A Toasty Sunday Brunch

It was one of those lazy Sundays. Woke up late, perused the Sunday papers… then contemplated what we should/wanted to have for brunch. I remembered Wena’s post on having French toast in KL. I love French toast, especially the type that Wena had. They looked like the Taiwanese-style version – more deep fried rather than pan-fried. These have the crispiest outside with soft fluffy insides, but they also come swimming in a deep pool of oil! So sinful, but oh so delicious! So, guess what? Yep, that’s right. We had French toast for brunch.

As usual, I wanted to try something different. I decided to stuff the French toast instead of doing the normal dipping in egg and pan-frying. Sunday brunch should be exciting! I tried several versions of the stuffing. I also tried to get a crispy outside without the deep frying and the oil.

This is what I tried…

Fillings:
• Peanut butter and banana [I remember reading somewhere, a long time ago, that the King himself, Elvis, loved peanut butter and banana deep fried sandwiches. Just a little bit of trivia. )
• Peanut butter, Nutella and banana
• Nutella and banana

Dip/Batter:
• Lightly beaten egg only
• Egg then corn flour
• Cornflour then egg

I used thick sliced white bread – ½” or more thick (Gardenia’s Classic Loaf), and instead of using a knife to try to split the bread, I used the kitchen scissors to cut a pocket into the bread . So much easier and quicker with the scissors. I could cut evenly into the bread without one side being thinner than the other. This helped ensure the fillings didn’t break through or leak out through the bread.

The fillings were all very good actually. They may sound weird to some of you. But to me, peanut butter and bananas are a natural partnership. Needless to say, chocolate (in this case, Nutella) and banana works beautifully. All three together though I felt was a bit too confused. Too many flavors going on in a small piece of sandwich.

It wasn’t possible (nor advisable) to stuff too much into each piece of bread. I didn’t want the fillings oozing out and creating a mess in the frying pan.

I didn’t manage to get a crispy outside. The egg version (eggs plus 1 tablespoon of milk and ¼ to ½ teaspoon of sugar to each egg used, lightly beaten together with a fork) was like your standard French toast. Dipping the bread into cornflour after dipping it into the egg didn’t produce a very noticeable difference, although there was a very light “crust”. Dipping the bread into the flour first, before the egg just didn’t work. The toast tasted of raw flour. Yuk!

I didn’t even use oil for the frying – just cooking spray, and that worked fine. (Of course, using oil would have probably given me the crispiness I was looking for. And the more oil, the crispier. But I wanted to see if I could get the crispiness without the oil. Stubborn, I know)

Well, it produced a pretty tasty sandwich…

These could have been served with a dusting of powdered sugar on top, or with the usual honey or maple syrup. But I liked them as they were.

My mind was racing… the possible variations seemed endless. I was thinking: maybe if I used a crepe-like batter, using both plain flour and rice flour (maybe in a ratio of 4:1 or 5:1). That might produce a crispy outside with very little oil. (Rice flour when mixed into a plain flour batter can usually produce a crispier effect).

As for the fillings, there were countless possibilities, both sweet and savory.

Savory:
• Cream cheese, chives and smoked salmon
• Ham and cheese
• Cheese, cheese and more cheese
• Sardines
• Tuna

Sweet:
• Cream cheese with raisins or nuts
• Sweetened condensed milk with Milo (yes, Milo straight from the tin! I used to eat this alot as a kid. Sweetened condensed milk spread onto a piece of bread, and Milo sprinkled over it. I know it sounds incredibly, cloyingly sweet. It sounds that way to me too nowadays. But I adored it as a kid! I haven’t had it in decades! Maybe it is time to revisit some of these quirky childhood eating habits!)

I didn’t get round to trying any of the other ideas this time. I was trying to make the toast, cook them, plate them and take photos – all at the same time. And everyone was getting hungry and impatient. They threatened to throw my camera away. So, we ate instead…

Note:
The dipping (be it egg or batter) can be adjusted for making either sweet or savory sandwiches by adding either sugar or salt.

We also had these for brunch…

An early bird, who had already been up for hours, gone out and had dim sum breakfast, came home with an assortment of dim sum items from Crystal Jade in Ngee Ann City. I only took a picture of three… (from left) char siew sou (baked roast pork pastry), dan ta (egg tart) and chicken pie. I love char siew sou. And this was a nice version. Flaky pastry, lean pork filling. Mmmm… I enjoyed the egg tart too. I always prefer the Hongkong pastry version, with the flaky, puff pastry crust (like this one), over the short crust pastry version. Crystal Jade’s is always well made. I didn’t get to eat the chicken pie, so I have no idea how it tasted. But the wu kok (deep fried yam paste and minced pork dumpling) (not in picture) was a taste disaster. Enuff said!

It was a nice satisfying Sunday brunch, eaten whilst still in my jammies! Wah! The ultimate luxury!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
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