Egg Pepper Fry is an egg dish popular in South India. This dish is spicy and has multiple flavours, with dominating flavour of peppercorns, hence the name. It is a side dish of South Indian cuisine.


If you search this recipe on google, you will find a plethora of them. But they all contained boiled eggs in them. Unlike those, we are not boiling the eggs. Instead, we will break them and cook them in the pan and the other ingredients.

This dish is commonly served with roti or sometimes paratha/bread. But it will also go well with rice dishes like lemon rice, jeera rice, coconut rice, and carrot rice. Or you can even try it with sambar rice.

Special  Masala To Make

We are adding the spices together in the later stage of this recipe. Because of that, this recipe is milder than it has to be.

But if you want to have more spice in this recipe, you can make the masala for this. To make that, take coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns, fennel seeds, cardamom- either black or green but just two pieces, and two cloves. Saute these ingredients in a heated pan. Once done, add some salt and grind them to powder.

Keep in mind that peppercorns and coriander seeds will be more in amount. You can add some coconut as well, but it is entirely optional. Also, it is essential to know how much to roast the dry spices. The roasting of the spices depends upon when exactly you will add them.

Note: If you add the masala in the last for finesse, you can completely roast the ingredients until they are aromatic. If you want to cook the masala with the gravy, then roast the spices separately. And if you are going to use the masala in the initial stages to start cooking it in the beginning, then do not roast the spices; just let the water from them absorb and remove from heat.

Base For Egg Pepper Fry

Like many egg dishes, the base of this dish consists of onions and tomatoes. But instead of cooking them for the base, you get to have another option. You can directly blend them into a fine paste.

It is a Chettinad style for making this egg dish. Here, onions, ginger, garlic, and chillies; Blend all the ingredients with the dry spices. You can add chunks of coconut as well. Adding tomatoes will be optional in this process.

Opting for this method will reduce the cooking time needed in this recipe. It would be best to eliminate the raw smell and taste of the paste. It will also provide more gravy to have with rice.

Tadka For Egg Pepper Fry

Some people like to go for this step, and some don’t. So it will be optional for you as well. But for enhancing the taste of this dish, doing this is recommended.

Take a tempering pan and heat oil to make the tadka or tempering for this dish. Add curry leaves, and dry red chillies. Green chillies are also an option. Let them pop but do not overcook them. Some may like to add udad dal, like tempering in many South Indian dishes.

If you do this stage initially, add cumin seeds and mustard seeds before adding the onions. Also, add chop green chillies as well in this stage.

TR’s Extra Shots

  • Whole Spices – There is no particular rule for using whole spices in this recipe. You can use them as per your liking.
  • Tanginess – For a more flavorful experience of this dish, we’ll add some lemon juice or tamarind to provide tang to it.
  • Ginger & Garlic – We use ginger-garlic paste, but you can finely chop them in the dish. Keep the proportion for ginger more than garlic.
  • Sugar – If the spices are too much for you, add 1/2 tbsp sugar to balance the flavour.
  • Frying Eggs – If you use boiled eggs, shallow fry them with ghee, oil, and red chilli powder. You can use turmeric powder for colour. It will prevent the eggs from breaking.
  • Gravy – You will need a bit more gravy if you have it with rice. Either make more paste or increase the number of onions and tomatoes, cooking them with water until they turn soft. Do not completely dry them.
  • Coconut – You can add grated coconut to the dish to give it more texture and make it more like a South Indian dish.
  • Garnish – To add some fun, chop some onion, tomato, and green chilli to the dish as a garnish. Completely optional but recommended.

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