Perfect Breakfast: Fried Eggs on Fried Tomato Slices with Cheese

Tomatoes with garlic

1. Prepare extremely fresh eggs, preferably homemade, and a ripe, large tomato that is undamaged and as red as possible.

   Though what am I saying, who keeps chickens at home these days. Even at the market the eggs aren’t always homemade; they come from a poultry farm. In any case, the product must be extremely fresh.

   

2. Peel the garlic clove and crush it with the flat of a knife blade.

3. Pour vegetable oil into the pan and let it heat up a little, until a light white smoke appears.

   Whether to fry in butter or vegetable oil is up to you. I prefer vegetable oil.

4. Fry the garlic in the oil for 2 minutes and remove it from the pan.

   The garlic flavors the oil a little, so the dish will be fragrant but not sharp-smelling.

   

5. Slice the tomato into rounds 3–4 mm thick.

   Don’t slice the rounds too thin, or the tomato will turn into tomato puree. Don’t slice them too thick either, or the tomato will stay raw.

6. Fry the tomato in the oil for 1 minute on each side.

   

7. Put the fried tomatoes on a plate, spreading them over the whole surface.

   

Frying the eggs

1. Eggs can be fried in any pan, ordinary or special. There are very cute little pans for frying a single egg. There are various molds that keep the egg from spreading across the pan, which, by the way, are quite handy. There’s room for imagination here.

2. If needed, add a little more oil to the pan.

3. Carefully crack the shell, making sure not to damage the yolk, and pour the contents of the egg into a small bowl or cup. If any bits of shell fall in, remove them.

   Eggs, especially store-bought ones, shouldn’t be poured straight into the pan. They may turn out not to be perfectly fresh, and the dish would come with a surprise.

4. Pour the egg from the bowl into the hot pan; it’s much more convenient. And safer. Do the same with the second egg.

5. Fry the eggs to your preferred doneness: the white should set and turn white, and the yolk should be half-runny or fully cooked, as you like. It usually takes 3–4 minutes over medium heat.

   The frying temperature determines the structure of the fried egg. Over low heat the white comes out uniform and white, and the yolk stays half-runny. On a very hot pan the underside of the white turns into a crust, which many people love. Choose what you like. One wish: the dish shouldn’t burn, as the smell of burnt egg white is very unpleasant.

   

Serving

1. Put the fried eggs on top of the tomatoes and sprinkle with herbs.

   

2. Sprinkle with grated hard cheese, which makes fried eggs with tomatoes especially tasty.

3. Add salt and ground pepper to taste, preferably right before eating.