Eggs in (Italian) tomatoes

I was waxing lyrical to a friend recently about the food in Italy and how fantastic it tasted. Everything. Even the tinned tomatoes. He suggested in his devil's advocate kind of a way that perhaps, given Italy's reputation, you couldn't help but think the food tasted good. No, I said, it really did.






So when I saw some made in Italy tinned tomatoes in my supermarket last week, with real Italian language on the tin and everything, I decided to put them to the test.

Kent and I used to make Eggs in Tomatoes a lot. I believe they are often known as ranch-style eggs, but we liked calling them Eggs in Tomatoes. A house mate in London saw us making them a few times and asked if we could please make them for her one night, and we seem to have made them for numerous people over the years. They really are very good.

So this is what I did with my Italian tomatoes. Everyone needs to give them a try...

There are only two essential ingredients, the rest are all optional.

Tip tinned tomatoes in to a pan and get them gently simmering. Shuffle a little bit of space in amongst the toms and crack a couple of eggs per person in to the almost-gap. I like to add kidney beans or cannellini beans, herbs or a shake of chilli, grated cheddar or chunks of feta (or both) and plenty of pepper. Garlic and onion in the pan before the tomatoes is also really good, and a splash of wine and tomato paste does the tomatoes a lot of good.

Well, there's not a *lot* of Italian there.

Oh and the actual tomatoes? Do you know, I couldn't actually say if they taste better than those in the made-in-NZ aisle. But if you add a slosh of wine and some feta to pretty much anything it's going to taste good. I did try them again today naked (no, you know what I mean) and I wasn't blown away, or blown over to Italy. But then perhaps not all food, even in Italy, is created equal. Although my original point was, all, even the ordinary, Italian food tasted amazing. Perhaps they've just been out of the country for too long. Or perhaps I have. If anyone would like to arrange tickets and accommodation, and perhaps some company, I'm happy to put these questions seriously to the test.