Egg Puffs

What do you call these? It’s been a while since they made their way on to the Maldivian dining tables and as far as we know, a lot of us have been calling them egg puffs. Although they are not made from puff pastry we think they are quite similar to the egg puffs from Kerala, so we are very much inclined to calling them Maldivian egg puffs.

Makes: 8

Ingredients:

For the filling

• 1 small onion
• ½ githeyo mirus (or to taste)
• 1 tbsp. oil
• 7 curry leaves
• ½ tsp. grated ginger
• ½ tsp. grated garlic
• 1 small tin tomato paste
• 1 tuna can
• 1 tsp. red chilli powder (or to taste)
• ¼ tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 3 tbsp. water
• 2 hardboiled eggs

For the dough

• 1 cup flour
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1/3 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 1 tbsp. oil
• 1 egg
• 5 tbsp. water (room temperature)

For the egg wash

• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp. water

Instructions:

1. Slice the onion and githeyo mirus thinly.
2. Heat the oil in a pot and add the onion, githeyo mirus (scotch bonnet pepper), curry leaves and ginger.
3. Cook until the onions soften and you can see a hint of brown on them.
4. Add the garlic and cook for half a minute.
5. Add the tomato paste, mix to combine and cook for a minute.
6. Add the tuna, chilli powder, salt and water. Mix everything together until well combined.
7. Let the mixture cook for another minute on low heat for about a minute.
8. Set the mixture aside so that it can cool down.
9. Quarter the boiled eggs and set them aside too.
10. Prepare a baking tray by lining it with aluminium foil or greasing it with a little bit of oil.
11. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.
12. Mix in the oil.
13. Add the egg and start mixing with your fingers.
14. While mixing add water gradually, a tablespoon at a time so that you don’t accidentally add too much.
15. Mix until dough comes together as a ball and is no longer sticking to the sides of the bowl.
16. Dust a surface with flour and using a rolling pin, roll out the dough. Then using a knife, cut it into 4 inch squares. If your surface is small, you might want to deal with the dough in portions. There’s going to be leftover dough after cutting the squares. Just reshape it into a ball and roll and cut again until you run out. We were able to get 8 squares from the dough.
17. Now for assembling the egg puffs. Place a square on a clean plate. Place 3 teaspoons of the tuna filling in the middle, then place the egg on top. Fold one corner over the filling and fold the other corner over that. Press gently to secure and place it on the tray you prepared before. Do this until you run out of egg, dough and filling.
18. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
19. Make the egg wash by combining the egg and the water.
20. Brush it on top and exposed edges of the egg puffs.
21. Place the tray on the medium rack of the preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.