Maltese Tomato and Egg Sauce

Food like this tends to escape recipe books because it is so simple, too simple. Like my favourite milkshake that I've had every morning for three years and counting - frozen banana, milk and milo. Simple, too simple.

My husband learned this off his Maltese Nanna and made it alongside crumbed lamb and roast potatoes. I savoured every bite, lamenting that you'd never find something this humble in a restaurant. Take your Michelin hat and I'll sit at the table serving home-cooked meals any day or night of the year. 

It's also really interesting what lamb you use. My mother-in-law bought us some lamb that was labelled 'soup lamb' and $2 a tray. We cut off the meat, crumbed the pieces and looked at each other bemused as they tasted no different to the $60-a-kg crumbed lamb cutlets that we occasionally bought even though we couldn't afford to. This meal being crumbed cheap lamb, tomato, egg and potatoes will be one of the cheapest meat meals you can make. It is one of my favourite meals too. Money does not necessarily mean better food. It just doesn't.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

1/2 onion

1 garlic clove, minced (or garlic olive oil)

400g can of peeled tomatoes, use scissors to chop tomatoes while in can
Water, roughly 1/5 of the tin, swirl in the tin to get all the tomato in the can
1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste
1 egg

Method:

Finely dice onion. 

Fry onion in small saucepan with minced garlic and oil or garlic olive oil until lightly brown.

Add can of peeled tomatoes and water. Stir and add sugar, salt and pepper until it tastes just right with a slight sweetness. Simmer on low-medium heat for roughly 10-15 minutes until mixture thickens.

Take off heat and crack egg into mixture and stir until you can see the egg whites turn white.

Serve as a side to meat, bread or anything else you like.