Quick-fix Meals : Chutney French Toast

We had sandwiches for dinner recently, and seeing Ma wrap up the unused slices of bread brought to mind an old school lunch box favourite - French Toast.

Way back in school (lost in the mists of time :P ), French Toast was always savoury -sliced bread dipped in a mixture of eggs whisked with salt, chillies and a bit of crushed garlic and pan fried. The first time I heard of a SWEET French Toast being served with syrup et al - I was horrified. But apparently French Toast was SUPPOSED to be sweet.....you can imagine my consternation! :)

Watching Nigella Lawson's version of the recipe on TV- eggy bread pan fried till golden-BROWN (Another revelation - in school, the bread was not allowed to colour. French Toast was always a sunny yellow in colour!), dredged through powdered sugar and served with a fresh strawberry sauce - made me realise that the basic recipe had as many interpretations as there are cooks in the world.

Thus my identity crisis a la French Toast was put to rest, and my own contribution to the recipe trove is like the stamp of acceptance of the many guises French Toast can take. :)

Ingredients:
3 eggs
6 slices of bread (day old stale bread is better - the drier the bread, the more it soaks up the eggy mixture)
3 teaspoons (or as much as you like) Coconut 'sandwich' chutney - fresh grated coconut, green chillies, coriander leaves, salt, sugar, cumin seeds whizzed in a blender till a smooth paste is formed
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons powdered Parmesan cheese - optional
Sriracha chilli sauce/any chilli sauce - optional
Salt, to taste
1 tablespoon oil

Method:

Spread the chutney on 3 slices of bread. Cover each slice with another slice of bread - basically, make chutney sandwiches.

Cut each sandwich on the diagonal, making 2 triangular sandwiches

Whisk the eggs with milk, salt, cheese, chilly sauce in a wide shallow bowl

Stand the chutney sandwich triangles in the egg mixture for a minute. Turn over and let the egg soak into the other side of the sandwich as well.

While the bread is soaking up the egg, heat a swirl of oil in a frying pan. Make sure that the bottom of the pan is covered properly with oil.

Lift the egg-soaked sandwiches and place them in the pan. They WILL BE very fragile and prone to collapse, thanks to their dunking, so handle with kid gloves.

Fry on both sides till golden brown.

Serve piping hot with tomato ketchup or mint chutney.


As you can see, this recipe is very flexible, and lends itself very well to variations. You can substitute the coconut chutney with a grated cheese-spiked-with-chopped-chillies mix, or a mint chutney, or your normal cheese spread.
For a sweet version, you can slather on some peanut butter or jam (or both in a classic PB&J combo) or even Nutella onto the bread and dip these sandwiches in a mix of eggs, sugar, cream and fry till gloriously golden.

If you have any amazing variation of your own, please leave it as a comment in this post!