French Toast

I was first introduced to French toast by one of my boy friends. He was studying abroad and on one of his trips back home he requested "French toast". I personally had never heard of it until then! But he showed me how to make it and ever since then I've been making it. The smell of hot butter, cinnamon and melted sugar is comforting and Christmassy and puts everyone in a good mood.

Serve it as a side for your next Sunday brunch or try it out as a snack. If you are a light eater then just have a few slices for breakfast smothered in maple syrup.

Preparation time: 40 minutes; serves 3  (i.e. approx. 7 slices)

Ingredients:

5	Eggs, large
2 tbsp.	Milk
1/4 tsp.	Salt
7 slices	Sandwich bread (i.e. white, rectangular, spongy)
1/2 tsp.	Ground cinnamon
1 tbsp.	Sugar
50 g	Butter

Method:

These are super easy to make however please make sure you have a cast iron frying pan for the best results. You'll also need paper towels.

Basically all you do to begin with is to make a batter like for scrambled eggs or omelettes. So beat together the eggs, milk and salt. If you like you can add some freshly ground pepper and more salt if you like salty.

Cut your butter into cubes. This makes it easier to portion. It would have been great if I had 7 cubes but 8 was just so much easier! Note that you might not need all 8!

If you like you can cut off the crusts of your bread. I don't like to waste food and find that the crusts help make the soggy bread easier to handle so I always keep the crusts on. Cut your bread diagonally down the middle.

You can also use any kind of sugar, but I advise a smaller grain. The smaller grain will stick to the bread better and you'll have less sugar falling into the frying pan i.e. less clean up. Make sure you have proper cinnamon. The best, of course, is Sri Lankan cinnamon and freshly ground is so much more flavourful than the pre-ground stuff that you buy in the supermarket.

Heat your pan on medium-high and while it's heating start soaking your first slices of bread. My pan fits 3 pieces at a time. You should figure out how many you can fit in your pan so that you don't soak the bread for too long. We don't like our French toast to be soggy so I don't let the bread soak for too long. Just enough that all surfaces are coated. I achieve this by fully immersing the bread into the egg mixture. Leaving it in for about 10 seconds and then removing it. My bread is rather fluffy so also if I soak it for too long the bread falls to pieces.

Once the pan is hot enough add a cube of butter. Now we always have the problem of what is hot enough. In this case the butter should start melting as it hits the pan, but it shouldn't turn brown i.e. burn. If it does burn you should tip out the butter and wipe the pan out with a paper towel and after letting the pan cool a bit, try again. Once the butter has melted and covered the surface carefully place the egg soaked bread into the pan. Sprinkle a pinch (with 3 fingers) of sugar and a pinch (with 2 fingers) of cinnamon on to each slice. You can add more or less of sugar and cinnamon depending on your taste. Once the bottom is cooked, golden brown (lift up with a spatula to inspect the underneath surface) flip and cook the other side.

Here are some things to pay attention to:

• at some point your pan will be too hot and the butter will start burning. Reduce the heat, tip out any burnt butter and wipe out the pan. 
• the sugar may burn on your pan. This will cause subsequent toasts to turn black. Wipe out any residue sugar with a paper towel.
• add a cube of butter when ever the pan dries out, i.e. is not oily

Also note that you can use regular oil to make French toast, it just does not taste as good. 

Enjoy your toast by itself or with maple syrup or anything else that calls to you.

P.S. It's probably really good with bacon, but we are vegetarian and can't get vegetarian bacon in Germany :(

Pad Thai Recipe

After 3 weeks in China everyone's been craving their favourite, non-Chinese, foods and been literally begging for them. I caved in to the craving for Pad Thai today and thought I'd share the recipe. It does take a while to make (1 hour from start to finish) but we find it delicious. Full of protein which is perfect for our vegetarian table. Although I do put some fish sauce into this recipe but that's because I've never been able to figure out what the original recipe meant by "Asian bean sauce". Actually if anyone knows what this is please be so kind as to help me find it.

After this description you'll find a pdf with the recipe in black and white. This is the best thing to use when you are actually cooking the Pad Thai. I'm never very good with a recipe which has pictures in the middle :(

This recipe serves 4 - 6 hungry adults (depending on the extent of hunger!) and is made with a whole pack of rice noodles. It makes things much easier to use a whole pack because halving a pack of rice noodles is a nightmare. 

