Week 4 Budgeting: Tomato Scrambled Eggs on Toast

In this weeks cooking assignment I decided to cook a classic Persian recipe with a little bit of my own twist to it. I chose this recipe to try and utilize the new items I had bought for my pantry, the one which was most new to be being olive oil.

Indigents:

4 medium-large eggs
3 teaspoons of ground turmeric
3 teaspoon of chili powder (depending on preferred spice level)
4 teaspoons of salt
2 teaspoons of paprika
4 teaspoons of ground pepper
1/4 cup worth of any style of tomatoes (though cherry tomatoes are preferred)
2 slices of toast (optional)
2 tablespoons of olive oil (this depends on the size of the pan as well)

Directions: 

The first step is to take your tomatoes and cut them up into bit size pieces, however smaller or larger is alright too. Then you take the 4 eggs and beat them in a separate bowl until the eggs are mixed well. After you have finished beating your eggs you ma add the salt to the beaten eggs and beat them for 30 seconds of until all the salt is dissolve, you should do this 10 minutes before cooking the eggs as the salt will help dissolve the protein in the eggs and make for a more smooth and tender finish. You then add your olive oil to the pan and allow it to heat up under high heat. After the pan is hot you add the egg mix and the tomatoes together into the pan and continually stir it to mix the tomatoes and eggs well. After 2 minutes of cooking add your turmeric, paprika, chili powder, and pepper to the mix while still continually stirring to incorporate the ingredients. Once the eggs are are fully cooked (or cooked to the desired state of the individual) they are ready to be served (traditionally served with pita bread). 

Reflection/Final Thoughts: 

My initial thoughts as I was cooking the dish was that I might have been going too overboard with the spices I was adding to it. The way my mom used to make this dish all she would use is salt, so my adding of all the other ingredients had me a bit worried it would not turn out tasting well. However once I finished cooking I was extremely satisfied with the results. One major difference I thought the resulted in this was substituting canola oil for olive oil. Whenever my mom used to cook this dish (or any dish for that matter) she always used canola oil or butter, but I wanted to try to do something a bit different and try and cook with olive oil instead and I think as a result of that the eggs came our much more tender and fluffy which I very much liked as texture profile. I also liked that I had added the extra spices to the recipe as well. Personally I love food with a lot of flavor and spices so tend to love adding as much spice to any dish I can and I think in this dish it paid major dividends. I especially liked the chili powder I had added because it added the extra heat that I love in foods and I think it worked really well with the tomatoes and eggs, which was a bit surprising because I never thought of eggs and spicy would work well together.  However there is one thing I wish I would have done differently and that is adding tomato paste. As I was eating the dish I did notice it was a bit off in overall structure and thickness, some parts almost being too watery by the tomatoes. When I called my mom and asked her about this the first thing she asked me was "Did you use tomato paste?" in which I said I hadn't. She said how the tomato paste would add the structure and thickness to the dish. I didn't understand her at first but I decided to take her word for it and decided to try and make the dish again. Lone and behold the dish turned out just like I how my mom use to make it. Though one issue I had with this technique was that it made the tomato flavor too potent for my taste, and decided that my own recipe was the better option for myself. Overall I was very satisfied with the results of this dish.