3 September, 2017
French toast (Pain perdu)
French toast, or ‘pain perdu’ as the French call it (what means ‘lost bread’) is perfect way to use stale bread (or fresh bread if you just like the dish).
It’s funny that the best way to use stale bread was invented by the French, and not the Polish about whom there’s poem praising them for saving even a crumb of bread… Well, I guess the French just like food too much to eat it stale and they transform it into a whole new dish making it taste almost like fluffy American pancakes.
The recipe is very easy and you can do it with any bread, stale or fresh, pre-sliced toast bread or even brioche will work as well. Kids like it a lot and during holidays, when we have a lot of time for breakfast, it is easy to convince me to make some. And during our summer holidays in Provence, we did have a lot of French bread…
Ingredients
- 10 slices baguette or 4 pieces toast bread.
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup milk
- Butter or oil for frying
- Jelly and or sugar for serving
Instructions
- Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them a bit
- Add the milk and whisk again.
- Dip bread in the egg mixture (both sides). If your bread is very stale, you may want to let it soak for 20-30 seconds.
- Fry slices until golden brown, then flip to cook the other side.
- Serve with jelly or sugar.
A more advanced version starts with a sandwich (eg cheese and ham in a baguette), which I also cut into slices, dip in the egg mixture and fry. I do skip the sweet topping though. A perfect use for sandwiches not eaten during a day of skiing, but that was a different holiday…
