Strapatsada Recipe (Greek Scrambled Eggs with Tomato and Feta)

Strapatsada is what Greeks eat in August when the tomatoes are at their best and turning on the oven is out of the question. Grated tomato cooked down in olive oil, eggs folded through it, feta crumbled over, bread to mop up.

In the Peloponnese and parts of central Greece it is called kagianas, and there are households that will argue the two are different dishes. They are not, though kagianas versions more often include a piece of cured pork.

The one thing that decides it is how far you cook the tomato before the eggs arrive. It needs to be reduced to a thick jammy paste, almost dry. Add eggs to wet tomato and you get a pale watery scramble sitting in pink liquid.

Key preparation steps

1. Grate the tomatoes and discard the skins.
2. Cook the pulp down hard in olive oil until jammy and almost dry.
3. Add beaten eggs and fold slowly over a low heat.
4. Take it off while still slightly loose and crumble feta over.

Why grate the tomatoes?

It gives pulp without skin and without the chopping. Halve the tomatoes across the equator, hold the skin side in your palm and grate the cut face on the coarse side of a box grater. You are left holding the empty skin.

Chopped tomato gives you chunks that sit separately in the eggs rather than a sauce that coats them. Tinned tomato works out of season but is noticeably more acidic, so add a pinch of sugar if you use it.

This is a dish that lives or dies on tomato quality. In February, make something else.

How dry should the tomato be?

Cook it in the olive oil over a medium-high heat for eight to ten minutes, stirring, until the water has gone and what remains is thick, dark and jammy. When you draw a spoon through it the channel should stay open.

That looks like a lot of reduction and it is correct. The eggs bring their own moisture and the finished dish should be creamy, not soupy.

Season the tomato at this stage, before the eggs, so the salt has somewhere to work.

Getting the eggs right

Turn the heat down before the eggs go in. High heat sets them into rubbery curds instantly and the whole point is a soft, creamy fold.

Beat the eggs lightly, just enough to combine, then pour them in and stir slowly with a wooden spoon, pushing the mixture from the edges into the middle. It should take two to three minutes.

Take the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly underdone and glossy. They carry on cooking in the residual heat, and a scramble that looks perfect in the pan is overcooked on the plate.

Feta, and the variations

Crumble the feta over at the very end, off the heat, so it softens without dissolving. Some cooks stir it in earlier and let it melt through, which is also good but gives a saltier, more uniform dish.

The common additions are a chopped green pepper cooked with the tomato, or pieces of Greek cured pork, either the smoked apaki from Crete or the paprika-cured louza. A pinch of dried mint is traditional in some regions.

Serve straight from the pan with good bread, and a coffee. It is a breakfast dish but nobody will object to it at nine in the evening.

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