Tomato and Egg Scramble

Midweek meals. What a struggle!  It's always a fine line between creating something that is tasty but the boys will also eat.  Often it gets to the middle of the week and my brain can't comprehend the fact I should be making a nutritious meal.  My eyes draw longingly to the fridge with the pizza pamphlet tacked to it...

Good thing for me, there are several recipes I have up my sleeves for such days like these, where I don't have to think to hard but food miraculously appears with a mere two or three ingredients and gets eaten with no complaints.  This dish here contains ingredients that should be staples in your fridge.  If anything, they may end up being the ONLY items in your fridge come Friday (no, just me??). 

Research has suggested that tomatoes are good for men.  The lycopene in tomatoes has been suggested to reduce the rate of cancer in prostate as well as stomach and lungs. Regardless as to whether that is concrete or not, tomatoes are full of nutrients and this dish provides flavour to the eggs (which I might add, is protein rich, so great for growing children!)

This dish is widely serve in Mainland China. My Mum and Dad went to China couple of years back with a tour. When they came back, I had cooked this dish and Dad gave me very unimpressed look! He told me that he had to consume this dish every single day at every single meal they had in China! Whoops, my bad - sorry Dad!! 

Penang Char Koay Teow

Penang Char Koay Teow - this is a recipe that embodies so many memories for me.  It has a very soft spot in my heart, not only being a signature dish from my home town, but also a reminder of my very dear late grandmother.  She would cook it for us, however (as with most special, longed-for meals) not as often as we would like.  We would pester her relentlessly before she would give in and put together this delicious plate of noodles.

Char Koay Teow (literal translation fried rice noodles) is something that can be found across any Malaysian restaurant on their menu. Like most things with cultural food though, whether the authenticity is there or not is debatable.  Penang has long been known as the "Food Capital of Malaysia" and is particularly well known for their "hawker foods", mostly featuring incredibly fresh ingredients and made to order.  Char Koay Teow is the very representation of hawker food - fresh rice noodles tossed with tender juicy prawns, crunchy bean sprouts, salty Chinese sausage, fragrant chives finished off with a kick of chilli.  If you visit Penang and don't take the opportunity taste this, you haven't been to Penang at all!

The best way to get that authentic taste in your home is to cook this dish in individual portions, not in one big batch.  Using a cast iron wok and a gas cook top will best replicate the complex, smokey flavour of the dish (often referred to as 'wok hei' or breath of the wok) which is usually the magic factor in all genuine hawker dishes.  

Traditionally, Char Koay Teow would also include succulent de-shelled cockles and crunchy pork lard or rind, however these ingredients are hard to find here so they have been omitted from this particular recipe.  If you are lucky enough to find these additions though, absolutely feel free to toss through the cockles and rind with the prawns.  They're certainly my favourite bits of the dish!  You can also exchange the chicken egg out for duck egg if you're feeling exceptionally indulgent.