Follow up question (you probably knew it was coming). Why not? it is egg cooked in tomato. Seems herb variations dont define the dish. I get this one in Taiwan basically just uses sugar and maybe mash for spices, but at its core it seems similar.
Was thinking of making.it soon with the wife. the big difference we both noticed is that the eggs are cracked on top of the tomato to cook. but we wanted to avoid oils and.burning so thought a scrambled style might be fine. then saw recipes from turkey as just that. then into Taiwan lunch conversation we went haha.
I travelled with Israelis in Xinjiang who thought it was close enough and enjoyed it as a taste of home. That said, the Taiwanese versions of the Chinese dish I have had were predictably bad, nothing like what I enjoyed in China, so that regional variation might be the difference!
cheers, thanks. I was thinking I could just buy a bowl of it to bring home, add some herbs and reheat and it might be passable? the lunch box places tomato egg I am no fan of. but when adding herbs like thyme, rosemarry, touch of cumin and such, it becomes pretty damn good! Trouble is I always keep adding until it is basically a pasta sauce with egg. Trying to think of easy ways to make it bang.
after reading more on it, I am still thinking perhaps a line of definition is that the eggs are cooked onto the tomato. not scrambled/mixed into the tomato. is that reasonable to assume?
Very similar to some dish I used to bake. Actually you can do whatever variations you want… I need certain things that are too pricey here to make it really good though.
that recipe list looks fantastic! the only issue I have is the chili peppers involved. harrisa and poblanos are hard to find items here. any sources or decent substitutes? I usually use red bell peppers and jalapenos here, but I bet that recipe is amazing with some more flavorful chili varieties!
@mad_masala what are the hard to find or expensive things you nention? I bet the masses online can probably share sources for at least most things in Taiwan. I really would love poblano/ancho chili as an example.
I’ve got harissa (Mina’s, I think?) that I bought from iHerb, but I’ve seen recipes around for how to make your own. Harissa is definitely the key ingredient. I just use jalapeños in this recipe and don’t worry about the poblanos.
And yeah, it’s one of my wife’s favorite things that I make. The only issue is timing the eggs for our different taste in how runny we want the yolks.
But it’s also one of those dishes I’ve made far, far more times than I’ve actually had it in restaurants, so I don’t really know what it’s “supposed” to taste like. (I love the version I make. I’m just idly curious about the comparison.)
I think it’s used for lots of North African dishes. For me it’s become a bit like smoked paprika: an absolute godsend for adding flavor to dishes that both my vegetarian wife and I can enjoy.
Probably the big variable, at least in our travels, are the chili pepper varieties and their processing. The flavor can vary wildly based on what chilis and how they are prepared.
I really enjoyed a recent meal nearby in the same complex, at another Amis operated place called mita’ay 米達艾原味廚房. Their set meal (using Indigenous mountain pepper, aka ma gao) was delicious.
