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For egg curry, I boil the eggs, shell them, pierce them with a fork and deep fry them. Then I prepare the gravy and pressure cook the eggs and the gravy.
Anything I do, doesn't let the spices go inside the eggs. I was thinking of cutting the eggs into halves but then on pressure cooking they'll split up!
I am ready to mess up with its skin, but if I cut it up totally, the yellow yolk will get lost in the gravy.
Yesterday I did an experiment:
After properly hard boiling the eggs, I shelled them and cut them into two parts vertically.
I fried these sliced eggs on both sides in around 3 (6 ml) spoons oil in a semi circle wok. No, the yolk didn't get lost in the oil. It was all intact in the sliced eggs.
I fried all the spices etc. in the wok, and added the water as needed. Now, as a final step, I carefully placed the fried sliced eggs in the same wok [with the yolk side facing up], covered with a lid, and let it boil on simmer gas for some minutes.
This time the spices did get inside the egg yolk, and also the yolk was completely intact.
I have never done egg curry before... but your problem reminded me of chinese marbled eggs
Marbled eggs are soaked for several hours to overnight and soy/tea does not don't get to the yolk, so no wonder that you don't get good penetration of the spices.
Maybe you can think of putting the eggs in a spice concentrate in advance and let them soak before splitting them and letting them cook with the gravy.
I have a notion, but it is an educated guess, and may not be practical to use; however, I think it's also a really cool experiment and potentially an elegant solution. It's also an alternative to an extremely long (days or more) soak in flavored liquid.
From the Cooking Issues blog, we know that you can infuse flavors into alcohol or water using a nitrous oxide cream whipper. The method is that you put liquid and herbs/seeds/fruits in the whipper, pressurize it with nitrous oxide, then release the pressure suddenly. The gas pressure forces liquid and gas deep into what you're infusing and then when the pressure is released, the gas and liquid are abruptly pulled, out, bringing flavor with it. You should be able to do this in reverse, using gas pressure to force flavored liquid into a peeled, pierced, hard-boiled egg. You'll have to use a pressure cooker or cream whipper.
Prepare HEAVILY spice flavored broth, by simmering herbs and spices for several hours to overnight in water. Maybe add a little alcohol beforehand to help extract flavors. Next, prepare lightly hard boiled eggs, peel them, and pierce them with forks until the tines reach some distance into the yolk.
Place eggs and liquid in either a cream whipper or a pressure cooker. Pressurize the vessel, and swirl or shake to help mix. Then allow to sit for a minute or two, and release pressure. If flavor doesn't carry through enough, you might need to allow it to sit for a longer period.
Here's a purely theoretical solution - in the sense that I haven't tried it. If you want to make spices penetrate meat instead of eggs, one of the best options is brining it. The salt makes some of the cell walls collapse, which allows the spices in. This might work with eggs as well.
To try this, make a separate batch of gravy that you oversalt, soak the boiled eggs in it for a day or two, then deep fry and pressure cook. You might want to undersalt the gravy that you pressure cook it in, to compensate for the extra salty eggs.
If you try this, let us know how it goes!
