Recipe for a Quick Ten Minute Lunch, or Tomato and Egg Noodles (xihongshi jidan mian 西红柿鸡蛋面)

Tomato and egg is a common homestyle dish in China, but in Beijing, I’ve also seen it stuffed into dumplings and ladled on top of noodles – both are delicious. So, a week after watching Christine eat a giant tin plate of tomato and egg noodles at the cafeteria [link], I got a craving this morning and decided to have a go at it for lunch. It’s great tasting, pretty healthy, and only took me about 10 minutes to put together, which is eggcellent (sorry, it was just begging to be said).

RECIPE (2 bowls)

2 tomatoes
2 eggs
1 clove of garlic, chopped
handful of green onion, chopped
2 servings of Chinese noodles (white flour-based)

1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp white vinegar
1/2 tblsp ketchup
couple dashes Maggi Sauce (optional)
1/2 tsp of some kind of umami (such as Hondashi or chicken stock powder) (optional)

1. Lightly whisk the eggs in a bowl with a pinch or two of salt. Chop the garlic and the green onion. Skin the tomatoes then chop very coarsely (you can skip the skinning if you don’t mind the skin – I personally just hate eating cooked tomato skin). The trick to doing this easily is to cross slice the bottoms of the tomatoes, then drop them in boiling water for about 30-60 seconds, then rinse them in cold water.

They turn from this…

…to this. Happy peeling.

2. Heat up a wok on low heat, and add 2 tablespoons of oil. (It sounds like a lot but it’ll make for delicious soft eggs). Pour the eggs into the wok, and with a wooden spoon, immediately start whisking the eggs in the oil, and don’t stop stirring until they are just barely cooked (but not too runny) and remove them from the wok.

3. Add a bit more oil into the wok turn it up to medium/high heat, and toss in the garlic and the tomatoes. After a minute or so, when the tomatoes have started to cook, throw in the salt, sugar, vinegar, ketchup, Maggi and seasoning. Add a little bit of water, about 1/2 cup, and give it a stir. At the same time, toss the noodles into some boiling water (these types of noodles only take about 3-5 minutes to cook).

4. In a few minutes, the tomatoes should have cooked down a bit and form a kind of chunky sauce.

5. Throw in the eggs and the green onions, give it a quick stir, adjust the seasoning if you need to, and turn off the heat. Drain the noodles (which should be done by now), and heap some of the tomato and egg mixture on top.

Lunch! Not as fast as yelling for them at the noodle station at the caf, but not too shabby either.