Scrambled Egg & Tomato

 

 This classic is one of my favourite lazy and super cheap dishes (like SO cheap!) and it is DELICIOUS! But, is it really a 'classic' dish? Well...

Scrambled egg dishes have been eaten in China for thousands of years and when Western cooking cropped up in the late Qing Dynasty, we started experimenting with tomatoes et voila, perfection! So yes, yes it is!

Effort: 2/3

Ingredients

3x Eggs

3x Tomatoes

Spring Onions 

Salt

Ketchup

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Optional Prep

- Slice an X on the bottom of each tomato

- Boil until the X's start to bust then take them out and put them in a bowl of cold water then peel.

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Prep

- Beat eggs

- Chop the tomatoes

- Slice spring onions

- Dark soy sauce is optional but results in a richer colour

Let's Go!

1. Heat some oil in a pan on medium and make scrambled egg. Try not to scramble it too much so you still have some good chunks of egg to chomp on.

2. Once 80% cooked, remove the egg and put aside. 

3. Add oil to the pan and stir fry the tomatoes with sugar - I used about a teaspoon. 

4. Once the tomatoes start to soften (this will be quicker if you do the optional tomato prep) add water. I used half a bowl but you can use more or less depending on how much sauce you want.

5. Add ketchup until you get a sauce. This is a good stage to do a taste test. 

You can add a little dark soy sauce and more sugar if you like. 

6. Once you're happy with the flavour of your sauce, thicken it up with some cornflour + water.

FYI - when I use bowl as a measurement, I specially mean this bowl. 

7. Now that the sauce is complete, time to put the eggy bois back in! Because the egg has already been cooked, just a minute or so to fold it into the sauce will do.

8. Stir in the spring onions (leaving a little to garnish if you like) then it's time to plate up!

Let's eat!

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Costings

Eggs x3 - 24p

Tomatoes x3 - 33p

Spring onion - 5p

= 62p!

Tofu Katsu Curry

 

One of my favourite dinners is a Katsu curry and you know what is excellent? Combining it with tofu! My preferred rice to curry ratio is 2:1 but you however much as you like.

Effort: 2/3

Ingredients 

2x tofu blocks

1x Egg

35g Curry

15g Panko Crumbs

Cornflour

Prep

- Slice the tofu into 1/3 pieces and dry them off as much as possible.

- Beat the egg until fully combined.

- Prep your dry goods.

Let's Go!

1. Cover your tofu in cornflour.

2. Dunk it in the egg.

3. Roll it in the panko.

4. Repeat with all the other pieces.

Pour out more cornflour and panko if you need it.

5. Heat up some oil on high heat. Once it's hot enough (you can test this by dipping in a skewer, cocktail stick or if you really need to, the end of a wooden spoon. There should be little bubbles surrounding it when the oil is hot enough.) turn it down a little (mine went from 12 to 10) and gently place the tofu in to fry.

And in case you're wondering, no. I have never tested if my oil is hot enough using the end of my wooden spoon.

6. Once the tofu has browned, turn it over and fry the other side. After both sides have browned, remove from the oil and set on some kitchen roll.

7. At this point, you can also start boiling some water for your curry. I used around 1/3 bowl of water.

8. Once the water has boiled, turn the heat down to low and melt the curry. Once it's fully dissolved and reached the consistency of your preference (you can add more curry if you want it stronger or the ole cornflour + water if you want to thicken it up quicker) we are ready to plate up!

OPTIONAL

Well, I say optional but throwing out the leftover egg was never an option to me so I scrambled it!

9. Plate up with rice! If you want to make your dish look aesthetically pleasing you can put the rice in a bowl first and turn back out and arrange OR you can whack it in a dish and get going, up to you.

Spring onion garnish optional but pretty ^^ 

Let's eat!

Costings

Tofu x2 blocks - 53p

1x Egg - 8p

35g S&B Curry - 35p (1KG box @ £9.95)

15g Panko Crumbs - 11p (350g pack @ £2.59)

Rice - 20p (2 servings)

= £1.27