Cook Eggs In Tomato Puree With Zero Oil

ChennaiExpress · Apr 23, 2018

I make my own Tomato Puree by

1. Peeling 12 to 18 medium sized tomatoes (maybe add raw bell peppers)
2. Chopping them into blocks (including the raw bell peppers)
3. Stirring them, adding black salt, black pepper
4. Let it simmer for 2 to 3 hours in low to medium heat
5. Stir occasionally

Notice there is ZERO oil

I wish to make this with scrambled eggs.

Again ZERO oil (and no non-stick pans, I hear they can cause cancer)

Question is, how to get firm mixture of eggs and tomato puree. So far, it is rather soggy, no matter how high I turn up the heat.

Plus I have 5 minutes in the morning to make this before I rush to the office.

Thanks!

SunPa · Apr 23, 2018

Oakay, lesson in science
Food gets "cooked" when it is heated. A good conductor is needed to distribute the the heat from the pan through the food and cook it more or less uniformly.

Like when you cook tomato puree, the water content in the puree starts to boil and steam, so technically the tomato puree is cooking at 100 degree C or so. Same for egg.
Food with very less water/fat content will get burnt when heated.
The boiling point of oil is much higher than water, so when you add oil the food cooks at a higher temperature and can effectively cause water in the food to evaporate/convert to steam making it just nice. Food cooked at a higher temperature has a longer shelf life.

Now if you dont add oil, when the water content in the food gets lesser and lesser, it will start to burn - no conductor to take away the heat from the parts of food in direct contact with the pan, so that part starts getting burnt. So you have to keeping stirring a lot to prevent this. And when the water gets even lesser, you just cant stir fast enough.

Just my 2 cents about oil and cooking .
You can see, that oil is not an all out bad guy. Not only is fat essential to our diet, in proper proportions, it makes perfect sense to use it in the process of cooking. The greatest scientists were the cooks who have devised ingenious ways to cook such that we get complementary nutrients in the most absorb-able form. There is a whole lot of science and experimentation that has gone in the process of cooking. And in our short sighted vision, we alter the process without knowing the impact properly.

Reducing oil while cooking is one thing, eliminating is another.
If you want do zero oil dishes, then cook food that doesnt use oil instead of using one that traditionally needs oil. Like say water poached eggs and use the tomato puree as a dip.

Shanvy · Apr 23, 2018

add a puree of roasted onion. onion has some oil that can help.

zero oil is fine but for some cooking you need fat. agree with @SunPa. if you are so obsessed the fat will leave when the puree is well cooked and you can drain it away.

no idea on the egg though

ChennaiExpress · Apr 23, 2018

SunPa said: ↑

Oakay, lesson in science
Food gets "cooked" when it is heated. A good conductor is needed to distribute the the heat from the pan through the food and cook it more or less uniformly.

Like when you cook tomato puree, the water content in the puree starts to boil and steam, so technically the tomato puree is cooking at 100 degree C or so. Same for egg.
Food with very less water/fat content will get burnt when heated.
The boiling point of oil is much higher than water, so when you add oil the food cooks at a higher temperature and can effectively cause water in the food to evaporate/convert to steam making it just nice. Food cooked at a higher temperature has a longer shelf life.

Now if you dont add oil, when the water content in the food gets lesser and lesser, it will start to burn - no conductor to take away the heat from the parts of food in direct contact with the pan, so that part starts getting burnt. So you have to keeping stirring a lot to prevent this. And when the water gets even lesser, you just cant stir fast enough.

Just my 2 cents about oil and cooking .
You can see, that oil is not an all out bad guy. Not only is fat essential to our diet, in proper proportions, it makes perfect sense to use it in the process of cooking. The greatest scientists were the cooks who have devised ingenious ways to cook such that we get complementary nutrients in the most absorb-able form. There is a whole lot of science and experimentation that has gone in the process of cooking. And in our short sighted vision, we alter the process without knowing the impact properly.

Reducing oil while cooking is one thing, eliminating is another.
If you want do zero oil dishes, then cook food that doesnt use oil instead of using one that traditionally needs oil. Like say water poached eggs and use the tomato puree as a dip.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, that's why I stir and stir when making oil free tomato purée. Of course wanted is there to prevent from burning (in first two hours)

Science and cooking does go hand-in-hand!

Will find way to reduce oil ... I'm not a fan of poached eggs