incl. P&P), call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.