Grandma’s Tomato Eggs
The Eat Down the House Challenge, is to go without grocery shopping, and eat from the stock in the fridge and pantry.
Tomato eggs is a common Chinese dish. There are many versions, the more common version has chunks of tomatoes stir-fried with egg scrambled. But my favorite is my Grandma’s version, which is a silky blend of eggs and skinless tomatoes. During our grandmother-granddaughter trip to North Carolina to visit my cousin Vivian, my grandma taught us both how to make her tomato eggs.
I took some shortcuts today with this recipe, but no worries! I will share with you my Grandma’s secrets too. The first secret is that you have to remove the skin of the tomatoes. She does this by soaking the tomatoes in hot water, for 15 minutes or so. Carefully remove the tomatoes from the hot water and don’t burn yourself. And just rub the skin off the tomatoes. For you medicine people out there, it is like Nikolsky’s sign .
Tomato Eggs
Ingredients:
- 4 tomatoes (or 28-ounce can of tomatoes), with skin removed and roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and sliced to ¼-inch thick pieces
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 scallion (or small bunch of chives) for garnishing
Directions:
To remove the skin of the tomatoes, soak tomatoes in warm (hot, but not boiling) water for 15 to 30 minutes. Carefully remove tomatoes from the water and rub the skin; it should easily rub off.
Heat oil in a 2- to 4- quart saucepan on medium-high heat. Add ginger and lightly stir for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add chopped tomatoes, salt, and sugar, let sit covered for 2 minutes. Then stir occasionally, squishing the tomato chunks so that the tomatoes are broken down into a smoother but still chunky consistency. Cook until tomatoes have released a good amount of their juices, about 3 more minutes.
Fold the eggs into the cooked tomatoes, until eggs are cooked. Salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chives or scallions before serving. Serve with white rice.
Makes 4 servings, as part of a multi-course meal.
Other Tomato Eggs Recipes: Rasa Malaysia’s Tomato Eggs
Both Vivian and I had so much fun cooking with our grandmother. Hopefully, more opportunities will come. Next, I want her to teach me how to make “lup lup” or literally “dots dots” which is essentially a diced vegetable stir fry. More photos of our North Carolina trip to visit Vivian:
