The Comforting Chinese language Dish My Mother Made When Life Acquired Busy

Within the West, eggs are sometimes related to breakfast and brunch. However rising up in Hong Kong, I discovered that eggs have been completely acceptable dinner fare. At the least as soon as every week, my mother would put together Chinese language scrambled eggs with shrimp, char siu (barbecued pork), or tomatoes, which we would eat alongside steamed fish, a stew of some sort, sautéed greens and—in fact—rice. Of all of the variations on Chinese language scrambled eggs, my favourite is the model with tomatoes. 

Affectionately known as “tomato egg” in Chinese language households, the dish consists of soppy, jammy tomatoes folded into tender scrambled eggs. A contact of Shaoxing wine brings a delicate sweetness, whereas soy sauce and toasted sesame oil give it savory depth. Each household, nonetheless, has their very own model of tomato egg. As Critical Eats contributor Jenny Dorsey wrote in her James Beard award-nominated recipe for the dish, “the variations of tomato and egg are infinite and ever-growing.” 

Most variations, together with Dorsey’s, require only a few pantry staples and take lower than 20 minutes to whip up. To make it, you begin by gently scrambling eggs in a wok or skillet. As soon as the eggs are cooked, you switch them to a plate and add scallions, garlic, and ginger to the wok or skillet and prepare dinner till they’re aromatic and softened. Then in go the tomatoes, and as soon as they’ve softened, the eggs return in and the whole lot is stirred collectively.

Whereas the recipe on our website doesn’t name for ketchup, I do take a web page out of my mother’s e book and sweeten the tomatoes with a tablespoon or two of ketchup, together with a pinch of sugar, which boosts the tomatoes’ pure sweetness. The dish is particularly scrumptious when made with ripe, in-season tomatoes, however I substitute with drained canned complete plum tomatoes when there are not any plump, juicy tomatoes close to me. Simply as tomato egg was a staple of my mother and father’ desk rising up, it has change into a go-to dinner for my household at the moment—and when my son is sufficiently old to prepare dinner, it will in all probability be the very first thing I educate him, as a result of everybody ought to have just a few fast, straightforward, and budget-friendly egg recipes of their again pocket.