Stir-Fried Eggs with Tomato (Fanqie Chao Dan)

This recipe is adapted from my book The Wok: Recipes and Techniques. You can get personalized copies shipped anywhere in the world from Book Larder.

Fanqie chao dan, or tomato and scrambled eggs, is a dish that is both humble and beloved across China. It’s similar to, say, toast in America—while everyone may make it slightly differently, it’s so common and simple that a recipe is almost superfluous. My friend Francis Lam described it in the New York Times as “like air, present and invisible”

It was a dish I was familiar with from my own childhood, when my mother would occasionally cook it for a quick lunch on Saturday afternoons between my Japanese school and music school classes. She, in turn, learned the dish from her mother, my grandmother, Yasuko, who would serve it to her when she was a toddler. Yasuko called it to-tama, a play on the word tomato and the Japanese word for egg, tamago.

Interestingly, the combination of tomato and egg appears in dishes across cultures. In Colombia, it's known as huevos pericos. Italian cuisine features uova all’Amatriciana and ova’ ‘mpriatorio (eggs in purgatory), while France offers oeufs Provençal. In the Middle East and North Africa, shakshuka is a popular variation, and Turkey has the very similar menemen. Parsi cuisine includes tomato per eedu, and Mexican kitchens produce huevos rancheros. My three-year-old has discovered, as many kids do, the joy of a squirt of ketchup on their scrambled eggs. There’s even a strong vocal minority of folks who will die on the hill that ketchup belongs on a fried egg breakfast sandwich. (They are wrong.)

To make fanqie chao dan, I start by stir-frying the eggs (beaten with a touch of cornstarch slurry and some cubes of butter to help them stay tender, and some fish sauce for seasoning) on their own in a wok until just barely set but still very soft. Most proteins in their raw state will bond on a molecular level directly with the metal surface of a wok or skillet, eggs especially so. The key to making sure they don’t stick is to preheat the wok very well, add a slick of oil, turn down the heat, then pour in the eggs. If the wok and oil are hot enough, the eggs proteins will tighten up and set before they have a chance to come into direct contact with the metal surface, allowing them to cook and slide around easily.

Once the eggs are cooked, I stir-fry some scallions, then add sliced Roma or cherry tomatoes, which I use for their higher pectin content that contributes to a thicker, more concentrated sauce. Once the tomatoes have broken down, I thicken the juices with a cornstarch slurry. To intensify the tomato flavor, I add just a tough of ketchup—an ingredient that adds sweetness, tartness, and body, and is surprisingly common in Chinese recipes for this dish. Finally, I season the mixture with salt, sugar, white pepper, and a touch of MSG before returning the eggs and folding them in along with some cilantro and fresh sliced scallions.

Served over a bowl of steamed rice, it’s comfort food at its finest.

Stir-Fried Eggs with Tomato (Fanqie Chao Dan)

Every recipe I publish here is personally tested, tasted, and approved.

What I like about this recipe:

• This dish uses a few staple ingredients and comes together in minutes, making it a perfect dish for any meal.

• Using roma and cherry tomatoes gives the sauce a rich texture that combines well with the eggs.

• Stir-frying the eggs with a cornstarch slurry keeps them moist and tender.

• Fish sauce, or a combination of salt and MSG, adds umami depth to the stir-fry.

Yield

Serves 2 to 3 with rice

Active Time 15 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Notes: You can omit the fish sauce and use 1⁄2 teaspoon salt and an optional

1⁄4 teaspoon MSG in its place. You can also omit the butter, but I don’t recommend it.

Ingredients

For the Eggs

6 large eggs
2 teaspoons (10 ml) fish sauce (optional; see

Notes)
2 tablespoons (about 30 g) unsalted butter, cut

into small cubes (see Notes)

For the Cornstarch Slurry:

2 teaspoons (6 g) cornstarch 1⁄4 cup (60 ml) water

For the Stir-Fry

2 tablespoons (30 ml) peanut, rice bran, or other neutral oil

4 scallions, chopped, dark green parts reserved separately

8 to 12 ounces (230 to 340 g) ripe Roma or large cherry tomatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks (about 5 Roma tomatoes or 1 pint cherry tomatoes)

Kosher salt, MSG, and freshly ground white pepper

1 tablespoon (15 ml) ketchup

1 teaspoon (4 g) sugar

A handful of chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Steamed white rice for serving

Directions

1. For the Eggs: In a large bowl, beat the eggs very thoroughly with a whisk, a fork, or a pair of chopsticks. This process should take at least 1 minute, and when you are done, the egg should be completely smooth. Test this by lifting your utensil up out of the eggs, letting them drizzle back down. There should be no visible strands or lumps. If there are, keep beating.

2. For the Cornstarch Slurry: Combine the cornstarch and water in a separate small bowl and stir with a fork until the cornstarch is dissolved.

3. Add half of the cornstarch slurry (set aside the other half for now), the fish sauce, and the butter to the eggs and beat to incorporate (the butter will stay solid at this stage).

4. For the Stir-Fry: Heat the wok over high heat until lightly smoking, making sure to move it around so the center is heated evenly. Reduce heat to low. Add half the oil and swirl the wok to coat. Add the eggs and cook, stirring until mostly set but some raw egg still remains. Return the egg to its original bowl and wipe out the wok.

5. Heat the wok over high heat until lightly smoking. Swirl in the oil, then add the scallion whites and pale greens and cook, stirring, until aromatic, about 15 seconds. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring, until they are starting to break down, about a minute. Add a pinch of salt, a pinch of white pepper, the ketchup, and the sugar and cook, stirring, until the tomatoes break down and release their juices but still have some of their shape, about 2 minutes. Stir the remaining cornstarch slurry and add it to the wok.

5. As soon as the sauce has thickened, return the eggs to the pan along with the scallion greens and cilantro. Fold everything together, season to taste with more salt, MSG, and white pepper as desired, and transfer to a bowl of white rice. Serve immediately.