IMBB #16 - French “Eggy Bread” Toast with Strawberry Compote

Warning: This entry contains a pun using the word egg. Readers with a sense of good taste are advised to block it from their memory the second they see it.



My desire to enter an IMBB started roughly about the same time as I started wanting to write a food blog. The two pretty much go hand in hand. Coincidentally, I also want to start entering into some Paper Chef’s at the end of the month. I think the mixture of a more relaxed cooking event alongside a stricter one seems like a beautiful way to enjoy a hobby. Back to the matter at hand; Eggs. Having such a loose theme as eggs really roughed me over when I started thinking about it. With its wide range of stuff to choose from, I was ever so slightly overwhelmed. I’m still pretty unsure as to my final choices. What would make the best egg themed impression? Does it have to use a whole egg, not just whites or yolk? Should I try and steal the recipe to Cadburys’ Crème Egg and make those? I did get it down to one result, but only after I promised myself that I would only work on things that I found quintessentially eggy. So, I decided to go with some French Toast.

Oh, and for the sake of accuracy, I noticed a little discrepancy in Vivant’s egg-stensive (only pun, I promise) announcement; “Eggs are never boring”. Tell that to Tescos’ Healthy Eating 74p Egg Mayonnaise Sandwich. It is – just about – the most boring thing that I’ve ever tasted. I can provide proof of this, if necessary.

But, anyway, French Toast. It doesn’t taste like toast, and it doesn’t have anything French in it. If you’re American, you (apparently) have renamed it to Freedom Toast. Why? I don’t really know. Seems like a quick attempt to label the French as sods. Might as well have renamed it “Froggy Stink French Man Toast”, but I doubt that would have worked in Diners. Anyways, it’s not like French Toast doesn’t have its fair share of names. The English, apparently, call it “Poor Knights of Windsor”, even though I’ve never heard anyone call it that in my entire life. I’m sure it just perpetuates the image of us English and our culinary tastes:
“Fancy a couple of slices of Poor Knights of Windsor, love?”
“Oh, yes please. Pop it on a plate with a crumpet and make us a cuppa tea”. Delightful. The French themselves have (allegedly) named it “Pain Perdu”, and for them it originally started existing as a way to use up stale old French bread, and it certainly works. If we go back to America, one certain train of thought is that it was invented in Albany by a man named Joe French in 1724 and it’s just as American as apple pie. The whole “French Toast” thing is a big ol’ misunderstanding because Joe French was just too gosh darn silly to understand simple grammar (it should have been French’s Toast). There’s a certain amusing factor if we consider this argument; an entire recipe thrown into historical mystery because of a grammatical error. Quaint. Basically, no one has any real idea where it was derived from. My money is on multiple sources; I doubt it took a true visionary to dab some bread into eggs and the patent office was hardly existent in those days.

Outside of the world of history and chronology, everyone I know just calls it Eggy Bread (and not Poor Knights of Windsor). It’s one of the first things I can remember making and in my life, and definitely the first thing I can remember producing on a regular basis that was fairly reliant on having Eggs inside it. What could be eggier? The trouble is that I very rarely see it anymore. It seems to have slipped off the radar off my friends and family for some unbeknownst reason – perhaps it’s too easy? Perhaps people don’t like the sound of eggy bread? – and the chances of seeing it in a café where I am is far too remote.

I mentioned it was easy, right?

Basic Eggy Bread
Makes two slices – enough to feed one person. Double quantities to feed two, and so on.

80ml semi-skimmed milk (If you have whole fat milk then you can just throw some of that in and omit the cream, but I usually drink semi skimmed so I add the cream when I need it.)
1 Large Egg
1 tbsp Sugar
2 thick slices of bread (Brioche is a mighty fine choice, but almost anything will work a treat. I’m using a slice of a Tiger Loaf in my photo because that’s all I had left)
1 tbsp double cream (heavy cream across the pond.)

Strawberry Compote

A compote is a overly fancy term to describe the very basic process of slowly cooking fruit in sugar. Slow cooking is essential, as you want the fruit to retain its shape.

300g Strawberries, Hulled (I usually half them if they’re monster sized but small ones I keep whole)
100g Sugar
Juice of a lemon

Method

1. Start by mixing the eggy bread ingredients – minus the bread – together and then pour into a shallow dish. Dunk the bread in, let it soak for a few seconds and then flip it over. Leave this for a good ten minutes. Fifteen is perfect. Luckily, this gives you enough time to make compote.
2. Slap the strawberries into a saucepan with the sugar and lemon juice. Melt the mixture until it’s a liquid, then bring it to the boil. Then, let the thing simmer and leave it for a while. It will bubble away happily in the corner of your stove without you paying it a lot of attention, but check back every five minutes to check on the fruit. You want the mixture to be jammy and the fruits to be on the verge of collapsing. When it reaches that state, take it off the heat and leave it until you’re ready to serve.
3. At this point, you’ll want to get some oil in a nice medium heat pan. Butter is the flavour fans choice of fat for this, so use some of that. If you’re all out (why?) then something that is flavourless – sunflower? – can be an alternative.
4. Slap the bread into the pan. It should be making a nice, light sizzling noise. If it’s not, turn the heat up a bit until it is then turn it back down again. Leave on this medium heat until a nice crust has formed on one side (usually about three minutes on mine) then flip over and repeat the process.
5. Take the toast off the pan and soak up some excess fat with a paper towl. Get it on to your plate and then spoon over some compote and some extra thick or whipped cream. Eat.

The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes and provides you with a good and warm, sweet breakfast. It’s a versatile dish, too. When strawberries are out of season, you can make great compote out of some cooking apples and put in a teaspoon of cinnamon into your eggy bread mixture. Voila – a summery treat has magically transmogrified into a super autumn one. Some might say that it’s magic.