Steamed Egg with Tomato

A home dish rather than a restaurant one, and a first cousin of tomato-and-egg stir-fry — which is about as close as China gets to a national comfort food.

The tomato brings acidity and colour to something that otherwise has neither, and it turns a side dish into a light meal. This is the version people actually eat on a Tuesday.

⚠ Cook the tomato first. Raw tomato dropped into the custard leaks water as it heats and thins the egg around it into something loose and weeping. Two minutes in a pan drives off the excess and concentrates the flavour, and it is the difference between this working and not.

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs (about 150 g — weigh them)
• 225 g warm water or light stock
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 medium ripe tomatoes
• 1 tsp neutral oil
• 1/2 tsp sugar

Pinch of white pepper

• To finish
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 scallion, sliced

Directions

1. Score, blanch and peel the tomatoes if you want it smooth — 20 seconds in boiling water and the skins slip off. Skins left on will curl up in the custard.
2. Deseed and dice into roughly 1 cm pieces. ⚠ The seeds and the jelly around them are almost pure water — that is what thins the custard.
3. Cook the tomato: oil in a small pan over medium heat, tomato in with the sugar and a pinch of salt, 2–3 minutes until it has softened and given up its liquid and that liquid has mostly gone. Let it cool a little.
4. Weigh the eggs, add 1.5× their weight in warm water, salt, beat gently with chopsticks and strain through a fine sieve into your dish.
5. Skim the foam, then stir the cooked tomato in gently — or spoon it over the top if you would rather it sat in a layer.
6. Cover and steam over a bare simmer for 12–13 minutes, until the centre wobbles as a unit.
7. Thread over the soy and sesame oil, scatter the scallion, serve with rice.

Notes

⭐ The sugar is not to make it sweet. A half teaspoon against two tomatoes just balances the acid, the same way it does in a tomato sauce. Leave it out and the dish reads sharp.

Tinned tomato works out of season and is often better than a poor fresh one — drain it hard and cook it down the same way.

To make it a full meal: a spoonful of minced pork spread under the custard, as in the century egg version.

In the dive: China — the everyday bowl.