Tomato and Egg

A quintessential Chinese dish. The secret to a good tomato and egg stir fry is ketchup, ask any Chinese mom or professional chef. All other twists and additions are pretty much creative liberties. It’s the same reason we like to add ketchup to scrambled eggs in those hole in the wall American diners that are so underrated.

stuff you’ll need

• Tomatoes
• Eggs
• Ketchup
• Oil
• Salt
• Sugar
• Msg (optional)
• White pepper (optional)
• Cooking wine (optional)
• Sesame oil (optional)

preparation

Gather your eggs and tomatoes, I like to have about a 1 to 1 ratio by volume. Beat your eggs, and add some salt to break down the proteins of the egg. Optionally, add some msg, white pepper, cooking wine, and sesame oil to add complexity to the eggs. It’s totally optional but I think it enhances the egg flavor and adds a little more interest to the final dish. Honestly, you could prepare eggs in the same way without the tomatoes and it would be just as good of a dish. When beating the eggs, make sure to whip hard so that the eggs incorporate some air, which will prevent the scramble from being overly dense.

Slice your tomatoes into chunks. The size of the chunk is really up to you. Larger chunks take a while to cook down but retain more juice and meatiness. Smaller chunks tend to dissolve into more of a sauce while still retaining some bite of the tomato. Personally I prefer smaller chunks for the saucier final product.

Heat up oil in a wok. Make sure it’s actually hot and almost smoking. Pour in the beaten eggs and scramble them. Not a french scramble, which has almost no curds and no color and depends on butter for flavor, but a brave, strong, full of curds, scramble. Let the egg sit for a while while it develops some curds and color for that fried flavor, and then stir, letting it sit again to develop those delicious curds, and repeat. Or do the french scramble if you prefer, I’m not giving you any measurements, why should I prescribe any techniques either. You’re cooking for yourself, just don’t serve me a french scrambled egg and tomato.

The next secret is to slightly undercook the eggs. As much as curds are good, creaminess of the runny egg is delicious too. We don’t want a rubbery mess here. Take the eggs out and add more oil to the wok. Once the oil is almost smoking again, add your tomatoes and ketchup. Let the oil fry the ketchup and tomatoes to draw out the flavor. Add some salt and sugar to enhance the flavor, and let it break down the tomatoes further. Once the tomatoes are starting to break down and a sauce is starting to form, add back the eggs. Stir a little, let the sauce coat the eggs and that’s it!

notes

None really. You could add chopped scallions or something as a garnish, but don’t pretend like you’ve made a meaningful innovation on the most common Chinese dish ever.