Smoked Haddock Kedgeree

There was a recipe for this dish in the British food magazine, Good Food. It is featured as a dish for "festive entertainment."
I decided to give it a shot, especially since smoked fish, in a curry infused rice sounded very good on paper. The recipe called for the use of saffron. In addition to a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and tablespoon of curry powder, I decided not to waste any saffron on this dish; it would have been overpowered. If the argument is that the saffron is to give it color...the curry and cayenne already gave enough color to the dish. Moreover, the original recipe recommended double cream for this dish. I just used 1% milk.

Here are the ingredients I used:
1.5 cups long grain rice
3 cups boiling water
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbs curry powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
3 boiled eggs, yolks pushed through a screen, and whites chopped coarsely
2 tbs butter
3 tbs chopped parsley

for the fish, I used
1 smoked haddock fillet
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp curry powder
5 cracks of pepper

Melt butter in a milk pan, and add spices and rice. Allow to sizzle for about 4 minutes, toasting the rice and the spices. Then add three cups of boiling water, salt and thyme. Cover, and allow to boil rapidly for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to lowest setting, and let sit for another 10 minutes, until all the water is absorbed.

Meanwhile, put pepper, salt and curry powder into the milk and bring to a gentle simmer. Poach the fillet of fish about 4 minutes each side. Removed the skin before flaking the fish.  Just flake it directly in the pan, keeping the poaching fluid.

Fold the flaked smoked fish, poaching liquid, chopped boiled eggs, and 2.5 tbs parsley into the rice. Garnish with remaining 1/2 tbs of parsley.

This dish is very bland. Make sure to serve along with a loaded salt shaker. With just a bit of salt, the flavour of this dish really pulls through. The recipe recommended serving with lemon...I actually found the acidity of the lemon to be too distracting to the kedgeree. I preferred it without lemon.

I find this dish to be interesting. But, to be honest, I'm not won over by it. I'm glad to have tried it, but cannot imagine making it again. I think I'll make fish cakes with my remaining fillet of smoked haddock.