Ruta Kahate's Green Onion Omelet

Recipes

Green Onion Omelet

By Ruta Kahate

When Ruta Kahate came to Milwaukee with her husband and daughters in 2019, they brought one suitcase each. Kahate says she thought about packing certain pieces of art or her cookbook collection, but ultimately, traveling light won out.

The family had been living in Goa, India, where Kahate had opened 10 restaurants. Before that, she ran a cooking school and conducted culinary tours while based in California. After their 10 years in Goa, finding the right place to land as a family was paramount. Milwaukee was originally going to be a stepping stone, but Kahate had a feeling about this city. Once they arrived and had the chance to explore the city, they never left. “I jump in. I feel something's right,” she says. “[My husband] was reading more about Madison. But I started to get this feeling and I was like, ‘You know what, I think it’s Milwaukee.’”

Her recipes for the green onion omelet and devil’s dung potatoes (more on that name later) are also included in her 2023 cookbook - 6 Spices, 60 Dishes. Neither requires hours of labor; each has a “connection to comfort,” she says. The omelet is a Goa dish devised for using up leftover curry, or “last night’s curry sauce,” as she puts it. In Goa, “it’s like a food truck staple. Goa is a very fun little place and a big mixture of things. There would be “these parties on the beach and then you’re going back home, like 3 in the morning and starving.” Outside the trucks, they had overturned buckets for you to sit on. “And you’d have this cool breeze at 3 a.m.” She captures that here in a simple dish, Indian cooking demystified and easily incorporated into everyday life.

From trance to jazz to oldies, Goa has a terrific live music scene. With a demanding business and young kids, we still managed a few nights out (thanks, Grandma!). But driving back home at 1 a.m. makes you ravenous. So, like all the other stragglers, we’d stop at a food truck under a flickering streetlamp for one of Goa’s most endearing—and enduring—late-night snacks: ros omelet. Ros means curry; the dish originated as a breakfast of leftovers, with the previous night’s chicken curry poured over a freshly made omelet. Add a crusty bread roll to sop up the curry and you get one of the best late-night (early-morning?) snacks ever.

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6

Curry Sauce:

2 tablespoons canola oil

1⁄4 teaspoon mustard seeds

1⁄2 cup [70 grams] finely chopped yellow onion

1 teaspoon finely grated ginger

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1⁄2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1⁄4 teaspoon cayenne

1 13 1⁄2 -ounce [385-gram] can coconut milk, shaken well

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Omelet:

8 eggs

1⁄4 cup [35 grams] thinly sliced green onions, white and green parts

1 green chile, seeded and minced

1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt, or more as needed

1⁄4 teaspoon ground turmeric

2 tablespoons coconut oil

Instructions

To make the curry sauce:

Heat the oil in a wok until very hot and add the mustard seeds. As soon as they’re done sputtering, add the yellow onion. Brown the onion for about three minutes and then add the ginger, coriander, turmeric and cayenne and stir until it smells fragrant, about one minute. Stir in the coconut milk, salt and sugar, then let the sauce simmer until thickened, about five minutes. Stir in the vinegar and simmer for another two minutes.

To make the omelet:

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the green onions, chile, salt and turmeric. Heat the oil in a cast-iron skillet and pour in the eggs. I like to make my omelets over high heat, letting the first side brown a bit. When the omelet has set on the underside and also browned, (about four minutes) flip it over. If your omelet-flipping skills aren’t up to par yet, make two smaller omelets, or simply do what I’ve taught my kids to do—halve the omelet right there in the pan and turn it over one half-moon at a time!

Pour a good dollop of the curry sauce on top of the omelet, serving the rest of the sauce alongside. I like to serve this with a crusty bread roll or baguette, which mimics the kadak pav, or “crusty bread,” of Goa very nicely.

Serving Tip:

I like to serve this with a crusty bread roll or baguette, which mimics the kadak pav, or “crusty bread,” of Goa very nicely.

Bio

After living in India and California, Ruta Kahate and her family relocated to Milwaukee in 2019. In addition to running cafes in Goa, India, she operated a cooking school and taught cooking classes at venues such as Sur La Table while based on the West Coast. Kahate has hosted culinary tours to India, helping chefs and serious foodies cook and eat their way through the country. An established cookbook author, Kahate is also the owner of Ruta’s Fresh Indian Fare in Walker’s Point.

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