French Toast

 My mom was wayyyyy ahead of her times in many many ways. One of the ways she was way ahead of the times in India was cooking. She used to make some of the dishes that I have no idea where she got the ideas from.

And on top of it, some of the dishes were baked and of course we did not have an oven in India in those days. But every single one of those items she made, was amazing.

But this French Toast doesn't seem that extra ordinary...in those days...back in the mother land...we barely ever had bread for breakfast...heck...we rarely used to get bread in the first place.

Stuffed French Toast

Ammi's French Toast

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup milk
2. 1 egg
3. 4-6 slices of few days old bread
4. 1/2 teaspoon water
5. 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and chilli powder
6. butter or ghee for frying

In a wide bowl (wide enough to lay the entire slice of your bread flat), melt the salt and chilli powder in 1/2 teaspoon water. Now add milk and add the egg and beat it.

Heat a griddle.

Dip the bread for few seconds until it soaks some of the custard. pick it up and hold it over the over the bowl for excess liquid to drip back. 

Add some ghee/butter to the griddle and carefully place the bread on the griddle. Fry for 1-2 minutes and flip. Add some more butter/ghee and fry for a minute or 2 again. Enjoy!!!

Stuffed French Toast

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup milk
2. 1 egg
3. 4 multi-grain (or 7 or 12 grain) bread slices 
4. Peanut butter, Nutella, banana sliced into 1/4 cm circles
5. butter or ghee for frying

In a wide bowl (wide enough to lay the entire slice of your bread flat), add milk and add the egg and beat it.

On 2 slices spread peanut butter and on the other two Nutella. Spread the banana slices and put the nutella topped bread on the peanut butter and banana slices and smoosh it a bit. 

Heat a griddle.

Dip the bread for few seconds until it soaks some of the custard. pick it up and hold it over the over the bowl for excess liquid to drip back. 

Add some ghee/butter to the griddle and carefully place the bread on the griddle. Fry for 1-2 minutes and flip. Add some more butter/ghee and fry for a minute or 2 again. Enjoy!!!

Shanghai Scallion Pancakes (Cong You Bing)

 Some time ago, one of kids' friend's family invited us fo dinner. They were from Shanghai. The food she served was so different from what we call "Chinese" when we go to the restaurants here. It was amazing. Like, when people come to my house and say ..."oh you mean to say you do not eat Tandoori chicken or Butter chicken every SINGLE day???"

Anyway, that day she served these delicious Scallion pancakes, which were so much like the layered paratha were have in India.  Which is our favorite kind of paratha. So finally yesterday I decided I would make it and it was so great. It takes a while to make but at the end the results are delicious. The original recipe is here

Shanghai Scallion Pancakes (Cong You Bing) (Pan fried layered flatbread with scallions)

Shanghai Scallion Pancakes

Ingredients:

1. 3 cups all purpose flour + more for making the bread
2. about 1 cup hot water
3. 2 cups finely chopped green onion or scallion
4. 3/4 teaspoon salt
5. oil for brushing and pan-frying

Ingredients Oil Mixture:

1. 1/3 cup vegetable oil
2. 2 tablespoons cup AP flour
3. 5 scallion whites

Make the main dough: Slowly stir the hot water to the flour. Wait until cooled down and knead until it forms a smooth dough. Or knead the dough with a stand mixer for 5-7 minutes with low speed.

Rest the dough: Cover with plastic wrapper or a wet cloth and rest for at least 30 minutes. So the gluten can be well rested and we can easily roll the pancake out.

Make the oil-flour mixture: heat oil over medium fire and fry green onions until browned. Discard the green onion and keep the oil. Pour flour into a small bowl and stir in the hot oil slowly.

Roll out the dough: Cut the dough into 4 equal portions and roll one portion out to a large rectangle wrapper. Sprinkle salt and top with a layer of oil-flour mixture and then another layer of chopped scallion.

Roll-up the dough: Starting from the long end, roll the dough up like folding a hand fan. Slightly stretch and roll one side up to the middle and then the other side to the middle too. Overlay the two ends. Cover the dough and rest for 15 minutes or so. Repeat the process and finish all of the remaining portions. The former twos with more layers are assembled with the hand folding fan methods, while the two in the second line is made with simply roll up method.

Roll each portion to a large pancake (around 5 inches in diameter). If you plan to cook the pancakes later, package each of them with an air-tight bag and freeze up for 1 week.

Frying the pancakes: add around 3 tablespoons of oil in a pan and fry the pancakes until golden brown on one side (takes 3-4 minutes over medium fire), turn over the fry the another side for 3 minutes too. After turning over, slightly press the center of the pancake so they can be fried evenly.

I served with with Soya sauce dipping sauce 

Soya sauce dipping sauce 

Soya Sauce dipping sauce

Ingredients:

1. 1/4 cup soya sauce
2. 1/2 tablespoon sugar
3. 1 tablespoon Sambal chillie paste
4. 1 tablespoon rice vine or white vinegar

Mix all the ingredients together well to incorporate