Ingredients:

14 oz     Rice noodles (with the width of linguine)

12 oz     Firm tofu (1 pack in the USA or one block in Germany)

2 tbsp    Minced garlic

4            Eggs, lightly beaten

200 ml   Water

1/2         A vegetable cube

3 tbsp    Tamarind liquid or 7 tbsp freshly squeezed lime/lemon juice

4 tbsp    Water

3.5 tbsp Fish sauce (or Asian bean sauce)

3.5 tbsp Sugar

7 tsp      Soya sauce

1/2 tsp   Ground red chili pepper flakes (optional)

1/2 cup  Non-sweetened peanut butter (optional)

3 cups   Bean sprouts

6           Green onions

1           Lemon or Lime
Approx. 5 tbsp oil

Method:

First take your pack of rice noodles and dump the noodles into a bowl of very hot, but not boiling water. Boiling water makes the noodles all soggy. I just use hot water from the tap but our hot water is usually too hot to put your hands under.

Next comes the tofu. How much you actually use will depend on your taste. Sometimes I use one block, sometimes two. It's not a very exact science. When I use two my wok tends to overflow a bit!

Next the tofu needs to cut and then pan fried. Now if you have extra time (ha, ha, who are we kidding!) you can elevate one side of your chopping board slightly and then put a weight on the block of tofu to remove any extra water. Your tofu will fry better and be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Cut your tofu into cubes (or any other bite sized shape that you like).

Put about 3 tablespoons of oil into a frying pan, heat it up over medium high heat and fry the tofu. Make sure you have a pan that doesn't stick. It doesn't have to be a non-stick pan, actually it's better if it's not. The tofu needs to be occasionally turned.
While the tofu is doing it's thing take your eggs and beat them lightly (or not so lightly if you need to relieve some stress). Peel your garlic and pulverize it.

Now mix the garlic and the egg together.
By the time you've done this your tofu is probably looking like this:

and it's time to remove it from the stove. I just flip it into a bowl add a few more tablespoons of oil to the pan and then throw the egg right in there. All you need to do is prepare scrambled eggs and in your hot pan this should take no time at all.

Now is a good time to drain your noodles and fill up the bowl with some new hot water.
Once you've done this it's time for the sauce. Now as you can see below I've put all the ingredients for the sauce into separate bowls but this is purely for the photograph. I never do this when I am not photographing my food (which really saves time). All you need is a one pint/ 2 cup/ 500 ml measuring jug and you can just pour everything into it.

So for the sauce mix together the water, veggie cube, tamarind paste, water, fish sauce, sugar, soy sauce, chili pepper and peanuts.

So here's the deal. The water is actually supposed to be vegetable stock, so if you have that great. Go ahead and use it. I never have veggie stock around because 1. I can't be bothered making it and 2. if I buy it I end up using 200 ml and having to trash the rest because it rots in my fridge. Veggie cubes work fine for me.
The tamarind paste I buy in a jar and I have to add the extra water because if there is not enough sauce the noodles tend to be too dry. Here is a picture of the type of paste I buy. It's pretty thick which is why I dilute it with water. I'll try and post how to make tamarind liquid from scratch for my wonderful Sri Lankan friends who have access to the most delicious tamarind ever. But if you use tamarind liquid you should use 7 tablespoons of it and no extra water.

Again, the fish sauce should be Asian bean sauce and I'd love to find it but have been unsuccessful in the USA, Germany and Sri Lanka (well the last is only to be expected, no?)
I never put chili in my Pad Thai and I really cannot be bothered to grind my own peanuts thus the peanut butter. The ingredients of your peanut butter should be "peanuts" and "salt" and nothing else. If you have sugar in there you might compensate by reducing the amount of sugar that you add into the sauce. If you have no access to peanut butter you probably can take roasted peanuts and grind them up (this might actually taste better!). When I don't have peanut butter, or I don't have enough, I still go ahead and make the noodles. It's just a matter of taste.
Now mix up your sauce and don't worry too much about the bits you can mix them in better once the sauce is hot in the pan.

Next get those noodles out of the water and drain them. Put a largish wok on the cooker add in a couple of tablespoons of oil and heat up the oil on medium high. A non-stick wok is a good idea! Add the noodles to the pan and fry them until they become transparent. Something like this:

Then add the sauce and watch it sizzle! Mix it all up nicely and let it cook. In the mean time wash and chop your green onions. Thinly slice the white parts and chop the green parts to about 1 inch in length.

Now add the tofu and the egg to the noodles and mix it all up. While the egg and tofu are absorbing all that wonderful sauce wash your bean sprouts and cut up some lime (or lemon).
Add 2 cups of the bean sprouts and all the green onion into the wok and mix it up again and after a few minutes you should have something that looks like this:

Yummy, yummy Pad Thai.
To serve, put the rest of the bean sprouts in a bowl together with the lime slices and have your gourmets sprinkle fresh sprouts over their noodles, add a squeeze of lime, mix and enjoy.