79. Chinese stir fried egg and tomato

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Chinese stir fried egg and tomato

Stir frying egg together with other ingredients is very common all across China. As I mentioned in my previous post (common ingredient: eggs), (chicken) eggs can be stir fried on their own, with different vegetables, or with certain kinds of fish and meat.

I like the combination of egg and tomato, but you have to get reasonably good tomatoes though, otherwise, that ‘raw’ sourness can put me off.


I never knew that stir fried egg and tomato was such a ‘basic’ dish, until my husband told me about his conversation with one of his Chinese colleagues, J. He asked J. if he could cook Chinese food, J. replied, ‘only very basic things, like stir-fried egg and tomato’. I really laughed, I did not know stir fried egg and tomato was such a basic Chinese dish. :)))

Ok, it is not difficult to make at all, I mean if you can get the right tomatoes, and add in the right amount of salt, you can never get it too wrong. However, only in recent years, I realized that there are tons of different versions of stir-fried egg and tomato in different regions of China, and it can even be different from household to household.


For example, in some recipes, one would first stir fry egg and tomato separately, then put the two together to stir fry again. In some other recipes, one would lightly stir fry the eggs first, then add the tomato in, and finally ‘slow’ cook them. In terms of taste, some recipes give a ‘sweet and sour’ taste, where others, might use scallion to influence the taste. There are also different time to add salt in the wok during cooking, some would put the salt into the eggs; some would add the salt to both egg and tomato during cooking. The way the dish looks like can be different as well, some can be ‘dry’, some may contain quite a bit of sauce.

Anyway, I used to cook the ‘dried’ version when I was in China, However, here, in England, since most of the tomato sold on the markets are ‘juicy’ ones, so I started making the ‘soft’ version with sauce, and a little bit sweet and sour -- with a slight Cantonese influence.

What I mean by good tomato is one with a ‘mashy’ texture under a very thin skin. They are rarely ‘sour’, and have very strong ‘tomato’ taste. I think in Spain, these are only used for cooking, and never for salad. So when I cook here, in England, I normally put a pinch of sugar in the dish to ‘balance’ the sour taste from the ‘tomato’.

Ok, here is how I would cook egg and tomato nowadays. :))

Ingredients:

Egg, tomato,

Oil, salt, cooking wine, sugar, rice vinegar, light soy sauce, sesame oil, corn flour, MSG/vegetable/mushroom/chicken essence (optional)

Preparing:

1) Whisk 3 medium size eggs.

2) Chop around 2-3 average size tomato into smaller pieces.

3) In a small mixing bowl, mix 1 teaspoon of corn flour, 1/4 cup of water, 2/3 salt, 1 and half teaspoon of vinegar, 1 ‘flat’ teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of light soy sauce, MSG/vegetable/mushroom/chicken essence (optional).

Cooking:

1) In a heated wok, pour in around 2 tablespoons of oil. (Keep the fire medium.)

2) When the oil is hot enough, pour in whisked egg.

3) Gradually stir the egg, make it form up into smaller pieces.

4) When the egg is just no longer in ‘liquid’ form, add the tomato pieces into the wok.

5) When the tomato is getting softening, add in 1 tablespoon of cooking wine, when add in the corn flour mix.

6) When the sauce in the wok is getting bubbling and thickening, turn off the fire. Before removing it to the plate, add a few drops of sesame oil. ---

--- Done.

Serve with rice, Chinese bread/bing, just don’t forget put spoons on the table for everyone, for in case, someone would like to have the sauce mix into the rice ---- somebody like me… :)))