Savoury Spicy Eggless French Toast Indian Style My Way !

French toast, also known as Eggy bread, Bombay toast^,. German toast, gypsy toast poor knights (of Windsor), or Spanish toast, is a dish made of  bread soaked in milk, then in beaten eggs and then fried. The earliest known reference to French toast is in the Apicus, a collection of  Latin recipes dating to the 4th or 5th century; the recipe mentions soaking in milk, but not egg, and gives it no special name, just aliter dulcia "another sweet dish"Under the names suppe dorate, soupys yn dorye, tostées dorées, and payn purdyeu, the dish was widely known in medieval Europe. For example, Martino de como offers a recipe. French toast was often served with game birds and meats. The word "soup" in these names refers to bread soaked in a liquid sop, The usual French name is pain perdu "lost bread", as it is a way to reclaim stale or otherwise "lost" bread. It may also be called pain doré "golden bread" The term pain perdu was formerly used metaphorically to mean sunk costs
A fourteenth-century german recipe uses the name Arme Ritter ("poor knights"), a name also used in English and the Nordic languages  Also in the fourteenth century, Taillevent presented a recipe for "tostées dorées"There are fifteenth-century English recipes for pain perdu. Normal Preparation of French toast: Slices of bread are soaked or dipped in a mixture of beaten eggs, often with milk or cream. Sometimes sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, or vanilla are added to the mixture. The slices of egg-coated bread are then fried on both sides until they are browned and cooked through. Day-old bread is often recommended by chefs because the stale bread will soak up more egg mixture without falling apart. The cooked slices may be covered with sugar or sweet toppings such as jam, honey, fruit, or maple syrup, or served as a savory dish with ketchup or another sauce.

Variations

The bread may be dipped in milk only, with the egg mixture added afterwards.
The bread may be soaked in various other liquids, such as wine,  rose water, or orange juice, either before or after cooking.
Formerly, the dish was eaten more as a soup than dry.So I decided to do my own variation, a savoury version without eggs and I served it with ....ready for this... yes Avocado Salsa and also with Chili sauce and you guessed it cilantro mint pesto. However I must admit, tasted the best with Avocado Salsa.

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups of Besan (chick peas flour or gram flour)
• 1 cup of sour plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup of water or enough to make thick batter
• One small red onion
• One small yellow onion
• 4-5 green onions
• 1 small bunch of Cilantro
• 2 Fresh Serrano peppers or one fresh Jalapeno
• 4 large slices of Sour dough bread cut in to halves to make 8 slices with edge cut off 
• 1 teaspoon of salt or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder
• 3/4 -1  teaspoon of ground cumin powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper powder
• 1 tablespoon of mango powder
• Juice for one large fresh lime or 2 tables spoon of bottled lemon juice  
• Cooking oil spray 
• You will need a griddle or sauce pan

• You will need side of Avacado Salsa (ready made or recipe on this blog)
• Ready made chili sauce 
• Cilantro Mint Pesto (green chutney, recipe on this blog)
• Or you can serve it with plain old Ketch up :)

Method:

• Finely chop all the onions, cilantro and fresh hot peppers.
• Mix Chick peas flour/Gram flour with yogurt and water to make  thick batter.
• Add all the chopped onions, cilantro, and pepper.
• Add salt and dry spices.
• Mix in lime or lemon juice.
• Mix well until every thing is well incorporated.

• Have the sour dough bread ready with edges cut off and 4 large slice cut in to 8 slices.
• If you prefer you can use 8 square  slices of your favorite wheat or white bread, but I prefer sour dough as it does not become mushy and has texture and sour taste to it.

• Spray the heated griddle on stove, with vegetable cooking oil spray.
• Dip the bread slice in to prepared batter.
• Flip the bread slice over,since the batter is thick you and coat the batter on the slice of bread with spoon or hand.

• Carefully lift the batter coated bread slice and place it over heated oiled griddle.
• You can place 2 slices at a time on the griddle.
• Cook one side until golden brown on medium low heat.
• Spray oil on other side. 
• Carefully flip and cook the other side until crispy golden brown.  
• You can cut the square into two triangle while the slice on the griddle.
• Repeat the process until all the slices are cooked.

• Serve hot with desired condiments on side.
• Hints: If you are a fan of cheese, you can add slice of Gouda cheese, Cheddar or Pepper Jack Cheese once cooked on  griddle before serving and melt it.
• Or you can serve it with melted cheese sauce or queso. 
• Instead of using Chick peas or gram flour you can use Soya flour if desired.

Enjoy !!

Information of French Toast source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_toast#cite_note-2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License
This Recipe and Photographs by Surekha.

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