Eggs and tomatoes and version 1.5

Eggs and tomatoes is my comfort food. It is my pasta in marinara. I learned the dish from a 'home ec' sorta text book in fourth grade in China. It was the only dish I ever cooked for 8 years after that. It is my signature dish. My dad gets very happy whenever I cook that for him; so do my friends. I think I can say that I have gotten quite decent at it over the years. The recipe in that fateful textbook calls for something a little different than the standard Chinese eggs and tomatoes. In Chinese cooking, any dish involving stir fried eggs usually calls for the eggs, whipped and foamy, to be fried in ample oil first, the vegetables stir fried separately and the fried eggs added in a later stage. This results in a fragrant, golden-crisp, airy and puffed up finish of the eggs. In that particular textbook eggs are added to tomatoes that have been cooking for a while, and soaks up the favors of tomatoes in the process of cooking as well as taking on a moister, less fried-up texture (an intermediate between fried egg and steamed egg closer to fried end of the spectrum). So instead of the common version of  sweet, vivid red-gold tomatoes and fried eggs (usually sweetened by sugar to balance the tartness from tomatoes), mine is like a garlicky sautee, milder, juicier but still vibrantly colorful. 

Now for the actual cooking. I use roughly 1:1 vol. eggs to tomatoes; two medium tomatoes and 3 large eggs works well. Heat minced garlic in hot oil in pan until fragrant and brown. Add chopped tomatoes (about 1.5 in chunks). Salt, stir, and cover and cook on medium until lightly pulped but still shapely. Pour eggs, well whipped with a dash of salt, over tomatoes, and cover again. Stir when eggs are partially solidified until just cooked. Garnish with minced scallions. Enjoy with rice (the juiciness makes it the perfect rice companion). 

Now Sarah, craving for my eggs and tomatoes on her home trip, took matters into her own hands (when I kept putting off writing this entry for her) and made her own eggs and tomatoes, with basil and cheese. She made it for me when she came back, using fresh mozzarella (she forgot which cheese she had used at home...) and fresh basil (she had used dried flakes at home) and I gotta say, it was heavenly. I am so glad I procrastinated on this entry so that she stumbled into this jewel of a dish. I'd say it is superior to mine right now, but perhaps the preference depends on days, mood, and cravings and person (and of course I am a little proud to give it up). She winged it completely as well. The ratio is a little different, about 2 eggs to one tomato. She first adds eggs to a little olive oil, and when it is cooked about half-way, adds tomatoes, more finely chopped here, chiffonaded basil, minced garlic and cubed mozzarella and scramble it all until the eggs are just cooked and cheese just melted. Season with black pepper and serve hot, not necessarily with rice. It is like hot caprese in scrambled eggs, or low-carb high-protein bruschetta (hehe). I am glad to have been able to reproduce the result tonight: 

(I skipped the garlic because I don't think I really tasted it the first time and I think Sarah only used it to follow my dish anyways ;) though it can no longer be bruschetta...)