Akoori – Parsi Style Scrambled Eggs On Toast

Scrambled eggs have been around since the time of Ancient Romans. Apparently, one of the earliest known references to Scrambled Eggs is in a 14^th century Italian book called Libro Della Cucina!

So it’s not surprising that many countries across the world have their own versions of the dish. In India, we have two versions of Scrambled Eggs that I know of. The first one is known as Egg Burji which is more of a street food but cooked in many homes. The second one, the subject of this post, is Akoori which is made famous by the Parsi community.

The Parsi community are Zoroasrians by faith and came to India sometime in the 1600s when they fled the Arab invasion of Iran. Over time, their Irani cuisine has married with aspects of traditional Gujarati and Marathi cuisine, resulting in a unique and distinctive Parsi cuisine. Even the English have left a mark on Parsi cuisine as can be seen the range of puddings and jellies they make. A lot of Parsi cuisine is non-vegetarian and their food still retains much of its original Middle Eastern influences. So the use of ingredients like plums, pomegranate, barberries, apricots, nuts, saffron, and cinnamon, for example, is common.

The Parsi love for food in general and eggs or “edu” in particular is legendary. So much so, that you will almost always find a separate chapter on egg dishes in Parsi cookbooks. It is said that Parsis can eat egg with just about every dish and many of their recipes involve breaking an egg over a variety of cooked bases.

In Goa, about a ten minute walk from where we lived, there was a small private book lending library. It functioned out of a small room that had barely enough standing room for about four or five people at any given time. The books were arranged on the bookshelves in some order known only to the elderly couple who ran it. If you are a book lover and love poking about in small bookstores you would understand my love for the place.

I used to be a regular there and on one visit I came across a pile of old cookbooks in a corner. Sifting through, I discovered two old Parsi cookbooks. One was simply labelled “The Cook Book” by Members of All Day Spend Group, published by The Zoroastrian Stree Mandal in 1965. It was water stained but otherwise in reasonably good shape. The other was a more recent book on Parsi Cusine by Bapsi Nariman. Obviously, both hadn’t been borrowed in a long time so I persuaded the library to sell them both to me.

This recipe for Akoori is adapted from that second book.  Typically, Parsis serve this version of Scrambled Eggs on toast. You can see the Indian influence in this dish with the use of cumin, turmeric powder, garlic and coriander leaves. The fat of choice to cook Akoori is ghee or butter because it apparently keeps the eggs more moist.

This recipe calls for tomatoes and you can add a tomato chopped small, if you like it. I don’t like tomatoes in my eggs so I’ve left it out. Parsis, like the British, and unlike a lot of other India like their eggs cooked soft. So soft cooked consistency of scrambled eggs is what you should be aiming for when you cook this dish.