Tomato & Egg Stir-fry · Haruhankki

Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them until the yolk and white are a single colour.

Cut the tomato into wedges or big chunks, slice the green onion, and dice the ham if you are using it.

Set a pan over LOW heat with a little oil, pour in the egg and scramble it into soft curds. Slide it onto a plate while it still looks slightly wet.

💡 Low heat is his instruction, not ours. Egg cooked hot goes rubbery and dry, and it is about to get cooked a second time when it rejoins the tomato — so it must leave the pan underdone.

Set the scrambled egg aside. Do not wash the pan.

Add a little more oil to the same pan, still on LOW heat, and fry the green onion with the half-spoon of minced garlic.

💡 Low again, and again it is his call. Garlic on low heat gives up its sweetness into the oil; garlic on high heat gives up bitterness. You are building the base the tomato will land in.

When a good smell rises off the pan, add the ham (if using) and turn it through the oil briefly.

Turn the heat up to MEDIUM and add the tomato.

Cook the tomato until it goes limp — the skins loosen, the wedges lose their shape at the edges and red juice runs out and pools in the pan.

💡 That pooling juice IS the sauce — this dish has no stock and no water in it. Rush this step and you get warm tomato in egg instead of egg in tomato sauce.

Once it has gone limp, add the half-spoon of sugar and the half-spoon of soy sauce — plus half a spoon of ketchup or oyster sauce if you want it, which is his own suggestion.

Stir until the sugar has dissolved and the juice in the pan turns glossy and slightly syrupy.

💡 The sugar is not there to sweeten it. It is there to take the metallic edge off under-ripe tomato — which is why it is half a spoon and not two.

Tip the scrambled egg back in and fold it through gently, just until every piece is coated in red sauce, then kill the heat.

Taste it and finish with salt and pepper as you like — his last step leaves the final seasoning to you.

💡 Fold, do not stir hard, and do not put it back over the heat. The eggs are already cooked twice — a third round breaks the curds into scrambled crumbs.

Serve it hot with rice — the sauce is meant to be spooned over it.